I would be interested in what gave you the impression I was being
dismissive, I was shooting for compassionate.
Tell you what, now that I have a bit of time, allow me to share with
you my reasoning on why I responded the way I did, and perhaps you can
share what you got out of our author's post.
I have always held that 'snark' is a unit of emotional hurt, and this
particular posting appeared to be quite snarky. When I read
provocative prose with words like 'lies' and 'nuevo-social' and '1%
poster children' I see snark. And in this case 'I got no pony!'[1] level
of snark. Thus I read the posting with the impression that the author
had suffered a strong emotional blow and was venting. With that much
hurt (perceived) I gave them slack for their otherwise very sloppy
reasoning.
Our author asserts, "Culture is about power dynamics, unspoken
priorities and beliefs, mythologies, conflicts, enforcement of social
norms, creation of in/out groups and distribution of wealth and
control inside companies." which is a highly arguable statement. I
would posit that culture is about creating a structure to both set
expectations and define success in an environment. Nothing about power
over you or creating "in" or "out" groups or wealth or any of the
things our author asserts. Our author further asserts that "Culture
is exceedingly difficult to talk about honestly." which is also
not true, they are attempting to be "honest" here in spite of their
own declaration.
As the topical 'setup' for what is an emotional rant, the entire
position statement in the first five paragraphs says exactly one thing
"I (the author) am mad that I am unable to understand (or possibly to
accept) what people are asking of me with regards to my behavior
around others."
What follows then are a series of "sound bytes" pulled out as
sub-heads with the author's flawed understanding of what they mean.
The author has gone out of their way at times to attribute a level of
deceit and malice to others that borders on paranoid but let's stick
with what they wrote and go over it shall we?
On the sound bite "We make sure to hire people who are a cultural fit"
the author claims the intent is " ... We have implemented a loosely
coordinated social policy to ensure homogeneity in our workforce. We
are able to reject qualified, diverse candidates on the grounds that
they aren't a culture fit. while not having to examine what that
means ..."
That reads very much like they (or someone they knew) considered
themselves "qualified" and yet their application for employment
was "rejected as a poor cultural fit." It seems they have taken
the path that it is simpler to blame this on some malicious prep
school like club when, on closer inspection it never is. The fact is
that startups are desperate for qualified talent, that is what makes
them go, however if the way in which a candidate comports themselves
suggests they will cause friction with people who are already hired
then, even if they are qualified, hiring them would be a bad decision
if it increased problems at work.
Let's used a contrived example, lets say that three guys decide to
start a company and they have always had a rich tradition of
commenting their code. In fact they often exchange ideas in comments
as they check things into a source repository. They find that this
transparency in the thought process allows them to evolve the code
based faster in a compatible way. Now, when interviewing to employee
#1 (or #10 doesn't really matter) they ask about writing comments in
code and the candidate replies : "Writing comments in code
just slows me down, anyone to stupid to not be able to see what the
code does shouldn't be reading my code." They may stop right there and
say, "Thanks, but your not a cultural fit for company."
Nothing about power, nothing about secret societies, just a knowledge
that working with this candidate won't "flow" because they depend on
that dialog in comments and this candidate is unwilling to write
comments. It's the founder's company, and this is a classic case of
find people who are "a cultural fit."
Sound byte number two is "Meetings are evil and we have them as little
as possible." which our author conveniently translates to "We have a
collective post-traumatic stress reaction to previous workplaces that
had hostile, unnecessary, unproductive and authoritarian meetings."
One asks (and I did) "Where did that come from?" And I answered myself
with "I wonder if this person doesn't have any tools for keeping in touch
with what is going on, and so a lack of meetings threatens them."
Because keeping in touch as a developer is as straight forward as
reading the commit log and talking to people. Now from a strategy,
vision, mission perspective? Sure you want someone to let you know
where you are heading, but most engineers hate a weekly status
meetings that don't provide any value. So it seems our author has
again projected their own mis-understanding into some malicious
deceit.
