Hi! I'm Molly.
Hi! I'm Molly. I’ve spent most of my career inside fast-moving, messy, ambitious companies — usually trying to hold the center as everything around it scaled, broke, or changed. For better or worse, I am probably best known for coining the term “Give Away Your Legos” to talk about what it’s like to work inside rapidly scaling companies.
Over the years, I’ve led operations at places like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), a philanthropy founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan; Quip, a start-up founded by Bret Taylor that sold to Salesforce for $750m; and Lambda School. I spent five years at Facebook during its rocketship years, doing everything from shaping its mobile strategy to helping build the people systems that would (hopefully) keep the wheels on. I’ve coached founders, advised startups, joined boards, and made just about every leadership mistake in the book — often more than once.
At some point, I realized I was less interested in building companies and more interested in the humans inside them — the ones doing the unglamorous work of holding things together, the ones navigating impossible trade-offs, trying to lead well without losing themselves.
These days, I spend my time building communities that help leaders feel safe, seen, and supported. Most publicly, I'm building Glue Club, a community for leaders who care about building great companies — not just faster ones. We talk about the hard stuff. We share what’s actually working. We try to get a little better, together.
I write about all of it — the patterns, the pitfalls, the mistakes, the lessons — on this Substack.
You can always send me questions, feedback, or thoughts at mollyg@substack.com. I also regularly post stuff on LinkedIn.
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