"Toss Empowers Practitioners to Make Decisions on Behalf of the Company"
"Even in Failure, No Ridicule or Blame?Everyone Shares Collective Responsibility"
A post titled "A Culture of Working the Toss Way" by Lee Seunggun, CEO of Viva Republica, which operates Toss, has become a hot topic after he shared it on his social networking service (SNS). Since this statement came amid internal controversy at Kakao regarding Hong Mintak, Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Kakao, and his so-called "uncommunicative leadership," some in the industry and among online users are interpreting Lee's remarks as a message implicitly directed at Kakao.
On October 1, Lee Seunggun stated on his Facebook page, "The core of Toss's work culture is that the DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) system is firmly established." He explained, "A DRI is not an executive who simply receives reports, but a team member who is actually responsible for the work and makes decisions on behalf of the company." He added, "This is not just a slogan, but operates as the dominant culture at Toss."
He continued, "Not only executives but also other team members are free to express their opinions and critique the work of specific colleagues," emphasizing, "If only executives are forceful in expressing their opinions, that is nothing more than a toxic top-down culture and has nothing to do with how Toss operates."
He also stated, "Everyone recognizes that autonomous decisions can unintentionally cause harm to the entire company," and added, "Even if someone's decision leads to significant negative consequences, we do not criticize or ridicule the outcome." Lee emphasized, "Executives and team members alike accept unfortunate results as a collective decision and work together as one team to solve the problem. This is the Toss way of working."
Lee's remarks have drawn attention as they coincide with internal controversy at Kakao following the KakaoTalk update dispute. Recently, there has been growing internal dissatisfaction at Kakao, with criticism that Hong, who led the update, pushed it through unilaterally while ignoring organizational feedback. Hong previously served as CEO of Toss Bank.
As harsh criticism of the update mounted, Kakao announced on September 29 that it would restore the original friends list as the first screen in the KakaoTalk friends tab and make feed-style posts accessible through a separate menu.
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