In 1994, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras published Built to Last and introduced the world to the BHAG: the Big Hairy Audacious Goal. A moon shot. An impossible dream made concrete. The kind of goal that makes investors nervous and founders giddy. Around the same time, management consultants were circulating SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound), a framework so sensible it could have been designed by actuaries.
Two philosophies. Two approaches to ambition. Both claiming to unlock human potential. Both fundamentally theatrical.
BHAG: Aspirational Theatre
The BHAG seduces with scale. It promises transformation, disruption, legacy. When Kennedy declared America would put a man on the moon before the decade ended, that was a BHAG. When Google set out to organise the world's information, that was a BHAG. These examples get trotted out in business schools and TED talks as proof that audacious goals inspire greatness.
But most BHAGs are just unrealistic goals dressed up in grandiose language. A startup founder declares he will revolutionise healthcare or disrupt education or become the Uber of dog walking. The board nods. Investors write cheques. Everyone feels like they are part of something historic. Then reality arrives.
The stress of a BHAG comes from the gap between the audacity and the actual path forward. You are supposed to reverse-engineer impossibility, which sounds heroic but often just means flailing with extra pressure. The goal is so large, so vague, so distant that it offers no guidance on what to do tomorrow morning. So people fill the void with activity. Meetings about the mission. Decks about the vision. Workshops on the values. All of it performative.
Kennedy's moon shot worked because NASA had constraints: a fixed timeline, a defined budget, and thousands of engineers who understood orbital mechanics. The BHAG was the marketing. The constraints were the strategy. Strip away the constraints and you are left with a wish.
Most founders set BHAGs because they want to feel serious. They want the gravitas that comes with scale. But gravitas without execution is just noise, and noise, no matter how loud, does not build products.
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