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Comment by dnissley | Hacker News Reader

> You can somehow feel that he has been dying to say this for years, but couldn't while he was still working for Meta...

It's a pretty common sentiment in my experience here, de rigueur even. Expressing it in the way he does here is definitely frowned upon though -- one of the most interesting cultural traits I've noticed that Meta has fostered is an awareness and avoidance of cynicism. When people comment internally and there is even a hint of cynicism in what they say, they are frequently called out on it. Never seen such a thing ever before in my life. For me it's refreshing, but I imagine for some, depending on the topic and how negatively they feel about it, it could lead them to spiral and exit.

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I've experienced this in a similar workplace before and did lead me to spiral and exit, to me it was absolutely exhausting keeping such a ruse up. There was something about it that felt so inauthentic, a bit toxic positivity, a bit hide-the-pain-harold.

It's like the workplace version of Instagram itself, where everybody shows their best side, is mildly ashamed of feeling anything but positive because of the collective emphasis on "good vibes only" and keeps any concerns, cynicism or suggestions that we're going in the wrong direction under wraps.

I think it's ultimately unhealthy (both individually, psychologically and to the company) and leads to the same problems you see in autocratic nations - the leaders only see everything going swimmingly.

So Facebook doesn't have something like memegen?

I worked at Google when it was created and "went viral". Before memegen there was a strain of what I would call inauthentic positivity

I think memegen made it a lot more acceptable to be cynical, which was probably good, because the company was definitely drinking a lot of its own Kool-aid

Oh we definitely do -- the shitposting workplace group serves this purpose. Also the private nonmanagers group.

I think a private non-manager group is pretty neat. What happens when an IC gets promoted to manager? Do they get the boot from the group?

Yeah, there's a ceremony where the manager puts a piece of paper with their username in a goblet and drops in a match, and then the non-managers all collectively intone "gone. gone. gone." and turn their backs. It's kind of sad, but the manager is allowed to keep their ceremonial robe as a memento, and there's usually a box of free cookies, so /shrug

I believed this for a minute and it made me so happy

> Before memegen there was a strain of what I would call inauthentic positivity

Too lazy to check, but did memegen appear before or after the whole Google+ debacle? Because from the outside Google did seem to drink a lot of its own Kool-aid back then (before and during the first stages of the Google+ launch).

In a way, the current discussions around VR remind me of those times, lots and lots of smart people refusing to say that the emperor has no clothes, for one reason or another.

Memegen predates Google+. And there were lots of people loudly saying that the emperor has no clothes, but the VP in charge didn't care and many mandates forcing people to work on G+ were issued anyway.

You don't have to work on G+. No one is forcing you.

(Oh wait, yes they were.)

Oh yea, but funny enough a lot of the critiques were shared via the internal version of Google+ since people actually took the time to write things and it had a pretty good UX. I don't think it's a great comparison to Meta ... this is anecdotal, but it felt plausible enough as a product strategy and in a self contained org that I think most rank and file gave it breathing room and tried to be constructive (save for a few cases where they'd made some bad calls). Keep in mind it was a period of huge growth and experimentation across the company, so there was a lot to feel positive about even if you were skeptical of Google+, and it didn't feel like they'd bet the farm, in the same way it might at Meta.

Before. I made a Memegen meme about ten years ago comparing the sign in with G+ buttons to the classic Wikipedia Jimmy Wales begging-for-donations banners, and for many years it was one of the top 100 Memegen memes ever.

My last two jobs have had this lack of cynicism, but I would describe only one of them as toxic. We were going straight to the top and anyone who left was a traitor. The other simply considered the products to be incredibly important and life-changing.

I can live with keeping the cynicism to myself as long as the rest of the culture is ok.

I also wouldn’t want to work with a person that is just negative all the time but fair critique and moral checks should be encouraged, especially when holding so much power.

However well paid at the outset, such “cults” more often than not are ultimately pernicious not only to their environment but their members as well.

I felt this way about the entire United States when I moved here from Europe. The standard stance in the UK is cynical, dry, and too-cool-for-school. Try-hards are despised. The US was different and very refreshing. Enthusiasm and optimism can be expressed without embarrassment, and having a too-frequently-cynical stance is looked down on.

