What Your Startup Culture Really Says: the toxic lies afoot in Silicon Valley
blog.prettylittlestatemachine.com
blog.prettylittlestatemachine.com
For a culture that's supposed to love disruption, have anarchistic tendencies and be counter culture, it seems everyone's pretty easy to hurt, easily offended, a little close minded, and not at all open to anything questioning them.
A little disappointed in the HN culture. We should always be reevaulutating and in a state on constant flux. Status Quo is death because then we become the old and some new group who isn't us will out innovate, out manoeuvre us. Being status quo by definition means you aren't disrupting or innovating any more. Why should we only focus on technology and not culture? It seems a big weakness.
I've definitely seen cases where lack of defined roles leads to not a flat culture but in fact a culture where unspoken dynamics rule. I've seen "cultural fit" used to basically exclude a few introverts who aren't able to hit it off on a personal level with the founders (in this case, this meant liking to party and drink and talk superficially), which meant passing over some extraordinarily brilliant people. I've seen a lack of meetings lead not to collaboration, but to siloing of different activities. This is often not necessarily intentional, and the founders actually mean well, but it happens more often than you think.
First, if this was the motivation for this post then I'd recommend you take a deep breath and relax. Its not about you, its about them. And trust me when I say if someone doesn't hire you because they don't think you would fit into their culture, thank them. Nothing is worse for your own self esteem and sanity than trying to get stuff done in a company trying to reject you culturally.
Second, understand that culture rejections are like date rejections, sometimes its the real reason, sometimes its a more polite way of saying 'no thank you' but in either case move on.
That said, you spend a lot of time at the office, and you interact with these people in a day to day way, startups are by their nature small and like families small issues can be big problems (do you squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom or the middle?). Unlike families, you get the opportunity to pick a new startup when one doesn't fit. Avail yourself of that opportunity.
Tell you what, now that I have a bit of time, allow me to share with you my reasoning on why I responded the way I did, and perhaps you can share what you got out of our author's post.
I have always held that 'snark' is a unit of emotional hurt, and this particular posting appeared to be quite snarky. When I read provocative prose with words like 'lies' and 'nuevo-social' and '1% poster children' I see snark. And in this case 'I got no pony!'[1] level of snark. Thus I read the posting with the impression that the author had suffered a strong emotional blow and was venting. With that much hurt (perceived) I gave them slack for their otherwise very sloppy reasoning.
Our author asserts, "Culture is about power dynamics, unspoken priorities and beliefs, mythologies, conflicts, enforcement of social norms, creation of in/out groups and distribution of wealth and control inside companies." which is a highly arguable statement. I would posit that culture is about creating a structure to both set expectations and define success in an environment. Nothing about power over you or creating "in" or "out" groups or wealth or any of the things our author asserts. Our author further asserts that "Culture is exceedingly difficult to talk about honestly." which is also not true, they are attempting to be "honest" here in spite of their own declaration.
As the topical 'setup' for what is an emotional rant, the entire position statement in the first five paragraphs says exactly one thing "I (the author) am mad that I am unable to understand (or possibly to accept) what people are asking of me with regards to my behavior around others."
What follows then are a series of "sound bytes" pulled out as sub-heads with the author's flawed understanding of what they mean. The author has gone out of their way at times to attribute a level of deceit and malice to others that borders on paranoid but let's stick with what they wrote and go over it shall we?
On the sound bite "We make sure to hire people who are a cultural fit" the author claims the intent is " ... We have implemented a loosely coordinated social policy to ensure homogeneity in our workforce. We are able to reject qualified, diverse candidates on the grounds that they aren't a culture fit. while not having to examine what that means ..."
That reads very much like they (or someone they knew) considered themselves "qualified" and yet their application for employment was "rejected as a poor cultural fit." It seems they have taken the path that it is simpler to blame this on some malicious prep school like club when, on closer inspection it never is. The fact is that startups are desperate for qualified talent, that is what makes them go, however if the way in which a candidate comports themselves suggests they will cause friction with people who are already hired then, even if they are qualified, hiring them would be a bad decision if it increased problems at work.
Let's used a contrived example, lets say that three guys decide to start a company and they have always had a rich tradition of commenting their code. In fact they often exchange ideas in comments as they check things into a source repository. They find that this transparency in the thought process allows them to evolve the code based faster in a compatible way. Now, when interviewing to employee #1 (or #10 doesn't really matter) they ask about writing comments in code and the candidate replies : "Writing comments in code just slows me down, anyone to stupid to not be able to see what the code does shouldn't be reading my code." They may stop right there and say, "Thanks, but your not a cultural fit for company."
Nothing about power, nothing about secret societies, just a knowledge that working with this candidate won't "flow" because they depend on that dialog in comments and this candidate is unwilling to write comments. It's the founder's company, and this is a classic case of find people who are "a cultural fit."
Sound byte number two is "Meetings are evil and we have them as little as possible." which our author conveniently translates to "We have a collective post-traumatic stress reaction to previous workplaces that had hostile, unnecessary, unproductive and authoritarian meetings."
One asks (and I did) "Where did that come from?" And I answered myself with "I wonder if this person doesn't have any tools for keeping in touch with what is going on, and so a lack of meetings threatens them." Because keeping in touch as a developer is as straight forward as reading the commit log and talking to people. Now from a strategy, vision, mission perspective? Sure you want someone to let you know where you are heading, but most engineers hate a weekly status meetings that don't provide any value. So it seems our author has again projected their own mis-understanding into some malicious deceit.
One which stuck right out was the response to "We don't have a vacation policy." The authors interpretation of this is "We fool ourselves into thinking we have a better work/life balance when really people take even less vacation than they would when they had a vacation policy."
It would have helped had the author suggested what they interpret that to imply (wow that is a lot of indefinits!) but they chose not to so we have to speculate. Immature individuals will interpret a 'no vacation policy' to mean they can take vacation whenever, and for as long as, they want. A more reasoned interpretation is that folks can count on taking some time off to rest and recover once their product ships. A 'no explicit policy' does not mean that folks don't care how much you produce, rather it has always meant that you take time off to keep your productivity high when you are at work. Some people cannot handle that level of responsibility, either through lack of maturity or through mixed expectations. It isn't the culture that is evil though. Its like teachers who don't grade the homework, they still expect you to do it so that you have satisfied yourself that you understand the material. It doesn't mean "woo hoo we don't have to do the homework!"
Every single 'culture' point our author attacks they do so in a way the imputes some amazing ill will on the person espousing the point.
The most charitable interpretation I could come up with was that this person was feeling hurt, I accept that it is possible they are simply quite immature, or unable to internalize the concept of a culture model based on peer respect rather than explicit rules. I don't know if they read HN but on the off chance they did, I was trying to express, compassionately, that people aren't trying to deceive you with this discussion of culture, they are trying to communicate. Once you understand what they are saying you will understand better whether or not you want to work with them. I guess I failed at that.
In your original comment you ascribed motivations that are simply not true. Rather than discussing the merits of her essay you simply assumed that she didn't get a job so her thoughts could be dismissed without serious engagement. This was pretty patronizing. But anyways thanks for following up with a much more substantive explanation of your thoughts. I will attempt to do the same.
Fast forward to another tech boom. We've got another company, vaguely similar to the first, but this time they want to make it easier for websites to accept credit card based payments. They also recruit like mad and care a lot about culture. In fact they have something called a Sunday Test: "if this person were alone in the office on a Sunday would that make you more likely to come in and want to work with them?" It's a bit less clear what that means in this case, but it certainly sounds like they are optimizing for homogeneity.[2]
Those two stories are both about culture. They're both about companies working hard to define their own internal culture in a way that they think will make them more successful. Further I think that, in many ways, that they are right about this guess! Monocultures are very very useful in small early stage startups!
But aren't the effects of this kind of fucked up? Shouldn't we at least acknowledge the fact that not making a job offer to a guy because he used the word "hoops" is a little weird? And this doesn't even get into related issues of race or gender or class backgrounds.
Much of Shanley's post is about this sort of thing. She's not saying that meetings are great, or flat hierarchies are bad or that free lunches are bullshit. But she is saying that these things aren't 100% good. They come with some significant downsides that are rarely acknowledge inside of the "everything we do is awesome" startup bubble.
I don't think she is imputing ill will (well mostly, she is a bit). Rather she's just trying to throw some water in the face of a very self satisfied startup culture. She's saying "look around you guys! Some of these values that you think are 100% awesome have some big downsides!" And I think that is very laudable.
Apparently some of her rhetoric was a bit off the mark as some people are dismissing her post as bitter. That's too bad, because I think that she brings up some very real and very important issues.
1. http://blakemasters.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-...
2. http://firstround.com/article/How-Stripe-built-one-of-Silico...
I'd like to preface this discussion with a simple question, "Have you experienced working a company where you did not fit with the culture?"
I think it is important to consider that question in the context of discussing culture because it is informs on the downside, or the negatives associated with a poor fit. From reading your response, and shanley's post, I do not see that experience in your writing.
Before getting to your specific argument, its important to know if you agree, or at least acknowledge, that a cultural misfit can be very impactful on how somone experiences a situation. The sexism of a 'brogrammer' culture, casual racism of a supremicist culture, or even the passivity of a conformance culture. So let us agree on what we mean when we say what is 'culture' and what is 'not culture.'
When I say that our company has a 'we have a culture', I mean it to encompass those "principles we value", the "expectations we put on behavior", and the "judgments we apply to our interactions". In its simplest form it defines the kinds of qualities and behaviors we admire in our co-workers and those qualities and behaviors we dislike. I would further stipulate that for any group of people who spend time together, the degree with which those values and judgments align directly correlates with the 'pleasure' of spending time together.
I think if you can't understand these claims about what I mean when I talk about culture, then its safe to say we'll not make a lot of progress :-)
So lets look at your argument.
You use as your first example, Max Levchin discussing the importance of a consistent culture at PayPal in the early days, and their decision not to hire someone because they called the game of basketball 'hoops'. And you agree with Max's claim that a small group of people that share a very similar culture are more productive. Then you add this: "But aren't the effects of this kind of fucked up? Shouldn't we at least acknowledge the fact that not making a job offer to a guy because he used the word 'hoops' is a little weird?"
What Max says in this is that the general consensus on the existing team is that sports are a waste of time. I know a number of engineers who hold that view, they are amazed you can earn 9 figure incomes by throwing a ball around. Max seems to recognize that if this candidate came in and talked about "march madness" (the NCAA Tournament) they might be chided or kidded for their enthusiasm, snarky comments would be made about going to 'waste their time bouncing a ball while the team gets the product done' or something equally lame. Max was protecting this candidate and protecting the team at the same time. People can be very passionate about sports teams, and not respecting their team, or their sport, often gets translated into not respecting them. That is corrosive.
Your second example came from a recent article that was shared on HN where the folks at Stripe talked about the 'Sunday Test' question. That isn't a candidate question, that is an interviewer question. The interviewer asks themselves, "Is this candidate so awesome that if they felt they needed to be here Sunday to get what they were doing done, would I want to come in here and help them get it done?"
I don't know if you read it that way, but it is a 'gut check' on the part of the interviewer to see if they feel the kind of chemistry (or cultural fit) with this person that would inspire them. Given the challenge of finding people, and the down side of picking poorly, it's a way to try to get around how much you might "like" their presentation to see how you really feel. That level of self awareness doesn't come naturally to people, so tools like this help.
So I think you answered your question, the effect is not fucked up, the effect is that the team doesn't get distracted and this possible future employee doesn't feel alienated. Paypal avoided hiring people who would feel bad at work, Stripe gave their interviewers a way to ask themselves "how do you really feel about hiring this person."
And yes, its about culture, but it isn't about lying, its about honesty and knowing how the current team values things.
