Comment by vinceguidry | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vinceguidry | Hacker News Reader

Companies like Google making company culture such a visible part of their identity strikes me as the kind of wise foolishness that you find a lot in mythical narratives. Sure, you will get some very motivated employees that swallow the kool-aid, but if you think those employees' loyalties are with you, you better think again. They're loyal to the idea that you sold them on, to the gospel that you preached.

Once they get it in their heads that the road you're leading them on is going to hell and not heaven, there's gonna be a reckoning. Now the faithful are going to start questioning things they wouldn't allow themselves to question years ago. Is making all this software so that Google can profit off of collecting people's data worthwhile?

I hope at least one Google exec is forced to sell a yacht over this. But what I really want is that we find a way to force more accountability onto these assholes. I'm happy it happened, but I think we're going to start seeing a shift away from companies making culture such a visible part of their identity as Google did.

I think you’re very wrong.

Companies like Google have trained an entire generation to seek greater meaning in their work. Even if Google’s promises were hollow, millennials don’t have the cultural institutions our parents did. Thus we seek self-fulfillment in the ways we know how: at work.

I work with a lot of C-suites on “the culture issue”. They see statistics like “40% of people between age 12 and 18 identify as LGBTQ” and they start to panic because their company culture isn’t so friendly to that. Things that were taboo only a decade ago are now commonplace: every kid today knows at least one trans kid, and a over half of teens identify as “somewhere in between gay and straight”.

The institutions that used to prop up culture in this country (marriage, church, family, etc) are no longer a reality for most people. Corporations have lobbied successfully for more power, so the employees of these companies expect to be able to wield that power from within to make the change they want to see.

Because the culture at large is so hostile to those ideas, the culture at companies is only going to become more important as time goes on. Companies that ignore it are going to have a difficult time attracting the top talent that can afford to be choosy. Companies that provide a safe, nurturing refuge will find themselves drowning in qualified applicants.

I hope you're right.

> They see statistics like “40% of people between age 12 and 18 identify as LGBTQ” ... and a over half of teens identify as “somewhere in between gay and straight”

Citation. Needed.

over half of teens identify as “somewhere in between gay and straight

Citation. Needed.

Possibly referring to this poll: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/yougov-poll-...

If you think about it, it's not too surprising. 12-18 is a weird age with lots of weird hormonal things happening, and it's hardly unheard of that otherwise 'straight' teenagers in that age bracket experience some sort of same sex fantasies or experimentation.

It's just that in the past they would identify as "100% totally straight!!! (except for that time...)" but they're now more comfortable to be more fluid in their definitions.

Exactly. Those kids will eventually reach a company, look around and see it’s 95% cisgender/heterosexual people, and they don’t feel welcome because that’s not the world they grew up in.

The whole “trans agenda” is really about letting kids know that they are not weird, and they are not morally bound to the “default” gender they were given. Turns out when you do that young, a lot of people don’t pick the default without at least exploring the other options. This blows many adults’ minds, and it’s going to be a huge shift in the corporate world. You think #MeToo is a problem? Wait till gender discrimination has a whole lot more variables.

Point is, culture is important. The culture that got you here is not the culture you’re going to need tomorrow. Google’s culture is pretty close to what a lot of this generation aspires to though; and doing work to enable state sponsored surveillance is likely personally threatening to their LGBT staff given the current president’s agenda.

> Google’s culture is pretty close to what a lot of this generation aspires to though; and doing work to enable state sponsored surveillance is likely personally threatening to their LGBT staff given the current president’s agenda

That brings up a good point about ideology (pro-LGBT) versus politics (Trump hate). Almost every country on the receiving end of the US military under Trump can be characterized as a terrible place to be LGBT. The same can be said about Obama, but I suspect most Google employees would not bad an eye if this were happening under Obama.

It’s not just pro-LGBT; it’s a whole liberal ideology that values people of all kinds, and looks to transform the culture to include all that diversity.

Trump is very much against this ideology... but he’s also reminded the country after 8 years of Obama that the government is not your friend. I think the combination of those two things is what caused the backlash at Google; and you’re right, I don’t think it would have happened under Obama.

Edit: despite all the crap, the US is still one of the best countries to be transgender. At least the medical system here doesn’t prevent anyone who wants care and can afford it from getting it.

Okay now I've figured out my objection. I strongly doubt that the slow liberal ratchet is going to suddenly force companies to become accountable for their actions in the same way Google has made itself. Google employees were more than capable of ignoring certain aspects of Google's business in order to work at Google.

My argument is that Google's professed ethos of "Don't be evil" has directly led to this sequence of events. You can be LGBTQBBQ-friendly and pay lip service to the whole host of liberal society acceptance tropes and still be evil, so long as you don't actually claim that you'll never be evil. Once you claim that, and make it a core part of the company mythos, then you're opening yourself up to exactly this sort of thing.

I love the accountability that's being forced onto Google right now, but I feel it's a rare bird at best.

I think companies that don’t have some statement of corporate ethics are going to find themselves starved for talent while the ones who do eat their lunch. I’m seeing it happen across the professional services industry; the big 4 are consistently outperformed by smaller shops that bring a more diverse team.

The “don’t be evil” pledges are a big part of why people feel safe at those companies. Millennials and especially the generation after them need to be involved with institutions that reflect their values. They are more than willing to go create them if they don’t exist.

That's a good argument and I hope you're right.

When you think about it social stigma against homosexuality is really the only thing that prevents teens "going crazy". I'm not a gay man but apparently it's pretty easy to get laid on Grindr, easier than a straight guy finding a hookup. Extrapolate this back to teenage years, many/most guys aren't successful with chicks but virtually all of them have a best (male) friend. With less social stigma around it, I suspect now that in the next generation, for a great many boys (girls likely follow similar logic) their first sexual experience will be a homosexual one.

It’s pretty easy to get laid period if you’re not a straight man.

I'd put the causality the other way around—Sergei & Larry's parents and other mentors taught them to seek greater meaning, so they created a company that embodied that. Likewise with the employees they sought out. "Google-y."

Admittedly it goes both ways—it's a virtuous cycle of people seeing that it's possible and embracing it more fully. Plus, the YC rule of "no assholes" leading to better companies, which may even mean that you can do well by being good.

Larry and Sergey's research was initially funded by DARPA. Silicon Valley itself was built by military funding. Self-driving cars and AI research were initially funded by the military. Everybody working in tech is getting blood money, anyone who thinks otherwise is either ignorant or a raging hypocrite.

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