[neilk]

At least under capitalism as we know it, no one workplace can supply the meaning of your life. You could have a personal mission for what you want to do with your professional life. But in any workplace, you and your employer are only committed to each other as long as it's economically advantageous.

Run away from any CEO who says something like "we're a family". Your family is committed to you no matter how economically valuable you are. That's not how it is at the workplace. And you probably don't want it to be any other way.

Thiel goes even further and says that he wants a cult? Maybe that works out if you happen to be CEO and also have a callous disregard for your employees' health.

In terms of deriving belonging from projects: I think there are things to learn here from Fred Turner, who has examined how Silicon Valley culture interacts with Burning Man culture. I'm not saying Burning Man is good or even better, but it offers a contrast between voluntary/amateur communities and professional workplaces.

https://logicmag.io/03-dont-be-evil/

Quote:

"At Burning Man, what you’re rehearsing is project-based collaborative labor. Engineers flowing in from the Valley are literally acting out the social structures on which Valley engineering depends. But they can do something at Burning Man that they can't do in the Valley: they can own the project. They can experience total “flow” with a team of their own choosing. In the desert, in weirdly perfect conditions, they can do what the firm promises them but can’t quite deliver."