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Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

I work in startups in NYC. None of the things described are even remotely close to shocking for me - I've seen all of the above first-hand either in offices or at startup events.

That said, I've never seen all those things under the same roof, much less in a single day. The perfect storm of insanity makes me doubt the author's story a little bit, but each of the things she's brought up I've seen.

Shit, I literally just read a racist internal email an hour ago about the new cleaning lady at the office.

Plus the pointless credential-rundown you get every. single. goddamn. time. you meet a startup person in this city. Oh, you went to Harvard 10 years ago? That's so relevant considering we just met 2 minutes ago! You used to work at Goldman and now you're doing a consumer-tech startup? Yeah, that really needed to be in the first 3 sentences you've ever spoken to me.

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Oh my god it is exactly like that. As though pushing spreadsheets at Goldman has anything to do with building a software product. But they know that, they just want you to know they worked at Goldman. Because Goldman.

I once worked under a CTO who remarked "it's not like we're going to hire a woman" after interviewing a female dev candidate, which would be horribly offensive even if he was just kidding (he wasn't kidding, I was shocked he even took the time to interview her).

There's definitely a sense of "startups are the new banking." It's frustrating because there are also a lot of good people, but man is there a glut of bros who fit all the worst stereotypes of old boys club business.

|There's definitely a sense of "startups are the new banking."

We need a new word. "Startup" has essentially become as meaningless as "agile". Semantically, "startup" is now just an umbrella under which the same paper-pushers and conference-call-bros we were trying to escape from are convening.

I used to agree but I recently read this old quote from PG which nails it I think:

"A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup."

http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

I have nothing but respect and admiration for PG, but I don't think he gets to unilaterally decide the meaning of words.

Wikipedia says a startup is "a partnership or temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model"[1]. The relevant Wiktionary entry defines it as a "new organization or business venture"[2], fairly similar to the OED's "newly established business" definition[3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company

[2] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/startup

[3] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...

As a counterpoint, the Wikipedia definition of startup was coined by Steve Blank sometime in the past ~5 years, so it's not exactly ancient history.

I think if we place emphasis on the word "scalable," PG + Blank's definitions are compatible. Both distinguish "startup" from "new company." I don't think most people would categorize building a tech company and starting a hair salon as the same activity because of the force multiplier of scale.

I can do one better. I went to a job fair type event with one of the cofounders of the company, and I was pushing a very qualified woman we met there. The cofounder told me, with a very thoughtful look on his face, "I'm not sexist... but I just don't like working with women."

I was on a team trying to setup a spinout company in Australia of all places. My corporate overlords built a team, boy band style, to go investigate the market with a minimum product, really experienced people who had seen and done a lot. About half the team was on their second career after retiring out of their first, but all were brilliant. I think we added it up and there was something like 170 years of experience in my small group (I was by far the junior person on the team).

During the sit down on the marketing meeting a new person was introduced to the team (not unusual). They came up to the group and was obviously another senior, experienced addition to the group, hopefully with a long and interesting career behind them.

They walked up to the front of the group and introduced themselves, "Hi I'm <name>, I went to Yale" and sat down at the table and proceeded to offer nothing of any substance over the next 8 weeks until they were quietly asked to go "contribute" their Yale credentials somewhere else.

I've been hit with every kind of credential wagging since then, "When I was at McKinsey..."* or "When I went to Harvard..."+ are usually immediate signs of an immensely useless person and I go out of my way to avoid them. It's actually kind of pathetic.

The best people I've ever met actually seemed a bit shy about notable credentials in their past and it wasn't until after months of probing that I could finally learn about some cool job or notable place they went to school.

* I wrote this before reading the article

+ seriously, it's like a cliche

As an interesting side anecdote, I just spent the last 6 months living in Kenya with the same kind of Harvard / McKinsey style crowd except in the social enterprise / NGO space.

As someone who was coming from a very different background to a lot of these people, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect.

While I would be the first to admit that things are less than perfect in a number of ways, generally speaking the people I met and eventually ended up consulting for couldn't possibly be much further from some of the personalities described in a number of the comments here.

Overall I was super impressed with the humility, the intelligence and the general standard that I saw in a lot of these people.

Then again, there is a world of difference between someone who chooses to live on next to nothing in a 3rd world country where they are there primarily to help others and the types described in the article.

Thanks for the counter-anecdote. I've met so many people who start the conversation off with a credential drop and then turn out to be useless oxygen thieves that I forget that there really are some smart dedicated people out there with the same kinds of top-tier credentials as attributes who do good work.

bad Bane, stereotyping is bad!

As I understood it, it's not the credentials per se you have the problem with, it's the way people bring them up. You two might be talking about different kinds of people.

Interestingly, it's a social red flag in Australia to brag about your history by name-dropping. I gather your team wasn't Australian at all, but I can't ever imagine a local name-dropping in the same way and getting anywhere with it. Possibly name-dropping in terms of "I worked with Dr Famous", which would be uncommon but accepted in the right crowds, but not for institutions. It's part meritocracy, part preferring the underdog, and part tall-poppy syndrome that keeps people quiet, I guess...

> I gather your team wasn't Australian at all

No, all Americans. But from a wide variety of backgrounds.

They should fire the co-founder. That is unacceptable behavior.

For me, it's a huge signal when a founder or exec at a startup mentions an ivy league school or a "marquee" name. I've worked for big names in tech, I don't go around bragging about it.

Only time to brag is if you were a cofounder of the company you're referring to.

Who hasn't worked for a Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Apple/Facebook/etc?

You worked at goldman? Ok, so I'm to take from that the assumption that you're entitled and incompetent to be leading a tech startup? Good to know.

You went to Harvard? And you think this is relevant? So you care about pedigree more than competence? We can expect nepotism as you hire your friends? Good to know.

These are great services they are offering-- you know not to take the job.

Sign of the end for the startup economy imho - I remember during the first dot com bubble that when the consultants/MBAs starting doing startups (broadly) it was time to pack it up. Not that all MBAs or consultants are bad - but it isn't a good sign. Like a great party that has been discovered by the assh*les. I hope I'm wrong, but man, it feels familiar.

Well, in Uruguay, if you get to Facebook or Google or Apple, you literally make the news:

http://www.elpais.com.uy/vida-actual/felipe-primer-uruguayo-...

That's the biggest newspaper in the country, which incorrectly identified the first Uruguayan who worked for Facebook.

Interestingly, there are quite a few Uruguayans at Microsoft, and I think there are a couple at Google.

I work at startups at the valley. I was briefly employed at one that was sending candidates a code test that involved printing a picture of a naked woman (in ascii art, but naked nonetheless). In mid-2014. From a cto who was a senior manager at google and presumably took at least one sexual harassment class.

The HR guy in the sexual harassment videos you had to watch every two years at Microsoft was fired for sexual harassment. No amount of training seems to overcome base desire.

It's not about base desires, it's that some people are simply assholes. No amount of training will overcome someone's asshole nature.

There is a prevalent and totally erroneous school of thought which naively assumes that people do bad things simply because they don't know any better, and so all you have to do is take them aside as you would a misbehaving kindergartener for some "training" and then all will be well. It doesn't work that way. Some people are just assholes and always will be, irrespective of any amount of "training" you give them.

I don't think that school of thought is actually prevelant. They make you go to training classes so if there is a lawsuit they can point to all the training and say it's the individual's fault, not the company's.

The training is to teach them to hide it so they can stay employed.

It doesn't matter if somebody is a racist/sexist/homophobe as long as they don't act it out.

You're right. I made a facile comment in haste and I was wrong.

Some people, sure. But I don't think everyone who misbehaves is irredeemable.

For every problem, there is an answer that is simple, easy, and wrong.

Grasshopper, the anti-harassment videos are not for the benefit of the employee. Then again, nothing is, except the dollars you get to carry home at the end of every month.

Their only purpose is to deflect liability from the company in case any employee should bring a court case. "Your Honor, we couldn't possibly be held responsible for condoning a hostile work atmosphere, we have our employees sit through those execrable things once a year." Judging from just how popular they are, this tactic is working well.

You are correct. I didn't mean to imply there was any value to the employee in watching them.

Harassment isn't about "desire." It's about being a sociopath, and feeling entitled to control and humiliate others.

Abuse is about power and control, not "desire."

I suspect that the idea that harassment is never about desire is more like a "correct narrative" than an unassailable truth. people find it very convenient to reduce every situation to a set of accepted rules but humanity tends to be messy and resistant to strict classification.

Wow! Do you have a link or anything?

I have contacted you via email.

ack. not too surprised given all of the other issues that have come up re: misogyny x tech in 2014.

"Shit, I literally just read a racist internal email an hour ago about the new cleaning lady at the office."

Serious question. What did you do about it?

>Oh, you went to Harvard 10 years ago? That's so relevant considering we just met 2 minutes ago! You used to work at Goldman and now you're doing a consumer-tech startup? Yeah, that really needed to be in the first 3 sentences you've ever spoken to me.

I agree that it's a bit pointless to mention that you studied in a prestigious university, but unlike the other commenters I think it makes sense to say that you worked in a company that is reputed to pay well, because if you left that well paying job it means that you have high hopes for that startup. Of course it would be douchey to say "Hey, I am Sam, and I used to work at Goldman, so kneel in front of me!", but saying "I worked at Goldman but I believe there is more money to be made in the house cleaning space" is a sign of confidence in the company - something I would like to see in a founder.

because if you left that well paying job

If someone says that they worked at a well paying job, my suspicion would be that they were run out of it, doubly so if they were engaged with such a shoddy, rag tag start-up. It would take pretty strong evidence to the contrary to believe otherwise.

Your last paragraph has me cracking up. It reminds me of Todd Barry's sarcastic delivery.

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