How I Write

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

May 1, 2024

Sam Corcos, CEO of a $300 million company, discusses building a 'writing-first work culture' for business success. Topics include strategic memos, problem-solving, decision-making, and the importance of communication. He emphasizes the value of clear writing, transparency, feedback mechanisms, and creating valuable content. The podcast delves deep into writing strategies, communication challenges, hypotheses in projects, framing problems, and cultivating an internal writing culture for organizational success.

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.

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03:26

Amazon FAQ - Brian chesky product marketing

02:20

Reprogramming Work Culture

01:01

Retro - clinical approach

01:30

Introduction

2min

Efficiency and Clarity in Business Writing

20min

Building Transparency and Effective Communication

10min

Navigating Communication Challenges as a CEO

3min

Enhancing Feedback through Loom Videos

4min

Exploring the Significance of Hypotheses in Business Projects and ROI Calculation

5min

Framing Problems, Async Communication & Thinking Styles

16min

Creating Valuable Content and Niche Audience Engagement

17min

The Importance of Writing Memos for Critical Decisions and Assessing Resource Costs

2min

10.

Cultivating an Internal Writing Culture for Success

20min

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: