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Comment by jonahx | Hacker News Reader

> Isn't culture fit just another word for "people like me"

More like: people who aren't going to grate on me, which is very different and encompasses a much larger set of people.

The "culture fit" strategy can no doubt be abused, but it's also wrong not to recognize that a technically brilliant hire can be terrible for the company if there are communication problems or personality conflicts.

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This type of selection (“people who don’t grate me”) often favors people that are similar to us. Project Implicit[1] at Harvard has done interesting work highlighting our difficulty to make “objective” judgements (esp. about other people that are different from ourselves), and that we go to great lengths justifying our biased decisions not just to others but to ourselves. Hence “implicit” biases.

1. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/aboutus.html

Is that really so bad? Obviously when extended to race/sexual-orientation/etc it is, but isn't it legitimate to some extent to want to surround yourself with people who share your values?

This is precisely the issue that the social sciences often miss because it's an ethical, not scientific, question.

It is pleasant to live in echo chamber and that is exactly what you would build there. And the result is place where people don't talk about issues and don't solve problems if doing so would go against groupthink. And just like in any echo chamber, consensus will more more toward extreme and people will simultaneously become less and less capable of handling different opinions.

The key phrase you seem to be (intentionally?) missing is "to some extent".

There's a continuum between "echo chamber" and "agreeing about nothing".

>This is precisely the issue that the social sciences often miss because it's an ethical, not scientific, question.

You're completely missing the point - if it doesn't get results, they're not going to do it regardless of whether it's morally acceptable or not. Businesses care about results.

With all due respect (truly!), you are missing the point.

The point is: scientific arguments fail to convince because the issue escapes the scientific domain. The question is not "do we naturally tend to do X, Y or Z", but rather "at what point and to what extent are we ethically obligated to seek out people different from ourselves?"

"Inter-personal skills" plus "works well in a team" seem to be those criteria, as I would describe them (from the UK).

(I don't actually mind what anyone calls it, but "culture fit" has got a bad press and got my hackles up! Apologies to all!)

I agree, I regret my use of the term "culture fit".

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