[phjohnst]

I always took PG's Hacker-centric culture to mean one of hacking in a broader sense, and not strictly applied to coding.

I believe that a hacker-centric culture is one that promotes innovation and is purely meritocratic, with a constant drive to improve and better absolutely everything.

So from my (very much outsider) perspective, Apple would definitely have a hacker culture, but it's not just about the code.

[trjordan]

Loosening the definition of hacker culture to "successful companies promote innovation and grade on merit", then yes, I agree. However, at that point, you can also claim the Toyota, earlier days of GE, and Walmart have hacker cultures, and I don't think that's true at all.

You can broaden pg's statement so it's never false, but that strips it of its interest and utility.

[phjohnst]

I think you're absolutely right: if you take it to mean anything, then it has no meaning.

However, as mechanical_fish touches on below, the definition of what a 'hacker' is (I think) is pretty misunderstood. Hacking is a creative process; are we trying to define creative people/roles/cultures merely by the tools that they use? That sort of limited scope feels extremely hubristic.

So maybe I didnt clearly express my point, and used bad examples: I'll accept that. The article seems to believe that Hacking = coding, and thus Hacking Culture = coding culture, which I think is a pretty limited way to look at things. Hacker culture is all about rejecting restrictive and unnecessary bureaucracy and procedures, and instead focussing on giving people the freedom and tools necessary to perform better and in a more creative way. Which I dont think really applies to your examples. A lot of places that claim innovation and free thinking still do so within a pretty rigid set of rules.

[bad_user]

I don't think anyone can agree on what hacking is, so discussing it is pointless, as is this article.

[hasenj]

I don't see a problem with saying that Toyota has a hacker culture.

Granted, I don't know anything about how Toyota (the company) works ..

[ssp]

Maybe the problem is simply that no one knows what "hacker values" actually are,.

[gloob]

A problem which is only made worse by the desire to apply the word "hacker", "hacking", and variants to everything.