You added, "Much of Shanley's post is about this sort of thing. She's not saying that meetings are great, or flat hierarchies are bad or that free lunches are bullshit. But she is saying that these things aren't 100% good. They come with some significant downsides that are rarely acknowledge inside of the 'everything we do is awesome' startup bubble."
And this is where I think we read different articles :-) Shanley was calling out what she perceived to be lies. She didn't call them "often misinterpreted statements" or "meaning perhaps not what you think they mean". She said, "This is not a critique of the practices themselves, which often contribute value to an organization. This is to show a contrast between the much deeper, systemic cultural problems that are rampant in our startups and the materialistic trappings that can disguise them." and then goes on to assert that each sound bite is code for some rampant abuse of trust or an attempt at deception.
Shanley argument fails the test of truth, which is one way to analyze her rhetoric. She asserts time and again with the lead "What your culture might actually be saying is ..." So follow that lead. Now take any one of her sound bites and say "Ok we stipulate this is the actual culture." Now does it pass the sniff test? Does it even make sense?
Start with #1: We make sure to hire people who are a cultural fit
Stipulate her assertion: We reject qualified candidates based on superficial and unimportant reasons.
Now go find a startup where this assertion holds and the startup has made it through seed funding much less a series A.
#2: Meetings are evil
Stipulate: We avoid projects that require strict coordination across the company so that we don't have to have meetings.
Find a company that does that.
#3: We have people responsible for making work fun.
Stipulate: A mostly female team exists that gets the mostly male workforce to stay late.
Etc, etc. They all fall down. Startups don't do those things, they can't afford to.
There is nothing in her article that supports any of her assertions, even anecdotes, its all snark as far as I can see, and by now I think I've read it four or five times. She is either very inexperienced, very hurt, or both, but I don't think she has surfaced any deep cover up or deception.
If "culture fit" starts becoming a shibboleth for prejudice, that's just fine with me. One problem my company has never had is discrimination, but the occasional genuflection to "culture" in our hiring process has always annoyed the hell out of me; it was never more than the excuse we made for making hiring decisions without evidence.
Shanley's blog post asserted as motivation malice (vicious lies) to some common phrases used to describe some company cultures. She didn't really support any of her argument and used a lot of emotionally charged language that I interpreted to mean she had been told that she wasn't a good 'culture fit' for a job.
harryh here, felt I was being dismissive (pejoratively) of her accusations, which I sought to understand better as that wasn't my intent. He proceeds to try to put together an argument around the emotion shanley wrote.
The basis for my compassion to shanley's emotion was that I have experienced people who are trying to work in a place that is incompatible with a company's culture, and so I see 'cultural fit' as a legitimate line of reasoning for not offering someone a job. I've also seen those same people flourish when they found a better fit for their style of work.
That said, any part of a company's culture that is based on sex, age, race, religion, or sexual orientation is fundamentally illegal. But that isn't what we're talking about here, people who "love sports" are not a protected class.
So perhaps it is required that one stipulate in a discussion on culture that any culture that subverts existing anti-discrimination laws either by intent or by proxy is bad and should be called out as such. Prosecuted even. If so, consider it so stipulated.
And I would be the first person to say, in a discussion of company culture that the more inclusive and supporting a culture is of diversity and viewpoints, it is both healthier and more successful for the company over all as it is welcoming to the largest number of potential employees.
But that is not what this thread was about. Not for me. This thread was about ascribing malice and deceit to some concepts that are bandied about in the form of company culture. I see it as unfair to those companies who really care about their employees, and offering up one of these as a company value only to find the well poisoned by a someone such as shanley. To what end?
I was, as it happens, also that religion, but I was in the closet so they didn't know.
People of differing cultures can easily co-exist, just as long as one culture isn't trying to eliminate the other.
I would assert that stating it as a company value that the company seeks to hire all qualified candidates, and a company mandate to report and investigate and if necessary correct any potential discrimination as a strong culture statement. That would be a excellent example of the benefit of a strong company culture. If gave my nephew the courage to speak up, and it made their environment better.