I felt a step change again moving from academia to industry, but perhaps it goes a step too far. Sometimes I feel like thoughtful analysis is suppressed in favor of active thrash, because the former smells like bad-valence skepticism and the latter approved optimism.

I felt exactly the same. Silicon valley attitude "woah dude that's awesome". UK fenland attitude "don't get your hopes up and know your place".

On the other hand, I found US engineers were way more likely to try to exaggerate their own work and push for promotion, etc. whereas the EU had more team solidarity.

Like working with US engineers there was one who deliberately put meetings at bad hours (time zone difference), or would "accidentally" send the invite to your pager email instead, etc. to make others look bad.

I found similar going from UK to USA - can-do positive attitude, enthusiasm is appreciated. (This was private sector). This was 20 yrs ago though. Having returned to UK I think its got better here at least in tech. Also if you take a (slightly tempered, not in-ya-face) US attitude back to UK , in the right workplaces this goes down well because people actually like positive enthusiastic colleagues. In the UK it can be hard though getting managers to not see this as a threat. When I first returned the American pro-active attitude I think caused me to bomb an interview because I (innocently and tactfully at least I hoped ;) ) asked what reason they were using technology X and had they considered Y , which I think they took as a threat, someone who'd be insubordinate whereas in the US they'd more likely go "good question!" and be glad someone cared enough to ask (at least in my experience). I behaved the same the following week when interviewing at a startup and naturally, got that job. ;) Since then I think I adjusted to balance being pro-active with careful not to rock the political boat. American positivity has to be seen to be believed. ;). When in the US I was both impressed by people's ability to stay positive in the face of very difficult challenges, but slightly bemused by the amount of unfair s** people would silently put up with too e:g in customer service jobs. ;)

We're talking about cynicism and not criticism, correct? In my experience, cynicism is unproductive at best and anti-productive at worst. Criticism, of course, is valuable and healthy.

Cynicism is a good and healthy thing to share with colleagues over a beer, but when you're on the clock will kill morale. Arguably dumping loads of money on a vaporware moonshot is also a morale killer, but sniping at it in meetings helps no one.

Excessive cynicism in the face of actual positive change is bad, however when you have no power to change something, you resort to cynicism. If your employees feel no power to express themselves over your bad decisions, you've built a truly toxic system.

The tone comes from the top. If criticizing the CEO’s strategy is prohibited as “cynicism,” then lower level leaders throughout the company will take that as license to prohibit criticism of their own ideas. And often that type of criticism is far more productive.

If people are cynical in the face of positive change then that’s only because they have experience with previous examples of ‘positive change’ that turned out to not be positive after all.

It’s easy for bad leaders to redefine legitimate criticism as cynicism. When I worked for a company with a similar culture I saw this happen all the time.

Too much cyncism in any person or organization will lead to gridlock and/or burnout as new ideas are immediately scrapped and morale tanks. Just ask anyone who has worked for 10+ years in government. However, for a private company that kind of critical thinking is often important to make sure that all the lemmings don't run off the cliff.

It is interesting to me that cynicism is stifled at a cultural level at Meta. It is some kind of low-level cult like behavior, to stifle internal criticism. It must also breed a kind of in-group/out-group mentality, as I don't know a single person IRL who has a positive view of the company, its products, or the metaverse.

I find too much cynicism off-putting. I'm at a Big Tech adjacent (or not depending) company and one reason (of many) I don't consider Google as a potential employer is because everyone I've met there is deeply cynical about the company. I've gone places in my life I never expected I'd end up in, my own brain is wired to filter out cynicism. If I had to deal with a company culture deeply cynical about everything they work on, I'd either become irascible or horribly depressed.

People are different. Good thing we tech folks are well-compensated and are in fairly high demand.

Too much cynisism certainly sounds bad, but cynisism in and of itself shouldn't necessarily be problematic. Eskewing it entirely to always opt for optimism is inherently dishonest and does not acknowledge that sometimes having a negative response is fair and justified. And not allowing that as part of company culture is stifling.

Do you think people's cynisism about Google has made you miss out on a positive opportunity or can their discontent have signaled actual organizational issues that'd have affected you in negatively?

