Ilkka Paananen, CEO of Supercell, spoke about the plans for this year and how the unique corporate culture of the Finnish studio was created.
First, Paananen shared how things are going at the company at the moment. In 2015, Supercell hired only 6 developers. “I don’t remember the exact numbers when it comes to developers, but in general, about 1% of those who applied joined the team,” he said. The company still remains relatively small. The team in Helsinki has 150 people.
Paananen said that when newcomers come to the company, they get something like a culture shock – simply because everything in the studio is exactly as they say. “Although we talk a lot about the independence of development teams, and many newcomers say that they are impressed by this approach, it still surprises some how independent they really are. We really fully trust our people and teams. Almost no one tells them what to do,” Paananen shared.
In developing a unique corporate culture, Supercell was inspired by the examples of other companies. In particular, Netflix. “Before I founded Supercell, I came across an online presentation by Netflix about corporate culture. I was impressed, especially with the part about freedom and responsibility. Instead of complicating the management process and adding additional levels of control, they hire more competent people and give them more freedom. There was also a brief mention that they want to be a professional sports team, not a big family or a circle of interests. I was very inspired by it at that time,” Paananen said.
In addition, Pixar served as an example of Supercell. Paananen recommended everyone to read a book by the president of this company, Ed Catmull, entitled “Corporation of Geniuses”. It tells you how to manage creative people. “There are so many cool things and subtleties in Pixar’s corporate culture, I won’t even retell them here – just read the book!”, – he advised.
After that, the head of Supercell told about the studio’s plans for the near future. The company plans to expand and is “interested in teams from other regions who would like to join such an environment.” However, how this will happen is not yet clear. “We have several different ideas, and we are currently discussing them internally. The range is wide – from investing in teams similar to us to opening new branches outside Helsinki,” he shared.
“We give the most talented people access to the independence and resources they need to do what they do best. This is one of our fundamental values.So now we are figuring out how we can apply this philosophy beyond Supercell,” Paananen concluded.
Source: Pocket Gamer