[teacup50]

I have no qualms with profanity, but I admit I had a negative reaction when I saw "fuck" so prominently leveraged in a blog post about company culture.

For someone who wants to have a certain level of professional decorum at work, the use of "fuck" in your CEO's blog post about your company's culture would certainly be exclusionary.

It's also quite likely to drive away even-tempered contributors in favor of a "bro" audience.

Perhaps that was the point: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Airbnb-Reviews-E391850.htm

[jusben1369]

Ben Horowitz has an interesting chapter in his recent book "The Hard Thing about Hard Things" that talks about profanity. Apparently early on at LoudCloud (or Opsware) at a company meeting some employees raised the issue that there was too much profanity in the office. Ben acknowledged that he was the worst culprit so this was most likely aimed at him. He slept on it and decided that it could be used but never in a sexist or bullying way. He rationalized it based on the assumption that it was already an inherent part of many tech companies and not allowing it might restrict their access to the best talent. I thought that weird. Either way I think the end result is that it does seem to be an important part of the culture and as a future or current employee it should factor into your decision to work there.

[newtle]

That book is 80% great, but his opinions about profanity are part of the other 20%. There's no meat to it. All we learn is Ben's belief that adding the word 'fucking' to a sentence communicates intensity more effectively than any alternative, and his belief that great employees want to work amongst torrents of profanity.

To put it in a way that Ben might understand, it's fucking bullshit. It's not the worst part of the book to be sure, but there's no value to it, the reasoning is weak, and the evidence is non-existent.*

* The worst thing is when he espouses the importance of work/life balance for the CEO, and then talks proudly of a death-march that he put his employees through. A death march which he says must be good because a grand total of one employee told him it was a great experience. A death march which didn't result in the loss of all his employees not because Ben is a great leader (he ain't), but because the economy was such a catastrophe that even a shitty, abusive job working for a profane and self-congratulatory motherfucker was better than the alternative.

[jusben1369]

I think you pretty much nailed it. I thought it was 80% great and that section on cussing was basically the worst rationalization in the book. "Let's see. I love to cuss. And I'm going to continue to curse. But how can I rationalize it in a business way?"