How I Write

Sam Corcos: How Writing Helped This CEO Build a $300m+ Company

May 1, 2024

Sam Corcos, Founder and CEO of Levels, built a $300 million business on a writing-first culture. He discusses how strategic memos and structured documentation can enhance communication and decision-making. Corcos emphasizes the importance of accurately framing problems to find effective solutions, highlighting practices like 'Async Week' for productivity. He also shares insights on using video summaries for feedback and the value of creating high-quality content to engage teams and foster organizational clarity.

01:38:55

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Episode guests

Sam Corcos

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Quick takeaways

Writing is the foundation of successful business cultures, emphasizing strategic memos and problem-solving.

Clear hypotheses and strategy memos are crucial for effective decision-making processes in companies like Levels.

Levels promotes intentional deep thinking through async and think weeks, fostering a culture of problem-solving.

Prioritizing high-quality content creation over SEO tricks is essential for marketing success and online presence building.

Deep dives

Importance of Deep Work and Distraction-Free Time

Deep work is critical for productivity and creativity, but the constant distractions from communication tools hinder this process. Levels, as an experiment, focuses on maximizing deep work to enhance productivity and problem-solving. By limiting distractions and allowing uninterrupted time, individuals can think deeply and generate better ideas.

Against acronyms, in favour of broader concepts

02:55

Break Free from Communication Distractions

01:23

Amazon FAQ - Brian chesky product marketing

02:20

Retro - clinical approach

01:30

Intro

2min

The Art of Effective Communication

18min

Mastering Leadership and Communication

16min

Enhancing Writing and Feedback Through Video Summaries

4min

Crafting Effective Hypotheses for Business Success

5min

Framing Problems for Better Solutions

16min

Crafting Valuable Content for Impact

27min

Retrospectives: A Pathway to Project Improvement

7min

Breaking Free from News: Embracing Mindfulness through Reading

4min

This is business writing like you’ve never seen it before.

Sam Corcos is the founder of a $300 million company called Levels. He’s built a culture of intellectual rigor by hiring excellent writers and giving them time to think on paper. But don’t get it twisted — a successful “writing-first work culture” is far more than grammatically correct Slack messages and the occasional memo.

“95% of people would not be happy working in the culture that we’ve built. And the 5% who would be have been looking for this their entire lives.” – Sam

In this episode, we go deep (and I mean, deep) into what makes business writing work. Sam reveals how to use writing to: