But not all mission statements are meaningless, and not all attempts by executives to create a family-like culture come from a bad place.
Much of it comes from a good place, and it often works. But people who experience this I think are less likely to write on HN.
Executives that make promises to their employees they can't deliver on should know better. You can't create a "family" out of your company because the realities of running a business make that impossible. It's fine to encourage mutual respect, etc as cultural values but it's important to make clear where the boundaries are or people will be hurt (either financially or emotionally) when you can't deliver. Saying the company is "like a family" is blurring these lines, not making them clear.
Edit: That's not even mentioning how "we're like a family" usually means "we're like a TV family". Many real families sometimes fight, swear at each other, say fucked up, sometimes racist/sexist/etc, things, talk about politics and religion, etc. Most larger companies would not tolerate any of this.
My family will support me no matter what. My family will never fire me. My family actually loves me.
None of those things are true with an employer.
I don't think that either of us know what "most people's" experience actually is. With the people I've gotten to know over the years, that is the most common experience. Apparently, it's not with the ones you have gotten to know.
Both of us have a selection bias going on.
Hate to break it to HN, but the most successful engineers I've met in the biz are also very empathetic and enjoyable to be around. This HN stereotype that you have to be an low-EQ, frustrated incel to work on software is incorrect in my reality. Just look at the top coders who are living (Linus, Guido, Hashimoto) and you will notice that they are very teamwork oriented people.
From my experience, the more a company TALKS about being a family, the less it acts like one.