Rather than take the time to write a coherent response, I'm just going to hose the room down with bullets:
* If a tech company was heard to be rejecting candidates for not liking sports --- for instance, if well-qualified applicants were turned away for not knowing which teams were in the American League Central --- nerds would be on their lawn with pitchforks and torches.
* There are plenty of "classes" of that aren't protected. For instance, your political affiliation is fair game under the law. Discriminating based on personal politics seems reasonable to approximately zero of us.
* Age discrimination is both not regulated in the class of companies occupied by most startups and rampant across the industry.
* Lots of non-protected behaviors are in reality proxies for protected behaviors; in particular, "culture fit" is an extremely common proxy method to filter out older works and mothers.
* In the post we're talking about, the post linked in this thread, and even in Paul Graham's essays, there's a theme of startups having the privilege to ignore antidiscrimination laws early on. It does us no good to pretend that everyone's on the same page about protected employment classes when the most widely cited writings in the field say that the ability not to hire women who might have children† is a benefit of starting a company.
* Environments where team members can't fit in if they don't drink, don't work noon-9:00PM, don't listen to the same music, don't play foosball, or don't each lunch with the team are common in startuplandia, but aren't intrinsic to the concept of a startup. You say you know people who were happier when they left these kinds of companies. But people are also happier when they leave companies where they're harassed. Surely that's not a justification for harassment!
* You say you picked up emotional language in the post, and thus (we infer) engaged with the content differently. You should be aware that studies show that people --- men and women alike --- engage with women differently than they do men.† In particular, the ability to write a blog post and have it not be read as "emotional" is at least in part a male privilege. Try rereading the post, but this time, instead of coming to an early conclusion that it's emotional, tell yourself "this is a radically different perspective on startup culture than I have; what can I learn from it?"
I'm an arrogant guy, but I'm not arrogant enough to assume everyone is on board with this (yet): it is immoral to reject candidates for reasons other than predicted ability to produce for the team, and it is immoral to rationalize non-performance rejections by inventing grounds to predict poor performance (like "culture fit"). In most circumstances, I think it's probably immoral to run companies in a manner that would prevent qualified parents of small children from contributing. There are real culture fit issues, but the air has been so thoroughly poisoned by startup misbehavior that we're probably going to have to invent a new term to describe them.
† Can you spot the problem with this logic?
†† Here's a recent study pertaining to the sciences: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/09/14/1211286109*
Perhaps not surprisingly, I care very much about good corporate culture and effective teams. And have worked at various times, and various places, to change behaviors that were antithetical to that. Weeding out and shutting down those 'proxies' you mention. I see that as part of what 'management' does, when its working well. I don't believe I've ever stated that I condone any form of discrimination, direct, indirect, or proxied.
I also recognize in myself a tendency to react strongly to speech which indiscriminately maligns what are generally good conceptual frameworks. A similar example was Steve Yegge's maligning the entire concept of Agile programming. It hits a sort of conversational reflexive kneecap in me, resulting in a nearly involuntary response in rebuttal.
It is, as you say, 'just a message board.'
I don't know what forms of discrimination you do or don't condone. You point out that love of sports is not a protected class; from that, I infer that you might be OK with the idea of discriminating based on that; you are, in fact, (gently) sticking up for that behavior.
I also don't know what forms of discrimination you're aware of. It is clear to me that the operators of many tech startups are not aware of the impact their "culture" has on their inclusiveness. Most of those operators would claim not to be biased against e.g. mothers, but many would in fact be creating environments hostile to them anyways.
When we start to venture into this discussion, it's important for you to realize that we are also validating the post that you've dismissed. Perhaps we're using language that is more congenial to you; that's a fair thing to point out, but if so, again, I suggest you re-read and re-evaluate the post, because you may have missed other things in it.
It is all love† with me and this comment.
† And procrastination
This is shaney's thesis statement:
"Culture is about power dynamics, unspoken priorities and beliefs, mythologies, conflicts, enforcement of social norms, creation of in/out groups and distribution of wealth and control inside companies. Culture is usually ugly. It is as much about the inevitable brokenness and dysfunction of teams as it is about their accomplishments. Culture is exceedingly difficult to talk about honestly. The critique of startup culture that came in large part from the agile movement has been replaced by sanitized, pompous, dishonest slogans."
