[Applejinx]

Pretty sure crunch in a negative sense is a largely maleness thing. Ambition and combativeness (and to some extent pervasive dissatisfaction!) seem to be male-led.

These things have their place and if you get lucky (unlucky?) you get a Steve Jobs or perhaps a Travis Kalanik or Jeff Bezos, and you get a predator culture where the company is galvanized to beat the other guys up. Or you get a collective culture where this behavior is all you want and the main thing to reward…

However, looking at it on the larger scale, the more open systems (say, the birth of the personal computer industry that produced a Jobs and Wozniak) could be seen as less competitive, more 'feminine' boom times where cooperation and networking weren't eclipsed by raw power. In those 'less male' times more overall progress was made and the foundations were laid for the big dick-swingin' companies that would come to dominate. Perhaps without times like that, you don't even get the Jobs and Bezos and Kalanik.

Pretty strong argument in favor of open development: though even that will inevitably find ways to turn competitive and be directed by the most dominant. But if the principle is one of extending a common body of understanding, that remains more broadly available.