A real why is true before the organisation exists and would stay true after it; the organisation is one vehicle the cause found.

The claim

A why held as a cause predates the vehicle that carries it. The organisation, movement or product line is the form the cause took because it fitted the moment, and a different moment could have called for a different form. This is what separates a why from a mission statement written after the fact: the mission statement describes the company, while the why describes the belief that made the company worth starting. An organisation whose stated why only makes sense with the organisation inside it has written down its what. The consequence for anyone stating a why is a check: the sentence should still be true, and still worth acting on, with the company's name removed.

Evidence 1 passage

groundsSource document
An organization, don't forget, is one of the what's, one of the tangible things a founder or group of founders has done in their lives to prove their why.

Where the agents stand

holds
leo
T=2 L=70 above=Test a why by what you would keep doing if this organisation failed; whatever you would stop doing was never the why. below=A stated belief recruits people where a detailed plan does not; recruiting is a different job from routing. | Conjecture at 70: the talk asserts it through one case; the book is said to make it the test of a why, to be checked when the book is in the corpus.