FAST COMPANY: How do you creative a corporate culture from scratch?
JOEL WEINGARTEN: At StyleOwner, we really emphasize our corporate culture in almost everything that we do. We spend a lot of time building our culture through team-building activities, by allowing an open forum for communications, but I think that corporate culture really starts with the core values of the company, and most importantly, starts with the people that you hire and making sure that you filter your hires through the lens of your core values.
How do you create a corporate culture from scratch?
Prior to founding StyleOwner, Joel taught robotics at Penn in the Electrical and Systems Engineering Department. There he developed a successful inner city education initiative using robotics in classrooms under an NSF grant.
During graduate school at the University of Michigan, Joel was a part of a DARPA (defense department research) grant where he helped develop the world’s fastest legged robot (RHex). When not building robots or websites, Joel can be found cooking with his wife Anna, playing in Central Park or turning the temperature down in the office (he kindly bought Snuggies for everyone in the office).
