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What does it take to start and grow a business to $1 million? Or even $1 billion?

If you’re among the more than six in 10 (62%) of U.S. adults who want to be their own boss, you might be familiar with the basics of entrepreneurship. Still, the prospect of leaving a secure 9-5 job to go all-in on a side hustle or business can be daunting.

Hearing from founders who have already traveled the path to business success — and learning from their mistakes made and wins achieved along the way — can help prepare you for your own entrepreneurial journey.

Related: I Wish I Received This Advice as a Young Entrepreneur

Over the past four years, I’ve interviewed more than 100 successful entrepreneurs who started businesses worth $1 million to $1 billion or more.

I’ve sat down with business luminaries like Richard Branson (Virgin Group), Martha Stewart (Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit), John Mackey (Whole Foods Market) and Bobbi Brown (Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Jones Road Beauty), among so many others.

No matter how well-known the founders or their particular industries, they, like all entrepreneurs, had to push through business ups and downs to reach success on the other side.

Related: 7 Critical Pieces of Business Advice for Entrepreneurs Just Getting Started

Needless to say, their entrepreneurial careers have taught them a lot, and even if you take just one lesson from their experiences, you could be one step closer to achieving your own business goals.

Read on to see some of their best advice.

Be curious and open-minded

Martha Stewart – Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

Stewart stresses the value of curiosity — and explains how she uses it to expand her horizons every day.

“Curiosity is certainly a character trait that I think is very important if you’re trying to understand, ‘Where is the world going? What the hell are we doing here? What are we going to do?'” Stewart says. “So I’ve always been happy to be curious. I read a lot. I travel a lot. And one of the things I try very hard to do is never drive down the same street twice if there’s an alternative so that I might see something that I’ve never seen before. And when I travel, I try to do the same thing. I try to see as much as I can in a day.”

Melissa Ben-Ishay – Baked By Melissa

Ben-Ishay isn’t afraid to admit when she doesn’t have all the answers.

“I love to be wrong,” Ben-Ishay says. “I don’t think I know everything. In fact, the older I get and the more experience I have under my belt, the less I know. And that is something I know with certainty. And I think that is an incredibly important mindset for a leader and an entrepreneur.”

Related: 3 Ways to Foster a Culture of Curiosity (and Why You Should)

Arsha Jones – Capital City Mambo Sauce

Jones didn’t grow up in a family of entrepreneurs and says she was on her own when it came to figuring out how to grow her small, home-based business. Without outside money to fund her venture or an extensive network to tap into, she took a grassroots approach instead.

Jones scanned grocery shelves for small bottled brands, “like a local barbecue sauce,” and then sent their owners an email: “I would say, ‘How did you do X? And how did you get on the store shelf?'” Jones explains. “And they would just sit down and answer any kind of questions that I had. And that was really how I jumped over a few of those hurdles, at least in the beginning.”

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Capital City Mambo Sauce. Arsha Jones.}

Get clear on what you want and stay true to it

John Mackey – Whole Foods Market, Love.Life

Mackey suggests entrepreneurs first figure out if they want to be startup serial entrepreneurs or builder entrepreneurs. “If you’re the serial entrepreneur, then my advice is figure out when is a good time to sell so you can go on to your next thing,” he says.

Mackey’s advice for builder entrepreneurs concerns the critical issue of venture capital. He says most venture capitalists and those in private equity will automatically assume you’re a serial entrepreneur, and “they’ll be looking to replace you.”

“If you are going to be a builder, you should be very clear with the investors that you bring in that you’re not looking to sell the business: You’re looking to build it — you hope to grow it for many years, and the exit for them will not be a sale. It’ll be an IPO,” Mackey says.

Tom Baker – Mr Black Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur

Baker says it’s important to consider your business’s unique offering, even if it slows you down temporarily.

“[I wish we’d] spent a little more time upfront thinking about how we were actually going to recruit drinkers into our brand,” Baker explains. “What will we be better at than every other liquor company? How am I going to get into [customers’] repertoire? I think we probably could have saved millions of dollars and a few years had I just spent another three months thinking about that before we started Mr Black.”

