I have never started a company and I was hire #76 at my current place, but if I were to start something remote, I would find a game or hobby appreciated by all the founders and make sure that remained a bedrock of our culture.
Going on golf courses together, dining with the team etc. are the traditional recipes to create trust. But it's walking that fine line between personal and professional life, while also bridging the technical abilities parts and the personal chemistry parts.
I understand we are all human and personal feelings have an impact on work, it can't be extracted up to a point. I'm just not sure we should see it as something that should be perpetuated, moved online or adapted to new environments if those were by default devoid of these elements.
Basically I'd hope we can prioritise other ways to create trust than building personal bonds (TBH, being good at one's job for a decent amount of time seems plenty enough to me)
This is called networking and I don't think it's going away anytime soon.
I'm a consultant and I get along very well with the director of engineering where I'm working now. When cuts happen, I won't be the first to go. The first to go will be the people that have no relationship with upper management.
Career advancement isn't all about the job that you do.
"Basically I'd hope we can prioritise other ways to create trust than building personal bonds (TBH, being good at one's job for a decent amount of time seems plenty enough to me)"
Being only good at one's job is a great way to keep your current job and position forever. If that's what you want, it's fine. However, if you want to get into management or advance, you need to get noticed and build relationships so your potential can also be noticed.
It's never going away. It's human nature to trust and favor the people you know over those you don't.
A friend of mine who was one of the top salesmen in his outfit would eat his lunch at his desk to save money. But he wasn't getting promoted, while others were. He eventually realized the "do lunch" socializing with coworkers was essential to success.
The idea is to adapt to reality, it's far easier than to try to change human nature.
> The first to go have no relationship with upper management
This also means upper management had no clear oversight on how they were doing, what the value they brought in.
If they did the same as you, being let go while you stay is mostly fair.If they were better at their job than you, I’d wish they find a job where they’ll meet better upper management.
I know it feels overly idealistic or unrealistic to a lot of people who, as you describe, climbed the ladder by sticking with the big boys. Especially for those working in bigger companies where a single employee’s value is heavily diluted and political skills become huge assets.
But companies who care more about your code than where you eat are also growingly common. It’s also so much more comfortable when you can feel that your work output actually matters.
While outright racism is rare, I often see a sort of "you can't be better then me" or maybe a "you think you're better then me" attitude.
Maybe it has more to do with my personality then my looks, but it seems to overlap with in person meeting vs virtual.
Given the potential to democratize socializing to form business partnerships, it would catch on all on its own as a way to be inclusive during the pandemic in a way that golf never was.
Semi-related, I was reading a sociological research paper by Irving Crespi about playing cards in Endicott, NY and in his conclusion, he speculates that people used the structure of playing bridge or what have you in order to more easily tolerate each other's company. He was trying to explain why most card players weren't gambling seriously and I think he was right about structured activities providing a social lubricant analogous to alcohol.
Perhaps the eu-social aid of structured activity is even stronger than alcohol because we're given a detailed script to play out and distract ourselves instead of simply taking the edge off of our ability to waste energy over analyzing the social situation.
For example, think about dating. It can be exhausting to just meet somebody new for dinner. You have to keep up an interesting conversation without much help, hoping you'll stumble upon some common interests.
It's generally easier to do an activity where you can focus on the task, talk about how to do it well, have an excuse for lulls in the conversation, etc.
I don't have any research to support this but I have come to the same conclusions on my own organizing social events at the workplace. I've found that working on a common goal-oriented task which requires communication is an amazing medium to get people talking. The conversations start around the goal and eventually move outside of the task and into more casual conversation. But having that base that requires communication (think like "pass the ball" in soccer) is required.
As an example: At the previous company I worked, the CTO and another engineer really liked bouldering. They'd often go out after work to the local climbing gym. Eventually, two other engineers joined that group and went climbing too. Mysteriously, all three climbing engineers got promoted and none of the non-climbing engineers did. Eventually the CTO left for greener pastures and the "new" two engineers (by now team lead and VP) stopped climbing the week after.