Some of this is quibbling about definitions in my head at least. Fundamentally I like working in environments where folks are optimistic but realistic, keenly aware of how effortless failure is. Discussing both failure and success should be allowed and encouraged, but constantly looking at the negative or opining about how an individual can't change anything in the organization doesn't feel healthy to me. Most Googlers I've talked to view the company as a large, corporate politics chess game where engineers are the pawns.

> Do you think people's cynisism about Google has made you miss out on a positive opportunity or can their discontent have signaled actual organizational issues that'd have affected you in negatively?

This is a really good question and I don't have a good answer for it. At this point my sample size is high enough that I'm inclined to think it's Google but I also realize my sample set has lots of correlating factors (they're more junior than me, they work in different areas than I would, etc, etc) that could lead to their cynicism that might not affect me.

> Most Googlers I've talked to view the company as a large, corporate politics chess game where engineers are the pawns.

Are they wrong?

I don't know, I'm not a Googler. I don't enjoy working with large groups of folks who think like this and I don't enjoy working in organizations where engineers are treated as pawns. Seems like either way, Google isn't the place for me. If you're a Googler you probably have a better understanding than I do.

I think across this thread we're conflating cynicism with skepticism. I am a utopian; I'm no believer in cynicism. It is unhelpful to shoot down everything or to refuse to even try, and a goal being unachievable doesn't necessarily means we won't accomplish valuable stuff in it's pursuit.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't examine and criticize ideas, that we shouldn't seek to improve upon them and - perhaps, if they are irreparable - abandon them for better ideas.

Attempting to force the market into a box that is convenient for you because it enhances your power and market position, because you want to be in control of a hardware platform to achieve parity with your competitors - and refusing to acknowledge it may not be what people actually want - that is truly cynical.

Cynicism is often a protection reaction against realizing things are not as they are stated. And that can happen for any number of reasons, but usually it's because the words and actions of the company aren't lining up in very noticeable ways.

From taking privately to a few Google employees, part of what drives the cynicism is disagreement with the organization's progressive political bias. Those who are more politically conservative know that openly expressing their opinions will result in retaliation, so they just grit their teeth and stay silent in order to continue collecting their large paychecks.

You say "cynicism", I say "acknowledging nudity".

> When people comment internally and there is even a hint of cynicism in what they say, they are frequently called out on it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like whenever people presented valid criticism, the standard approach to silence it would be to criticise the tone with a holier-than-thou attitude. Sounds like a cynical ploy to shield yourself from criticism.

> fostered is an awareness and avoidance of cynicism

There’s a fine line between fostering avoidance of cynicism on one side, and fostering koolaiding and yes-manning on the other.

I get that cynicism can be a negative thing, and can drag down people and groups. But I think there's a fine line between cynicism and (constructive) negative feedback. And I wonder if an anti-cynicism culture has the effect of silencing legitimate negative feedback as well.

About cynicism vs. criticism, I'm reminded about something Scott Alexander recounted in his review of Red Plenty, an actual historical event:

(Kantorovich) invented the technique of linear programming, a method of solving optimization problems perfectly suited to allocating resources throughout an economy. He immediately realized its potential and wrote a nice letter to Stalin politely suggesting that his current method of doing economics was wrong and he could do better - this during a time when everyone else in Russia was desperately trying to avoid having Stalin notice them because he tended to kill anyone he noticed. Luckily the letter was intercepted by a kindly mid-level official, who kept it away from Stalin and warehoused Kantorovich in a university somewhere.

Cynicism can be warranted. Of course it's possible to be excessively cynical, but lack of cynicism can be downright deadly. Sometimes you are in situations where you can do little, and the best you can do is still pretty awful. And if you suppress the doubts that could make you cynical, more often than not someone else has to carry those doubts for you, to at least prevent the disasters that ARE preventable.

>for me it's refreshing.

blink twice if you need help?

The kool-aid in the microkitchens is to die for :)

That's a form of thought policing. It's not cynical if it's a legitimate criticism. Ideas do not automatically deserve legitimacy, they must require reason first.

The metaverse is not real, it's not going to happen. The numbers are not there. All of those users are in vrchat, and when Facebook buys it and turns it into a hell scape of a child playground the community will yet again go elsewhere.

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