Related: How to Turn Vision Into Reality — A Step-by-Step Approach to Achieving Your Goals

Jackie Summers – Sorel Liqueur

Summers recommends taking breaks to get an accurate accounting of your goals.

“Our culture says you must keep going at 100 miles an hour at all times,” Summers says. “If you don’t have a chance to reflect, you don’t get the opportunity to see what your strengths and weaknesses are and how you’re going to compensate for both. It’s important to cocoon on a regular basis — whether [that’s] 20 minutes of meditation a day or being able to get away once every few weeks and spend some time in nature and quiet your mind. Once you have clarity, all sorts of things can move forward.”

Irene Chen and Matthew Grenby – Parker Thatch

Parker Thatch makes handbags, but its “true mission” is about giving customers a confidence boost, Chen says — a guiding principle that helps other aspects of the business fall into place.

Finding that “why” helped supercharge the company and serves as a solid defense against inevitable industry challenges, like competitors that produce knock-offs, Grenby says.

“That ‘why’ is not something that’s not easily copyable,” he explains. “If it’s not authentic, people sense that, and they value authenticity.”

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Parker Thatch. Matthew Grenby and Irene Chen.}

Don’t wait forever to start — do take calculated risks

Jenny Just – PEAK6 Investments, Poker Power

Just emphasizes that strategic early risk-taking can pay off in spades.

“When we talk about women taking risks, it’s not about taking bigger risks,” Just explains. “It’s just taking more risks sooner, and what poker allows you to do is take those risks in a bite-sized way.”

Johanna Hartzheim – Wildgrain

Hartzheim recommends jumping in and learning as you go.

“Just go for it because it’s something you learn while doing,” Hartzheim says. “It sounds kind of cliche, but as long as you’re motivated and passionate, you can do anything. I knew nothing about tracking, importing, all these things, but it’s not rocket science. You can learn anything or find the right people who do know these things.”

Related: You Have to Take Risks to Succeed. Here Are 4 Risk-Taking Benefits in Entrepreneurship

Kathrin Hamm – Bearaby

Hamm suggests setting a definitive timeline to put your best foot forward.

“Once you believe in a product, just take a chance and give yourself a year,” Hamm says. “It’s much more manageable if you [have] a considerable time frame where it’s like, Okay, in that year, I’m giving everything I have, 100%. Because sometimes we second guess ourselves. After [a few] months or six weeks, we don’t see the success, [and] we start doubting ourselves. You say [I have] one year, and I’m not asking if this is working. Just have tunnel vision for one year, and then reevaluate after those 365 days.”

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Bearaby. Kathrin Hamm.}

Embrace failure and the learning-filled journey

Payam Zamani – Autoweb, One Planet Group

Zamani notes that entrepreneurial fulfillment doesn’t have to depend on a business’s success.

“The fact is the overwhelming majority of businesses don’t survive,” Zamani says. “So you want to make that journey worth experiencing, and not just seeking an exit, seeking an IPO that may never happen. Then you feel like, ‘Ah, that was a failure.’ But if you’re making that journey something that’s worth living, you will always feel fulfilled whether or not that climax comes about in your business.”

Bobbi Brown – Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Jones Road Beauty

Brown suggests giving entrepreneurship a shot so you don’t have to wonder “what if.”

“If you don’t try, you’ll never know,” Brown says. “I don’t believe in failure because it’s just a message that if something didn’t work out, do it differently.”

Related: 7 Ways Companies Can Harness Failure to Drive Success

Ellen Bennett – Hedley & Bennett

Bennett cautions against aiming for overnight success because a slow and steady approach brings some of the biggest gains.

“I’m a huge believer in the long game,” Bennett says. “You can start something out of your house with no money and have a viable, profitable business that you are a majority owner of many years later. And that is awesome. There’s nothing wrong with taking longer to build something great. I know our whole lives are oriented towards speed and how quickly things grow and [becoming] a unicorn, but you can be a long-game unicorn, too.”