You agree that this is a fair and true characterization of "culture" ? You were persuaded by her text that this is an accurate description of what motivates a corporate culture?
A neighbor of mine had his home seized by the bank, it was underwater, and they weren't willing to negotiate the terms of the loan. He posted a piece that was not a whole lot different than shaney's except that he asserted that Banks were an immoral and illegal institution run by the 1% to fleece the rest of us of our money, he made several "points" about how what they said they were doing one thing, when the reality was that those activities were just a cover for taking more of your money. He uniformly ignored any market impact banks had and screamed in rage at their inhumanity.
He wasn't successfully making any sort of argument that banks have no reason to exist other than to fleece us. Nor did he develop any insights about how banks might be improved, or what we could use to replace them. He was angry, and hurt, and sad, and bitter. Banks, and the shadowy 'them' that run them, became the focus of his anger.
I get it that you and harryh saw a deeper question about culture in the article than I did. I just saw what looked, in form at least, venting and anger. Just like my neighbor's bank screed.
As for her questions, they weren't a blanket judgement, more sometimes this is how far wrong what you say with good intention can go. It's a warning. And I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to back each up with at least one example which is all that's needed to demonstrate we need to be more careful and more aware of our internal company culture.
> distracted and this possible future employee doesn't feel alienated. Paypal avoided hiring people who would
> feel bad at work, Stripe gave their interviewers a way to ask themselves "how do you really feel about hiring
> this person."
I agree that the effect is that the team doesn't get distracted. I agree that the effect is that the employee doesn't feel alienated.
But is that enough?
There's a lot of casual sexism / brogrammer culture in our industry. Is a company that excludes women because it makes sure the team doesn't get distracted OK? Is a company that thinks "we can't hire her because she'd feel alienated if she was here" OK? A lot of the time I think that the "culture" fit moniker is used to systematically enforce a monoculture of young, white (or sometimes asian), privileged men.
And this can lead to less distracted, more focused, more successful team (especially in the short term)!
But is that ok? Maybe? If that's absolutely the only way to maintain team cohesion, but I don't think that's at all obvious.
> Stipulate her assertion: We reject qualified candidates based on superficial and unimportant reasons.
Go ask a random person on the street if rejecting a job applicant because they said the word "hoops" is a superficial or unimportant reason. 99 times out of 100 they'll say yes.
> Stipulate: We avoid projects that require strict coordination across the company so that we don't have to have meetings.
I, in fact, think this is a big problem in our industry. Talk to any company as they move up to ~100 people. Nearly all of them have huge communication challenges that they didn't have before and this directly impacts their ability to execute on larger scale work.
> Stipulate: A mostly female team exists that gets the mostly male workforce to stay late.
This also happens all the time. I bet eng teams at startups are 90% male. Then take a look at who the office managers, or recruiters, or HR, or assistents. Largely female.
> I don't think she has surfaced any deep cover up or deception.
She's not talking about a cover up. She's not talking about a bunch of evil startup managers sitting in a room thinking about how they can deceive their staff. It doesn't work that way. She's talking about the lies we all tell each other, and how those lies can have negative consequences.
"> Stipulate her assertion: We reject qualified candidates based on superficial and unimportant reasons. Go ask a random person on the street if rejecting a job applicant because they said the word "hoops" is a superficial or unimportant reason. 99 times out of 100 they'll say yes."
Isn't that leaving off a bit of context? Ask them if "Hiring someone who plays hoops on to a team that thinks basketball is a stupid waste of time and recently campaigned against tax payer funding of a local venue for an NBA team." is a smart idea.
You don't walk into a room full of people playing Magic the Gathering and tell them you need three more for a bridge game do you? It's a group of Magic players, not Bridge players.
But the real point is that not being asked to join a community you won't fit in with is a good thing for you and for the community, and it says nothing about your "value" or the communities "value." All it says is that you don't fit there. Further, that "you" the random person, aren't a cultural fit for a group doesn't make that group evil, deceitful, or even wrong.
