| > 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. |
"> 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."
Isn't that leaving off a bit of context? Ask them if "Hiring someone who plays hoops on to a team that thinks basketball is a stupid waste of time and recently campaigned against tax payer funding of a local venue for an NBA team." is a smart idea.
You don't walk into a room full of people playing Magic the Gathering and tell them you need three more for a bridge game do you? It's a group of Magic players, not Bridge players.
But the real point is that not being asked to join a community you won't fit in with is a good thing for you and for the community, and it says nothing about your "value" or the communities "value." All it says is that you don't fit there. Further, that "you" the random person, aren't a cultural fit for a group doesn't make that group evil, deceitful, or even wrong.
I understand the point you are making, I don't agree with it. I think 'culture' is a natural outgrowth of 'group' and is not only a reasonable discriminator for choosing to add someone too a group, but also for choosing not to join or to leave a group. That said, I do agree that there are unreasonable discrimination criteria, they are codified by law.
"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."
You seem to have a good grasp of what she is thinking which is great, I just don't think she wrote any of what you are asserting as her thoughts, are actually in the text I read.