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Comment by zwkrt | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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