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Clarification: I was not one of Triplebyte's founders (I was in the leadership there later, but not to start). I founded my current company, which - while it deliberately uses a similar model in many respects - is its own distinct thing with none of the same IP, clients, etc. > We all hate the culture on the social media network hosted by LinkedIn Who is "we" here? I work mostly with Bay Area companies and engineers looking for early-stage startups, about as HN-y a crowd as you could possibly hope for. A plurality of our candidates - about 30% - have come in from HN engagement. But many people on both sides of that set still buy into the things people theoretically hate about linkedin. Status-jockeying is everywhere, and insecurity shows up on both sides all the time. Founders are alert for any signal that you don't consider them The Most Special Company To Ever Exist (because they see that as a sign you'll leave). Engineers are often eager to withdraw at the first sign a company might not be a rocketship (because they want a stable job). It's not everyone, but it still happens plenty. I'm not blaming them. This is the correct self-interested strategy (within reason) for both sides. In a game of imperfect information, you try not to show when you have a bad hand, and you look to see if your opponent has one. Sometimes you bluff, and sometimes you call others' bluffs - and as long as everyone wants everyone else to stop lying first, this doesn't change. You can choose not to bluff (and I do) but you will be playing suboptimally if you do. And good bluffs don't look like bluffs - the stuff that you see as "banal and insincere" is just the people who suck at it. As a personal example: a friend of mine came to me yesterday and asked me about a job offer he was considering from a founder I'd met before. I hadn't been impressed with this founder. Bluster is pretty much all they seem to do, frankly (I'd blocked them on linkedin not long ago because I got annoyed with it). But my friend's impression was "wow, they seem so confident and energetic!". The bluster (or what I think is bluster, anyway) nearly became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and still might if my friend accepts their offer despite my opinions. This call, unfortunately, is coming from inside the house. We do signaling differently, but we still do it. |
Something I’ve started saying is “systems, not solutions.” If you aim to change the game at this point in most areas, you have to build a different system, not just a different solution. The way I define a system is also very important:
A system is a set of rules, norms, incentives, and consequences that define what is easy and what is hard.
You wanna change people’s behavior? Make the thing you want them to do stupidly easy. So easy they would feel like a fool to not do it. Then, make the thing you don’t want them to do incredibly hard, so hard that almost nobody will even try because it’s so clear to them that they’ll fail and feel terrible doing it.
That’s how you shift behavior.