In 1999, John Doerr, the author of the book, invested $12.8 million in Google, then an early-stage startup, in exchange for 12% of the company. Shortly afterward, he met with the founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and was impressed by their ambitious goal: to organize the world’s information. Doerr describes Page and Brin as visionary, brilliant, and entrepreneurial, but lacking in management experience. He says that they needed to adopt a goal setting and performance measurement framework in order to effectively scale their company.

Doerr shared with the pair his own goal-setting framework, the OKR system, which he based on learnings from his time at Intel. According to Doerr, OKRs consist of objectives, which define what needs to be achieved, and key results, which outline the specific, measurable actions required to attain those objectives within a set time frame. Doerr believed that implementing OKRs would help Google align its goals, measure progress, and drive performance.

The OKR system encourages companies to set three to five objectives. These objectives should be concise but quantifiable, enabling teams to clearly understand what needs to be accomplished.