Missy Tannen – Boll & Branch

Missy Tannen emphasizes that aspiring entrepreneurs don’t have to have it all figured out from the start.

“You don’t have to know everything day one,” she says. “You’re going to learn so much along the way, and I think if we’d realized all the things we didn’t know, we would have never started.”

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Boll & Branch. Missy and Scott Tannen.}

Keep your priorities in check

Alexis Ohanian – Reddit

Ohanian wants to reframe the question of what it takes to achieve work-life balance.

“I don’t think it’s about work-life balance,” Ohanian explains. “I don’t think anyone can really accomplish that. It’s not about balancing. If you’re chasing balance, you’re implying, like Thanos, [that] you’d be able to create something perfectly balanced. And the reality is work-life [is] never 50/50. You’ll never achieve anywhere close to that — nor should you. There are times in your life where you will need to focus on the career, the work. There are times in your life when you need to focus on life. It’s on a spectrum that’s ever-flowing back and forth.”

Related: 5 Priorities for Young Entrepreneurs

Do good and do well

Wemimo Abbey – Esusu

Abbey stresses that responsible entrepreneurship doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game.

“We need to find ways where we can create a win-win-win construct across the board,” Abbey says. “We really believe in this idea of justice capitalism: We can do good and do well — and it’s by no means mutually exclusive.”

Cason Crane – Explorer Cold Brew

Crane acknowledges that not every customer will support Explorer Cold Brew because of its LGBTQ+ partnerships, but he’s committed to running a business that reflects his values.

“It certainly helps keep me going every day,” Crane says. “There are things that you do as a business owner to position your business for financial success, and then there are the things you do to keep yourself excited to get out of bed every morning. And I think it’s important as a business owner to do both.”

Related: How to Make Giving Back Part of Your Brand’s DNA

Randy Goldberg and David Heath – Bombas

Goldberg and Heath say founders must ensure the mission is “fully integrated into the business.”

“Every team at Bombas is responsible for the mission in either a direct or an indirect way,” Heath says. “And I think having that so intertwined makes our employees feel good about our mission. But it also makes it so that the mission shows up in everything that we do, from customer experience interactions, to the website, to the creative, to the product. It’s so much a part of our DNA that you could never separate the mission. It’s not an afterthought.”

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Bombas. David Heath and Randy Goldberg.}

Lead with intention and encourage creativity

Chris Kirby – Ithaca Hummus

Kirby explains what it takes to build a company culture that promotes ideation, risk-taking and learning.

“I’ve learned that true leadership is about empathy, clear communication and creating an environment where people feel valued and empowered,” Kirby says. “So I’ve worked hard to build a culture that’s the complete opposite of what I experienced in a lot of those kitchens. I want my team to feel safe to share ideas, take risks and learn from mistakes without fear of being punished.”

Scott Tannen – Boll & Branch

Tannen says that a business leader is only as good as the people with whom they surround themselves.

“I am not the most talented person in this company by miles,” Tannen explains, “and I think that’s a mark of a great company when I can say that.”

Related: What Makes a Good Leader? Here’s What I’ve Learned After 20-Plus Years as a CEO.

Jocelyn Gailliot – Tuckernuck

Gailliot says Tuckernuck leaders strive to learn from their team members, which means listening to them.

“We constantly ask [them] questions,” Gailliot says. “I’ve been in industries before where it’s very much: ‘This is the role you play at these different hierarchical levels.’ And for us, it’s always been: ‘You’re on the team — you have amazing ideas to contribute, and we want to hear them.’ And we really do.”

Richard Branson – Virgin Group

Branson cites Virgin Unite’s The Elders, a group of independent global leaders working for peace and human rights that has included leaders like Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter, as an example of strong leadership.

“They’re all great listeners,” Branson explains. “They know what they’re thinking. They don’t need to hear themselves saying it out loud, and the only way they can learn is by listening to other people talk.”

Work hard to achieve the results you want

Amir Loloi – Loloi Rugs

Loloi says that the only person standing in the way of your business success is yourself.

