- Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth recently told staff to “disagree and commit” or leave the company.
- The phrase, popularized by Jeff Bezos, emphasizes quick decision-making and commitment amid disagreement.
- The philosophy dates back to former Intel CEO Andy Grove, who believed in cohesion around decisions.
In Silicon Valley, an old mantra is making a comeback: “Disagree and commit.”
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth recently said to staffers to either leave or “disagree and commit” — echoing a phrase that’s been famously used by billionaire Jeff Bezos.
While Bosworth used the phrase to present a fork in the road of sorts for any Meta employees who were unhappy about the company’s recent policy changes, Bezos has talked about it publicly as a management philosophy.
He elaborated on the phrase as Amazon’s CEO in his 2016 shareholder letter under a section labeled “High-Velocity Decision Making.” Bezos championed the use of “disagree and commit” and said it can “save a lot of time.”
“If you have conviction on a particular direction even though there’s no consensus, it’s helpful to say, ‘Look, I know we disagree on this but will you gamble with me on it? Disagree and commit?'” Bezos wrote in the letter.
"By the time you're at this point, no one can know the answer for sure, and you'll probably get a quick yes," Bezos said.
In the letter, he said bosses should follow the ideology as well. Bezos said he once greenlighted an Amazon Studios original after telling his team he had concerns about its success. His team had a different perspective and wanted to move forward.
"I wrote back right away with 'I disagree and commit and hope it becomes the most watched thing we've ever made,'" Bezos said in the letter, adding that the decision-making would have been much slower if the team had spent time trying to convince him.
A useful phrase that echos former Intel CEO Andy Grove's management philosophy
The larger concept appears to also echo a management philosophy that dates back to the 1980s, when the late Andy Grove, known for his intense management style and visionary leadership, ran Intel. The former CEO, who escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary in the 1940s, died in 2016 at the age of 79.
Grove's biographer, Richard S. Tedlow, told BI that it could be "very hard" to agree with Grove. However, the concept of disagreeing and committing "was the essence of how he felt you should comport yourself at Intel," he said.
"Disagree and then commit was a philosophy that you fight like cats and dogs, but once the decision is made, everybody's pulling in the same direction," Tedlow said.
While Tedlow isn't certain if Grove ever coined the exact phrase, he said it embodied the culture at Intel during the executive's time leading the company.
A CEO acceding to a lower-level employee who might be closer to a problem is an example of how the idea of disagree and commit can be beneficial, Christopher Myers, faculty director of the Center for Innovative Leadership at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, told BI.
In a 2024 interview with Lex Fridman, Bezos expanded on the philosophy and said that companies "tend to organize hierarchically," often leaving the CEO to make the final call. Oftentimes, the CEO might not agree with the decision they make — however, Bezos said that's better than compromising or giving in to whoever is most stubborn.
"The advantage of compromise as a resolution mechanism is that it's low energy, but it doesn't lead to truth," Bezos said. "And so in things like the height of the ceiling where truth is a noble thing, you shouldn't allow compromise to be used when you can know the truth."
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has since adopted the phrase, and it's become a pillar of the company's leadership principles outlined on the company's website. The principle emphasizes that once a decision is made, leaders fully commit to it.
In recent years, the phrase appears to have evolved into disagree and commit — or leave. In a 2023 internal fireside chat about Amazon's return-to-office policy, Jassy told employees it was time to "disagree and commit," adding that "it's probably not going to work out" for those at Amazon who don't do so.
Meta's CTO took a similar approach when telling staffers to leave if they didn't like the company's recent policy changes.
"Unless you are referring to the policy changes, in which case Mark spent quite a while talking through them, it just sounds like you don't agree," Bosworth said as BI first reported. "In that case, you can leave or disagree and commit."
In its purest form, Myers said the disagree and commit mantra can be useful because it can remind organizations that productive conflict is valuable.