Measure What Matters
                     MEASURE 
WHAT 
MATTERS
INTRODUCTION
Legendary venture capitalist John 
Doerr reveals how the goal-setting 
system of Objectives and Key Results 
(OKRs) has helped tech giants from 
Intel to Google achieve explosive 
growth—and how it can help any 
organization thrive.
SOURCE: 
WWW.PENGUINRANDOMHOUSE.COM 2
ABOUT JOHN DOERR
John Doerr is an engineer, acclaimed 
venture capitalist, and the chairman 
of Kleiner Perkins. He was an original 
investor and board member at 
Google and Amazon, helping to 
create more than half a million jobs 
and the world’s second and third 
most valuable companies. 
SOURCE: 
WWW.PENGUINRANDOMHOUSE.COM 3
BIGGEST INVESTMENT
In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met 
with the founders of a start-up whom 
he’d just given $12.5 million, the 
biggest investment of his career. 
Larry Page and Sergey Brin had 
amazing technology, entrepreneurial 
energy, and sky-high ambitions, but 
no real business plan.
SOURCE: 
WWW.PENGUINRANDOMHOUSE.COM 4
MEASURE WHAT 
MATTER
For Google to change the world (or 
even to survive), Page and Brin had 
to learn how to make tough choices 
on priorities while keeping their team 
on track. They’d have to know when 
to pull the plug on losing 
propositions, to fail fast. And they 
needed timely, relevant data to track 
their progress—to measure what 
mattered.
SOURCE: 
WWW.PENGUINRANDOMHOUSE.COM 5
PROVEN APPROACH
Doerr taught them about a proven 
approach to operating excellence: 
Objectives and Key Results. 
He had first discovered OKRs in the 
1970s as an engineer at Intel, where 
the legendary Andy Grove (“the 
greatest manager of his or any era”) 
drove the best-run company Doerr 
had ever seen.
SOURCE: 
WWW.PENGUINRANDOMHOUSE.COM 6
GOAL-SETTING SYSTEM
In this goal-setting system, 
objectives define what we seek to 
achieve; key results are how those 
top-priority goals will be attained 
with specific, measurable actions 
within a set time frame.
SOURCE: 
WWW.PENGUINRANDOMHOUSE.COM 7
BENEFITS ARE 
PROFOUND
The benefits are profound. OKRs 
surface an organization’s most 
important work. They focus effort 
and foster coordination. They keep 
employees on track. They link 
objectives across silos to unify and 
strengthen the entire company.
SOURCE: 
WWW.PENGUINRANDOMHOUSE.COM 8
DEMONSTRATE THE 
FOCUS
In Measure What Matters, Doerr 
shares a broad range of first-person, 
behind-the-scenes case studies, with 
narrators including Bono and Bill 
Gates, to demonstrate the focus, 
agility, and explosive growth that 
OKRs have spurred at so many great 
organizations.
SOURCE: 
WWW.PENGUINRANDOMHOUSE.COM 9
THANK YOU
10