“If you dream big and work hard, no one is there to stop you,” Loloi explains. “It’s not about the color of your skin. It’s not about your background. It’s not about your religion. It’s not about anything except about you personally: What are you willing to do? When you are given a task, how much more are you willing to add to it to deliver so much more? If you want to be someone in life, step out of the boundaries.”

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Loloi. Amir Loloi and his sons.}

Adriana Carrig – Little Words Project

Carrig suggests a three-pronged strategy to realize your biggest dreams.

“If you want it bad enough that you’re willing to work for it and believe in yourself, and all those things come together in this perfect trifecta, then there’s nothing you can’t achieve,” Carrig says. “So go for it.”

Related: 7 Elements of a Strong Work Ethic

Fawn Weaver – Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey

According to Weaver, entrepreneurs need to give the business their all — or rethink it altogether.

“If you’re not going to do it with excellence and with consistency, bow out and get a job,” Weaver says. “Period. If you are going to do it with excellence and with consistency over time, don’t let anybody slow you down — no one. Just keep going after it, because the only people that fail doing it with excellence and with consistency are those who give up before they succeed.”

Thanks for reading my column! I’ve been thinking a lot about how to connect better with audiences, and wanted to share some thoughts with you here.

As I promised in the video above, here are a few other ways to connect: You can connect with me on LinkedIn, where I post daily, or subscribe to my weekly newsletter full of success tips. Replies go directly to my inbox!

See you in the next issue of Entrepreneur magazine.

On the Amazon reality show “Beast Games,” contestants participated in a potato sack race, tower climbing task, and coin collection challenge, among others, as they competed for a $10 million cash prize, the single biggest prize in the history of television and streaming. The show, which aired the final episode of its first season on February 13, was Amazon’s biggest unscripted show ever, earning 50 million viewers in its first 25 days.

Now Jimmy Donaldson, the 26-year-old creator who is also known on YouTube as MrBeast, is revealing that he lost “tens of millions” of dollars on the show, but that he has no regrets about using his own money to help fill in the gaps in the show.

“I lost a ton of money filming the show,” Donaldson told Steven Bartlett on a “Diary of a CEO” podcast episode released earlier this month. “It was not a good financial decision to make ‘Beast Games’.”

^{Jimmy Donaldson. Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images}

Donaldson revealed that the first episode alone required over $15 million to construct the set, which consisted of 1,000 towers that were each 10 feet tall. The set of the second episode, meanwhile, took $14 million to build.

Related: MrBeast Has Grown Up. He Thinks His YouTube Videos Should Too.

Donaldson declined to specify how much the entire 10-episode season cost but said that the show cost more than its $100 million budget overall.

However, when Bartlett asked if he had any regrets, Donaldson said no.

“For me, it was about making season one as good as possible,” Donaldson stated. “I can’t let the YouTube community down.”

According to Donaldson, YouTube creators don’t have a good reputation when it comes to moving over to streaming platforms. He said that even he, as the YouTuber with the most subscribers in the world, struggled to garner interest among streaming executives for his show.

So the stakes weren’t just high for “Beast Games,” they were high for the YouTube community at large, Donaldson said. Now that the show is a success, doors are opening for him and other creators.

“I already know of two creators who have signed deals just based on the success of ‘Beast Games,’ and probably hundreds of millions of dollars [are] going to flow into creators’ pockets just because of ‘Beast Games’ in the next year,” Donaldson claimed.

Related: MrBeast Has Grown Up. He Thinks His YouTube Videos Should Too.

Donaldson also revealed in the interview that while he may be a billionaire on paper, he actually has less than $1 million in his bank account. Though he gives himself a salary, he ensures it is just enough to cover his personal expenses. He reinvests the rest into his brand.

Beast Games is available exclusively on Prime Video. According to Donaldson, the show attracts about 700,000 new unique viewers every day.

What sets CEOs apart from the rest of us? Is it experience, education, or a knack for thinking outside the box? Whatever the answer, it often felt out of reach until now. This learning app brings the strategies and insights of top leaders and authors right to your fingertips in 15 minutes or less. Curious how it works?

