What I learned today: Startup culture | Hacker News Reader

What I learned today: Startup culture

venturebent.com

24 pointsngavronsky4 comments

There are some great themes expressed here, but I would tread carefully.

After growing a company from 4 people to 50 people, I've learned that shaping culture is a lot like shaping the personalities of your children. You can strongly influence as much as possible, lead by example, etc., but in the end, they will be who they will be.

As has been reiterated ad nauseum, it is really difficult to assess someone's personality through the hiring process, no matter which latest and greatest interviewing techniques you use. And, each person will contribute to molding your culture in very subtle ways. Yes, you can shape the big things, like corporate vision, etc., but in the end the culture is the sum total of the personalities involved, and it takes on a life of its own. And, if you try to shape it too much, you'll end up hiring people just like you, and then the real problems will start...

Also, as a former Enron employee, as I read through the “culture foundations” listed by the author, it struck me that these were exactly the culture foundations that CEO Jeff Skilling espoused, especially “meritocracy” and the “survival of the fittest”. It didn’t work out so well. I have never worked in such a competitive place, and as many former Enron employees have mentioned in books, documentaries, etc., the competitive environment was very counter productive in that it totally destroyed teamwork; everyone was out for themselves. The only place where it maybe worked was with the traders, but even then they would screw each other (and thus the company) in a heartbeat to get a deal done that would benefit them personally.

Be careful with this advice.

I remember reading a job description for one of the YCombinator startups. For any new hire, they offered $2k to the hire in the first 6 months if he/she decided it wasn't a good fit. I forget the specific company, but this sounds like a really good way to "assess" someone's personality (i.e. let the employee do the assessing and reward them for recognizing a strong disparity.

I was pretty turned off by the article of this post. I feel like "vision" and "survival of the fittest" go against what Google has been known for encouraging: 20% time for creative products. Sure, a select few have made successful products like gmail. Others have completed products that didn't take off. You can look at these developers as dead weight and cut them off, but there'll be backlash with the other developers. Who would want to explore a creative, risky idea when he can just spend more time on his main project?

Agree for the most part with this list. I think another important thing is to find people that aren't so fixed on their title.

When I was in 7th grade, I worked for an insurance company doing computer consultation, and all too often I saw this unfortunate mentality that someone didn't want to do something because it wasn't in their job description. I never had a problem doing even the most mundane of things (and naturally, finding a way to make them a bit more fun!) because I knew that these things were for the betterment of the company as a whole.

When I look for valuable people today, this is a huge thing for me. I saw a developer's profile just last night and took note because he had mentioned how he would willingly offer himself up to do some of the mundane things so that it would free up other talent. Ultimately, this shows great humility and makes it clear that one has the company's best interests in mind, not just his or her own.

Edit: To be clear, I don't mind that one should always be doing the mundane things, I want developers or any employee to have fun and do what they're best at, but they should be willing (and hopefully even excited) to take on any role in the company that can help.

While a reward structure is crucial, I feel there's more to business culture than a proper positive feedback loop. What about attitudes, creativity, fun, competition, and atmosphere?

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