One which stuck right out was the response to "We don't have a
vacation policy." The authors interpretation of this is "We fool
ourselves into thinking we have a better work/life balance when really
people take even less vacation than they would when they had a
vacation policy."
It would have helped had the author suggested what they interpret that
to imply (wow that is a lot of indefinits!) but they chose not to so
we have to speculate. Immature individuals will interpret a 'no
vacation policy' to mean they can take vacation whenever, and for as
long as, they want. A more reasoned interpretation is that folks can
count on taking some time off to rest and recover once their product
ships. A 'no explicit policy' does not mean that folks don't care
how much you produce, rather it has always meant that you take time
off to keep your productivity high when you are at work. Some people
cannot handle that level of responsibility, either through lack of
maturity or through mixed expectations. It isn't the culture that is
evil though. Its like teachers who don't grade the homework, they
still expect you to do it so that you have satisfied yourself that
you understand the material. It doesn't mean "woo hoo we don't have to
do the homework!"
Every single 'culture' point our author attacks they do so in a way
the imputes some amazing ill will on the person espousing the point.
The most charitable interpretation I could come up with was that this
person was feeling hurt, I accept that it is possible they are simply
quite immature, or unable to internalize the concept of a culture
model based on peer respect rather than explicit rules. I don't know
if they read HN but on the off chance they did, I was trying to
express, compassionately, that people aren't trying to deceive you
with this discussion of culture, they are trying to communicate. Once
you understand what they are saying you will understand better whether
or not you want to work with them. I guess I failed at that.
There is much that I disagree with in this comment. And that's ok! Disagreement about this sort of thing is good! It's how we can have real discussions about what works and what doesn't about the cultures we create. I'm going to attempt to respond in depth in a followup comment but I wanted to go ahead and start by saying this this comment is FAR FAR better than your first because it actually addresses the issues that Shanley brought up.
In your original comment you ascribed motivations that are simply not true. Rather than discussing the merits of her essay you simply assumed that she didn't get a job so her thoughts could be dismissed without serious engagement. This was pretty patronizing. But anyways thanks for following up with a much more substantive explanation of your thoughts. I will attempt to do the same.
Let's say a couple of guys start a company to make it easy for people to send money back and forth to each other over email. They, like all startups, are desperate for talent so they recruit like mad. But it's important to them not only to get folks with engineering chops, but that they get folks who will fit in with their culture. In fact, one time they reject someone because he said that he liked to play hoops and they thought that was a funny way to say basketball.[1]
Fast forward to another tech boom. We've got another company, vaguely similar to the first, but this time they want to make it easier for websites to accept credit card based payments. They also recruit like mad and care a lot about culture. In fact they have something called a Sunday Test: "if this person were alone in the office on a Sunday would that make you more likely to come in and want to work with them?" It's a bit less clear what that means in this case, but it certainly sounds like they are optimizing for homogeneity.[2]
Those two stories are both about culture. They're both about companies working hard to define their own internal culture in a way that they think will make them more successful. Further I think that, in many ways, that they are right about this guess! Monocultures are very very useful in small early stage startups!
But aren't the effects of this kind of fucked up? Shouldn't we at least acknowledge the fact that not making a job offer to a guy because he used the word "hoops" is a little weird? And this doesn't even get into related issues of race or gender or class backgrounds.
Much of Shanley's post is about this sort of thing. She's not saying that meetings are great, or flat hierarchies are bad or that free lunches are bullshit. But she is saying that these things aren't 100% good. They come with some significant downsides that are rarely acknowledge inside of the "everything we do is awesome" startup bubble.
I don't think she is imputing ill will (well mostly, she is a bit). Rather she's just trying to throw some water in the face of a very self satisfied startup culture. She's saying "look around you guys! Some of these values that you think are 100% awesome have some big downsides!" And I think that is very laudable.
Apparently some of her rhetoric was a bit off the mark as some people are dismissing her post as bitter. That's too bad, because I think that she brings up some very real and very important issues.
Ok, well I think I see where we part ways, lets see if I can communicate it.
I'd like to preface this discussion with a simple question, "Have you
experienced working a company where you did not fit with the culture?"
I think it is important to consider that question in the context of
discussing culture because it is informs on the downside, or the
negatives associated with a poor fit. From reading your response, and
shanley's post, I do not see that experience in your writing.
Before getting to your specific argument, its important to know if you
agree, or at least acknowledge, that a cultural misfit can be very
impactful on how somone experiences a situation. The sexism of a
'brogrammer' culture, casual racism of a supremicist culture, or even
the passivity of a conformance culture. So let us agree on what we
mean when we say what is 'culture' and what is 'not culture.'
When I say that our company has a 'we have a culture', I mean it to encompass
those "principles we value", the "expectations we put on behavior", and
the "judgments we apply to our interactions". In its simplest form it
defines the kinds of qualities and behaviors we admire in our co-workers
and those qualities and behaviors we dislike. I would further
stipulate that for any group of people who spend time together, the
degree with which those values and judgments align directly
correlates with the 'pleasure' of spending time together.
I think if you can't understand these claims about what I mean when I
talk about culture, then its safe to say we'll not make a lot of
progress :-)
So lets look at your argument.
You use as your first example, Max Levchin discussing the importance
of a consistent culture at PayPal in the early days, and their
decision not to hire someone because they called the game of
basketball 'hoops'. And you agree with Max's claim that a small group
of people that share a very similar culture are more productive. Then
you add this: "But aren't the effects of this kind of fucked up?
Shouldn't we at least acknowledge the fact that not making a job offer
to a guy because he used the word 'hoops' is a little weird?"
What Max says in this is that the general consensus on the existing
team is that sports are a waste of time. I know a number of engineers
who hold that view, they are amazed you can earn 9 figure incomes by
throwing a ball around. Max seems to recognize that if this candidate came in
and talked about "march madness" (the NCAA Tournament) they might be
chided or kidded for their enthusiasm, snarky comments would be made
about going to 'waste their time bouncing a ball while the team gets
the product done' or something equally lame. Max was protecting this
candidate and protecting the team at the same time. People can be very
passionate about sports teams, and not respecting their team, or their
sport, often gets translated into not respecting them. That is
corrosive.
Your second example came from a recent article that was shared on HN
where the folks at Stripe talked about the 'Sunday Test' question.
That isn't a candidate question, that is an interviewer question. The
interviewer asks themselves, "Is this candidate so awesome that if
they felt they needed to be here Sunday to get what they were doing
done, would I want to come in here and help them get it done?"
I don't know if you read it that way, but it is a 'gut check' on the
part of the interviewer to see if they feel the kind of chemistry (or
cultural fit) with this person that would inspire them. Given the
challenge of finding people, and the down side of picking poorly, it's
a way to try to get around how much you might "like" their
presentation to see how you really feel. That level of self awareness
doesn't come naturally to people, so tools like this help.
So I think you answered your question, the effect is not fucked up, the
effect is that the team doesn't get distracted and this possible
future employee doesn't feel alienated. Paypal avoided hiring people
who would feel bad at work, Stripe gave their interviewers a way to
ask themselves "how do you really feel about hiring this person."
And yes, its about culture, but it isn't about lying, its about
honesty and knowing how the current team values things.
You added, "Much of Shanley's post is about this sort of thing. She's
not saying that meetings are great, or flat hierarchies are bad or
that free lunches are bullshit. But she is saying that these things
aren't 100% good. They come with some significant downsides that are
rarely acknowledge inside of the 'everything we do is awesome' startup
bubble."