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Want to 10x your revenue without hiring more staff? AI is revolutionizing marketing, and if you’re not leveraging it, you’re leaving money on the table. In this video, I’m breaking down 4 powerful AI automations that can save you up to 3 days per week while scaling your business effortlessly.

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As companies like Amazon, JPMorgan, and Walmart implement return-to-office (RTO) mandates, one business is sweetening the deal by giving its employees a $10,000 annual raise for showing up to the office more often.

Cameo, a startup that allows users to purchase and receive personalized video messages from celebrities, began a new RTO policy this week requiring the 26 employees who work at the company’s headquarters in Chicago to be in the office Monday through Thursday, per CNBC Make It. The policy, which the company first announced to staff last month, enables employees to receive a $10,000 yearly raise in addition to free parking, a free daily catered lunch, and free access to an onsite gym.

“We really felt like we wanted to make HQ a perk, not a punishment,” Cameo CEO Steven Galanis told CNBC Make It. “We know we’re asking more out of you to give up the flexibility, and we wanted to compensate you for it.”

Related: AT&T and Sweetgreen Are Following Amazon’s Lead With Stricter Return-to-Office Mandates — Though Amazon’s Plan Has Hit a Snag

Cameo has two dozen additional employees based elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad, mainly in New York and Los Angeles. They were allowed to keep working remotely but weren’t given a pay raise.

Galanis, 37, chose to set the annual raise at $10,000 because the figure would make a “meaningful” difference in employees’ lives and hoped it would help junior employees find housing nearby instead of taking on long commutes.

The Chicago headquarters opened in the summer of 2024, but Cameo leadership never mandated a strict set of days employees had to report to the office. Workers based in Chicago previously came to the office whenever they needed to, showing up an average of two to three times per week, according to Galanis.

^{Cameo CEO Steven Galanis. Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images}

When Cameo informed its Chicago employees of the four-days-a-week in-office policy last month, it also gave them the option to move out of Chicago to not have to come into the office at all.

Cameo found that none of its employees quit or moved away after the announcement. Instead, the opposite happened. Some of Cameo’s remote workers based in other locations expressed interest in moving to Chicago and taking advantage of the perks offered to in-office employees.

A HealthEquity study released earlier this month surveyed more than 600 full-time employees who shifted from fully remote to hybrid or fully in-person work. Three out of four employees said their RTO experiences were positive, with 74% saying they experienced enhanced collaboration.

The top motivators for office attendance weren’t free lunches or a raise, it was professional development opportunities (50%) and team-building events (47%). The biggest obstacle to in-person work identified by the survey was commuting costs (54%).

Related: Read the Letter Sent to AWS CEO Matt Garman, Signed By 500 Employees, Protesting His RTO Comments

Cameo has experienced a tumultuous few years. The pandemic catapulted the startup to unicorn status, with a valuation of $1 billion by 2021. Sales declined by March 2024, erasing 90% of Cameo’s value.

Galanis told Time in December that he thinks the momentum has shifted in Cameo’s favor.

“I’m really grateful for our investors and our team, that they’ve believed in me and allowed us the second shot to build a company that we don’t think has reached near its potential yet,” he stated.

Starting a business is often viewed as a daunting, high-risk venture. Many people dream of entrepreneurship but don’t know where to start. You may be an aspiring entrepreneur waiting for the perfect idea, enough years of experience, the right team, or significant funding to come your way. Perhaps you’re afraid that you’re too young to run your own business. But what if these barriers aren’t as important as you think?

I first became an entrepreneur in college and founded five startups in less than a decade, with valuations ranging from a million to $100 million. Now, at 27, I realize that my mindset was critical to overcoming obstacles and achieving entrepreneurial success. Below are my tips to remove mental blocks and adopt an almost irrational belief in yourself, which is necessary to push through the inevitable challenges you will face as a fledgling entrepreneur.

