[apwell23]

Maybe you have influence on trival stuff like which testing framework to use. In my experience working at many small and medium startups is that most of the impactful decisions are still made by the in-group boysclub.

For some reason lots of people seem to have this misconception that startups are somehow more meritocratic than big corporates. I found the opposite to be true.

Your job working at startup is to get into that group and be one of the boys.

[palata]

Similar experience here.

Also becoming one of the boys is not about technical ability at all: it's marketing. What you need to do to get in the boysclub will depend on the group, but I have never seen a startup where it was about being good at what you do.

Conversely, there seems to be this misconception that corporates are boring, slow, full of useless processes. But my experience is that "slow" may be another word for "healthy", and "useless processes" may be a way to call "the cool kids can't make the rules". I find it more rewarding.

And if you have a ton of energy to work on projects that you find exciting, better do it in your free time and own it. Startups are a Ponzi scheme: unless you are one of the founders, you won't get compensated for all the extra work. So make sure you "own" (or at least benefit from) it: maybe it means that you have to do it at home and never talk about it at work, maybe it means that you can do it open source in your free time, and the best is if you can do it open source at work.

[scarface_74]

I’ve been recruited specifically as an early strategic hire via my network to set direction either at a startup or by a new to the company CTO or director three times in my career. It’s the sweet spot to guide major decisions and initiatives

[soseng]

This really triggered a lot of old memories from my early career. I started off as the 7th employee - as a Jr dev in a startup that eventually grew to 100+ and felt like an outsider for years. At some point I became a "senior" dev and the insider at this tiny company. It was quite a bit more stressful actually. I made more important decisions but it was super interesting. After having that insider taste, I kept chasing it at bigger corps for many years by becoming staff and eventually leading teams but never got that feeling again. I was either below a director or VP. To be young again...

[bdndndndbve]

> Your job working at startup is to get into that group and be one of the boys.

First step: be a man.

No but seriously in my experience this is a pre-requisite.

[catlifeonmars]

Meritocratic? No. Anarchic? I think yes to a degree. Your job is to ship, and implementation beats consensus.

Disclaimer: You pay the cost in (a) social capital and (b) tech debt from the occasional shortsighted decision, so use this approach tactfully and judiciously.

[neilv]

Exactly. But can we rename it to non-gender-specific "old children's club" or "the cool kids"? :)

But seriously, I think probably I need to be technical co-founder, or a trusted first/veryearly hire. Then, as we grow, I'd try to hire rare smart and aligned people, so we can empower them to make decisions without them quickly fudging up the highly effective company that the "old fogies club" started.

[palata]

> But can we rename it to non-gender-specific "old children's club" or "the cool kids"? :)

I don't really see a need to share that to non-boys; it seems to usually be boysclubs. Never seen that happen with non-boys, at least.

> I think probably I need to be technical co-founder, or a trusted first/veryearly hire.

No, that's not about that. I have been that multiple times, still ended up with a boysclub. You have to be a "cool kid". Like in schools, there is no one rule for that. Sometimes you'll have to be good at sport, sometimes look badass, ...

And then again, if you end up being the leader of the group... maybe you are the one doing to the others what you were trying to avoid. In my experience, those people always genuinely believe they are loved and admired, even if the first thing employees do when they have beers "privately" is complain about how much they hate those leaders.

I guess that's the problem in being in the dominant position: you are biased, because you are in the dominant position.

[neilv]

> And then again, if you end up being the leader of the group... maybe you are the one doing to the others what you were trying to avoid. In my experience, those people always genuinely believe they are loved and admired, even if the first thing employees do when they have beers "privately" is complain about how much they hate those leaders.

I don't have enough data points, but I suspect that trying to nurture honest communication and trust can help you avoid this outcome. (I've been blessed to have had a few managers who I'd still trust to be honest and smart, and to look out for me as an employee/person.)

Though, I suppose you can still do months/years of trust-building and working together well, and then one day you invoke your authority, to make a call that people really don't understand/agree with. Maybe you spoiled the trust so much, that, in one minute, people revert to the default dynamic that they learned all through schooling and at other jobs: tiptoeing around someone who is in authority. Then they stop giving you candid feedback, so you diverge more, and then their outlet is to complain about you.

[palata]

I see it the other way round: the company culture is strongly related to the CEO. It's not that the employees spontaneously tend to behave like at school, but rather that the CEO (and his boysgroup) create this atmosphere.

Those in power define the culture. But those in power are also very biased: employees are naturally careful towards those in power (obviously). Those in power like to say "please feel free to speak up" and "I listen to you" (they all say that, even (especially?) the toxic ones). But it doesn't change the fact that they are highly biased.

The likelihood to have a bad CEO in a startup is a lot higher than in a bigger company, because startup CEOs are usually inexperienced founders who had a big-enough ego to try to create a startup. The risk of them abusing their dominant position is, IMO, very high. Whether they want it or not.

I like to compare it to the #metoo movement. There are people (mostly men, to be honest) in power who have abused subordinates without even realising it. And then they genuinely don't understand that a subordinate may sue them because they haven't even realised that they were abusing them! When you are in power, you have a responsibility to be more careful, because your subordinates may not be in a position to contradict you. "She was consenting" has a very different meaning when "she" was in a position to be scared to say no.

All that to say, it's extremely easy to become toxic when you are in a dominant position. And startup founders usually have no experience, which makes it even more likely.