[rigel_kentaurus]

This article would've been better with some concrete examples, or a study, or really anything to back it out. "Slack can be used for bad things". Well, so can email, mailing lists, support forums, internal chat systems (jabber), etc.

Not even one example, just "A lot of my CEO and founder friends talk about this".

As with any tool, it's how you use it. Best implementations I have seen of Slack is when the rules are clear for the beginning. Maybe channels are meant to be public and private is an exception, or the opposite (everything private to avoid noise). And clear guidelines. And to be fair, the discussion is usually a reflection of the company culture that is already present: formal, informal, direct. The tool just facilitates it.

[Cacti]

Exactly. “High-school type problems” are created by immature people, not the tool. That kind of behavior would never be tolerated at any of the companies I’ve worked at, no matter what the medium.

Tech companies, and startups in particular, tend to have these problems because their culture and leadership is sophomoric and immature, and those people hire and promote (or fail to fire) similar people.

If a CEO thinks this is a problem in their company, then they need to, well, be a CEO and do something about it. Leadership sets the tone. Lack of leadership creates a void.

[sharadov]

Exactly I've worked at places like this and the cadence is usually set by the people in leadership. If the boss up top is a drunk and boning every 20 year old ( been at one such place ), it sets the tone for everyone else. Also does not help if everyone in the team is young and DTF.