Related: I’m a Former Google Executive Who Chased My Future Husband Off the Subway. The Powerful Mindset I Used Can Help You Get Anything You Want.

1. Generating the right idea: Start with what you know

Instead of overthinking what the market “needs” or focusing on what others might think is a good idea, it’s best to examine your own life and identify a problem that you have personally faced. People will say there are bad ideas, but every idea is good because it brings you closer to your best idea.

Your initial concept for a product or service is just the jumping-off point. That doesn’t make or break a business as much as your ability to execute and adapt. A personal connection to the problem can help you stay motivated and focused, even when the entrepreneurial road gets tough.

Ideas that ultimately take off are typically timely and topical and address problems that no one else has figured out how to solve. I come from a family that works in law enforcement, for instance, and I co-created the app SafeStop after the death of George Floyd – a period of deep disconnect between law enforcement and the communities they serve. The app allows drivers stopped for traffic violations to chat with officers using a video call, minimizing face-to-face interactions and creating a sense of safety for both drivers and officers.

2. Execution is 90% of success

The truth is, you can’t rely solely on a groundbreaking idea. Successful entrepreneurship is 90% execution. The fear or inability to execute is often what holds entrepreneurs back. Execution isn’t about waiting for the perfect moment or gathering a team before you get started. It’s about taking action, even when you don’t have all the answers.

Ask yourself: How can I advance my goal inch by inch daily? The key is persistence. It’s not enough to wait for all the stars to align. Act now, and adapt as you go.

3. The power of irrational belief

Most people who start successful companies can appear slightly irrational at times for believing their idea will be the one to beat the odds. But the ability to remain confident and focused is a great strength.

Entrepreneurship is unique because you’re often working against probability, and you’ll likely face lots of rejection. If you’re a young entrepreneur, expect that investors, competitors and even peers may be skeptical about your odds of making it.

But you have to believe in your ability to succeed, even when things look uncertain. Even when others around you express doubts. Self-doubt can kill progress. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will either. You won’t be able to inspire potential investors, customers or employees.

The most successful entrepreneurs think, “I’m going to make this work, no matter what.” I have always believed that my businesses would succeed. This isn’t about being arrogant. It’s about having confidence in your ability to solve problems, learn from your mistakes and pivot.

Related: How Mindset Plays a Role in Your Entrepreneurial Success

4. Don’t let risk paralyze you

It’s important to remember that although there’s risk and some form of failure in every entrepreneurial journey, successful entrepreneurs don’t let the fear of failure stop them.

I don’t consider myself a risk-seeker. I don’t speed my car or participate in extreme sports. Coming from a finance background, I was used to downside protection: How can I protect my assets from risk?

Once I founded my own businesses, I quickly realized that while financial considerations are still important, an overly analytical mindset can paralyze you in the founding stages of a company. Don’t get so bogged down weighing every risk and its potential consequences that you’re rendered immobile.

5. Stop overthinking and start acting

Entrepreneurship often doesn’t have a clear path. You may not know exactly what your next step is, but if you wait for perfect clarity, you could wait forever.

When I learned to read growing up, I would always skip words and never read full sentences. I just read what I wanted to and knew that I could fill in the rest. These tendencies carried over into my entrepreneurial endeavors. I had little fear of jumping ahead a few steps and trusting the rest would get handled along the way.

Many entrepreneurs succeed not because they have everything figured out from the start but because they are willing to jump in and figure it out as they go. I have found this to be especially true in the world of tech startups, where quick iterations and rapid course corrections are essential. The same principle applies to any industry, though. The key is consistency and learning from each action you take, whether it leads to success or failure.

Reframe your mindset to focus on the potential for success and trust that your commitment, resourcefulness and drive will carry you through challenges.

6. Inspiration from other entrepreneurs

Looking outside of your immediate circle can also help you shift your mindset. For example, when I was in college at Stanford, I spent a semester studying abroad in Tel Aviv. Israel’s tech startup culture – its focus on innovation, work ethic, and the ability to turn any challenging situation into an opportunity for growth, inspired me to move forward with courage and conviction in creating my own companies.