I understand the point you are making, I don't agree with it. I think 'culture' is a natural outgrowth of 'group' and is not only a reasonable discriminator for choosing to add someone too a group, but also for choosing not to join or to leave a group. That said, I do agree that there are unreasonable discrimination criteria, they are codified by law.
"She's not talking about a cover up. She's not talking about a bunch of evil startup managers sitting in a room thinking about how they can deceive their staff. It doesn't work that way. She's talking about the lies we all tell each other, and how those lies can have negative consequences."
You seem to have a good grasp of what she is thinking which is great, I just don't think she wrote any of what you are asserting as her thoughts, are actually in the text I read.
If not, then what's the difference between that and our industry, in many cases, systematically excluding certain groups because it negatively effects their internal culture?
> But the real point is that not being asked to join a community you won't fit in
> with is a good thing for you and for the community
Ya, kid. I know you've wanted to work at a top Silicon Valley startup your whole life...but you know...we just don't think you'd fit in here. Your vibe just isn't quite right in a way we can't even really explain. But you should thank us! You really wouldn't have liked it here anyways. We know better.
> That said, I do agree that there are unreasonable discrimination criteria,
> they are codified by law.
And that law, which is very very hard to enforce, is ignored all the time in the name of culture. See stuff like this: http://www.redditlog.com/snapshot/2626/2887
> I just don't think she wrote any of what you are asserting as her thoughts,
> are actually in the text I read.
Maybe I'm seeing things that aren't there. But if so, I'm not the only one:
https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=prettylittlestatemachi...
That's an awful lot of praise.
I don't support discrimination. If you have been a victim of discrimination (I have) it sucks, and I feel badly for you.
There are thousands of companies, some work hard all day and night, some have more family values, some see computer code as art, some see it as a means to an end, some aspire to operate as smoothly as possible, some as quickly as possible. Those with corrosive or illegal cultures, fade away. Sometimes not as quickly as we would like but they don't survive. There are many different ports in the world as sailors might say.
I wasn't being dismissive of shanley's article, I felt badly for her as it seems like there is a lot of emotional hurt around this issue for her. You, harryh, are also pretty invested in this issue as well it seems. I hope that you find a company that is a great 'fit' for you and have a really great experience of a solid company culture.
It was nice talking to you though!
I very well might because people aren't one dimensional and an interest in one card game might indicate an interest in others.
> Isn't that leaving off a bit of context? Ask them if "Hiring someone who plays hoops on to a team that thinks basketball is a stupid waste of time and recently campaigned against tax payer funding of a local venue for an NBA team." is a smart idea.
If the team is a political action group, then ok, otherwise it has nothing to do with software.
There is a big difference between someone who plays some basket ball after work with some friends for their weekly exercise as opposed to what ever white male programmers are doing for sport to stay healthy (... nothing?) to pro sport NBA level players. This is a ridiculous argument.
I rock climb for my sport at work. No one else does. We haven't all gotten into huge arguments or ever been massively distracted by it. Some other people play badminton. Soem go to the gym. Some run. Some swim. Honestly, personal sport preference differences haven't destroyed our company opr even impacted it.
In fact I'm getting pretty tired of this defence of the thesis that "diversity is bad" because that's unproven and in fact I submit it's garbage. I'll posit diversity is actually good and makes things stronger.
But at this point with out either of us providing back up we're pretty much arguing for different world views and aren't going to get much further
That said, the merging of work and hobby is at a very advanced state in SV, which is a good and a bad thing. It's not so odd that they should overlap policy-wise.
I found it to be a useful reminder that practices I am often excited to see are not necessarily indicators of a healthy culture I would want to be a part of. I enjoy stoping for a minute to think "wait, could that apply to us?". I think it is important to consider if the culture behind a given practice is positive and empowering or how much it has shifted toward being dysfunctional or harmful.
and demonstrating the point. Life can rock. it doesn't have to be a grind.
I couldn't even get through it because everything was over-elaborated and dramatized.