And this is where I think we read different articles :-) Shanley was
calling out what she perceived to be lies. She didn't call them "often
misinterpreted statements" or "meaning perhaps not what you think they
mean". She said, "This is not a critique of the practices themselves,
which often contribute value to an organization. This is to show a
contrast between the much deeper, systemic cultural problems that are
rampant in our startups and the materialistic trappings that can
disguise them." and then goes on to assert that each sound bite is
code for some rampant abuse of trust or an attempt at deception.
Shanley argument fails the test of truth, which is one way to analyze
her rhetoric. She asserts time and again with the lead "What your
culture might actually be saying is ..." So follow that lead. Now take
any one of her sound bites and say "Ok we stipulate this is the actual
culture." Now does it pass the sniff test? Does it even make sense?
Start with #1: We make sure to hire people who are a cultural fit
Stipulate her assertion: We reject qualified candidates based on
superficial and unimportant reasons.
Now go find a startup where this assertion holds and the startup has
made it through seed funding much less a series A.
#2: Meetings are evil
Stipulate: We avoid projects that require strict coordination across
the company so that we don't have to have meetings.
Find a company that does that.
#3: We have people responsible for making work fun.
Stipulate: A mostly female team exists that gets the mostly male
workforce to stay late.
Etc, etc. They all fall down. Startups don't do those things, they
can't afford to.
There is nothing in her article that supports any of her assertions,
even anecdotes, its all snark as far as I can see, and by now I think
I've read it four or five times. She is either very inexperienced,
very hurt, or both, but I don't think she has surfaced any deep cover
up or deception.
Chuck, this thread stops being so benign when it starts offering up defenses for Levchin's hiring advice, which is frankly odious. That Levchin note is prefixed with a recommendation to actively resist diversity early on, and is followed by a rationalization for gender discrimination.
If "culture fit" starts becoming a shibboleth for prejudice, that's just fine with me. One problem my company has never had is discrimination, but the occasional genuflection to "culture" in our hiring process has always annoyed the hell out of me; it was never more than the excuse we made for making hiring decisions without evidence.
> So I think you answered your question, the effect is not fucked up, the effect is that the team doesn't get
> distracted and this possible future employee doesn't feel alienated. Paypal avoided hiring people who would
> feel bad at work, Stripe gave their interviewers a way to ask themselves "how do you really feel about hiring
> this person."
I agree that the effect is that the team doesn't get distracted.
I agree that the effect is that the employee doesn't feel alienated.
But is that enough?
There's a lot of casual sexism / brogrammer culture in our industry. Is a company that excludes women because it makes sure the team doesn't get distracted OK? Is a company that thinks "we can't hire her because she'd feel alienated if she was here" OK? A lot of the time I think that the "culture" fit moniker is used to systematically enforce a monoculture of young, white (or sometimes asian), privileged men.
And this can lead to less distracted, more focused, more successful team (especially in the short term)!
But is that ok? Maybe? If that's absolutely the only way to maintain team cohesion, but I don't think that's at all obvious.
> Stipulate her assertion: We reject qualified candidates based on superficial and unimportant reasons.
Go ask a random person on the street if rejecting a job applicant because they said the word "hoops" is a superficial or unimportant reason. 99 times out of 100 they'll say yes.
> Stipulate: We avoid projects that require strict coordination across the company so that we don't have to have meetings.
I, in fact, think this is a big problem in our industry. Talk to any company as they move up to ~100 people. Nearly all of them have huge communication challenges that they didn't have before and this directly impacts their ability to execute on larger scale work.
> Stipulate: A mostly female team exists that gets the mostly male workforce to stay late.
This also happens all the time. I bet eng teams at startups are 90% male. Then take a look at who the office managers, or recruiters, or HR, or assistents. Largely female.
> I don't think she has surfaced any deep cover up or deception.
She's not talking about a cover up. She's not talking about a bunch of evil startup managers sitting in a room thinking about how they can deceive their staff. It doesn't work that way. She's talking about the lies we all tell each other, and how those lies can have negative consequences.