Reach out to successful entrepreneurs and business leaders who can be mentors. When I created my latest company, FORE Enterprise, I developed an advisory board of business experts from Stanford, Kellogg and Wharton that I could rely on for guidance. Never be afraid to seek help and advice from others who have experience, wisdom and knowledge to share.

xAI, the startup led by Elon Musk that raised $6 billion in December, has a new AI model that it claims is better than AI created by DeepSeek and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

In a live-streamed event on X on Monday that has been viewed over six million times at the time of writing, Musk and three xAI engineers revealed Grok 3, the startup’s latest AI model. They claimed Grok 3 had higher scores on math, science, and coding benchmark tests than OpenAI’s GPT-4o, DeepSeek’s V3, and Google’s Gemini AI.

Related: Elon Musk’s xAI Is Reportedly Set to Hire Thousands of ‘AI Tutors’ With Pay Up to $65 an Hour

They also said Grok 3 was a step up in sheer power from xAI’s previous model Grok 2, released in August. The latest version has more than 10 times the computational power of Grok 2, greater accuracy, and a bigger capacity for large datasets.

“The word Grok [means] to fully and profoundly understand something,” Musk said on the livestream, noting that the word came from the 1961 novel “Stranger in a Strange Land” by American author Robert Heinlein. He added later in the livestream that “if you’re using Grok 3, you may notice improvements almost every day because we’re continuously improving the model.”

^{Animated 3D plot of a spacecraft launch from Earth to Mars and back. Credit: xAI}

xAI engineers demonstrated how Grok 3 could be used to create code for an animated 3D plot of a spacecraft launch that started on Earth, landed on Mars, and came back to Earth.

The engineers also asked Grok to combine two games, Tetris and Bejeweled, into one game. The result, which the engineers played on the livestream, was similar to Tetris with shapes inching down the screen but had the rules of Bejeweled with multicolored blocks that disappeared if there were three in a row.

Related: Google’s CEO Praised AI Rival DeepSeek This Week for Its ‘Very Good Work.’ Here’s Why.

Musk said that any AI could find examples of Tetris or Bejeweled online and duplicate them, but Grok 3 took it one step further.

“What’s interesting here is it [Grok 3] achieved a creative solution combining two games that actually works and is a good game,” Musk noted. “We’re seeing the beginnings of creativity.”

^{Tetris-Bejeweled mashup game in the background. Credit: xAI}

The researchers said they only trained Grok 3’s reasoning abilities on math problems and competitive coding problems, but they observed that Grok 3 could apply what it learned to a variety of use cases, including reasoning through making games.

xAI isn’t the only major AI startup to release advanced AI this year. Last month, OpenAI released the o3-mini, its most cost-effective yet powerful model yet, while DeepSeek came out with R1, a disruptive AI model with cutting-edge performance on a less than $6 million budget.

Grok 3 is currently available for Premium+ X subscribers paying $22 a month.

Watch the event, here:

https://t.co/hEfQ31gANQ

— xAI (@xai) February 18, 2025

You’ve probably seen it before — companies boasting about kombucha on tap and bean bags in the office as if these were the true markers of a thriving culture. But when it comes to finding the right leadership fit, relying on these superficial perks can lead to costly mistakes. Despite many companies focusing on superficial perks, leadership quality remains a significant challenge. Only 40% of leaders rate their organization’s leadership quality as “very good” or “excellent” — a decrease of eight percentage points since the pandemic.

This decline in perceived leadership quality highlights the need for a more substantive approach to hiring and developing leaders. As someone who has spent years working in executive leadership recruitment, I’ve seen firsthand how crucial it is to hire leaders who align with a company’s core values. Without this deeper connection, even the most impressive candidates can struggle to drive long-term success.

Related: Every Hire Has Been a Good One Since This CEO Started Hiring for Values

Rethinking the meaning of cultural fit

True culture fit means finding a leader who aligns with the company’s core values and mission. For example, if a company emphasizes transparency, the right leader will demonstrate clear and open communication, not just within their team but across the entire organization.

Leaders who resonate with these deeper values help prevent the kinds of disruptions that occur when there’s a misalignment between leadership and company culture. I’ve seen organizations bring in highly qualified leaders who failed because their values didn’t align with the company’s goals. These leaders might have succeeded elsewhere, but without that alignment, they couldn’t generate the energy, collaboration or engagement necessary for success in their new roles.

What is the impact of misaligned leadership?

When a leader doesn’t align with a company’s core values, the consequences can be severe. I’ve watched as organizations that hire misaligned leaders experience rapid declines in employee morale, decision-making and collaboration. In many cases, this results in higher turnover and lost productivity.

One standout example is a tech company that hired a CEO from a different industry. This individual had an impressive track record of turning around struggling businesses, but their leadership style clashed with the collaborative, innovative culture of the company. The CEO’s misalignment led to tensions within teams, slowed innovation and eventually caused several key leaders to leave. In just two years, the company missed major market opportunities, and the CEO was quietly replaced.

This is a common pitfall I’ve seen many companies fall into — prioritizing qualifications over leadership fit. The result? Lost opportunities and a significant drop in engagement across the board.

A four-step framework for identifying leadership fit

From my experience, I’ve found a framework that helps companies avoid these mistakes and ensure they’re hiring leaders who meet the technical requirements of the role while also aligning with the company’s values. This value-based hiring approach focuses on both qualifications and cultural alignment. Here’s how I recommend structuring it:

Related: A Healthy Approach to Hiring That Actually Works

1. Clarify core values

Before you begin the hiring process, you need to define the company’s core values and make sure your selection committee understands these values from the inside out. These should be non-negotiable. For instance, if collaboration is a core value, you need to collectively evaluate how well each candidate fosters teamwork and cooperation across different departments.

2. Use a diverse selection panel

I always advise involving a diverse group of decision-makers in the hiring process. Relying on a narrow group can lead to biased decisions and “groupthink.” A diverse panel helps ensure that the candidate is evaluated from multiple perspectives, which leads to a more objective assessment of their potential fit.

Many companies try to cut costs by conducting leadership searches internally or relying on their own networks, but I’ve seen how this can backfire. While this approach might save money upfront, it often leads to costly mistakes in the long run.

For a non-biased approach, consider utilizing executive search firms. These agencies provide an objective perspective and access to a broader talent pool, leading to faster, more effective hiring results. By partnering with an executive search firm, you can avoid the pitfalls of relying solely on internal candidates and ensure that you’re hiring the right leadership fit.

3. Ask probing questions

It’s essential to ask the right questions during interviews. Don’t just focus on accomplishments or leadership style in general terms. Instead, ask candidates about specific situations where they had to navigate challenges that reflect the values important to your company. For example, if resilience is a key value, ask about a time when they had to overcome significant obstacles to achieve a goal.

4. Evaluate beyond the first impression

First impressions can be deceiving, and I’ve seen too many companies make quick decisions based on superficial traits. It’s crucial to dig deeper and evaluate how well a candidate truly aligns with both the company’s values and the specific requirements of the role. This helps you avoid falling into the trap of hiring based on comfort or familiarity.

Additionally, take time to establish a balance between technical qualifications, cultural expectations and leadership alignment. It’s important to establish consistent criteria for each leadership role. For example, if the Chief Financial Officer requires ten years of experience, the Chief People Officer should have the same level of experience. Consistency helps ensure fairness and avoids bias in the hiring process.

Related: I Hire a New Employee Every Week. Here’s What This Practice Has Taught Me About Hiring and Recruiting

The quest for the perfect candidate involves far more than a stellar resume or an easy rapport with the existing team. Through my years of experience in leadership recruitment, I’ve seen how focusing on value-based hiring ensures a deeper alignment between a leader’s values and the company’s mission. This alignment creates a leadership team that can drive long-term success, innovation and employee engagement. When you hire for true leadership fit, you’ll find that the rewards far outweigh the superficial perks of bean bags and kombucha.