[HN Gopher] What defines a great company culture?
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What defines a great company culture?
Author : prostoalex
Score : 188 points
Date : 2021-04-05 15:20 UTC (2 days ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| maverickJ wrote:
| Great thread.
|
| It reminds me of reading Bezos annual shareholders letters.
|
| The culture of the place could be seen from reading those
| letters.
|
| A couple of those values since day one are:
|
| 1.We will continue to focus relentlessly on our customers.
|
| 2.We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-
| term market leadership considerations rather than short-term
| profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions.
|
| 3.We will continue to measure our programs and the effectiveness
| of our investments analytically, to jettison those that do not
| provide acceptable returns, and to step up our investment in
| those that work best.
|
| This blog https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/jeff-bezos-
| amazon-an... breaks it down further.
| throwaway823882 wrote:
| > Amazon's most memorable value was "ruthlessly escalate." This
| removed any question about how decisions would be made. It
| encouraged a culture where people would debate strongly held
| ideas, knowing the solution to disagreements was to bump it up to
| the next level of management.
|
| "Ruthless" anywhere in your value system is terrible, unless you
| are the military, or your mission statement is to "fight"
| something like cancer or child hunger. Second, management never
| knows how to solve a problem better, they just pick one and go
| with it. Third, a culture where everyone is always asking their
| boss to solve their problems? Yikes.
| carmen_sandiego wrote:
| > Second, management never knows how to solve a problem better,
| they just pick one and go with it
|
| But if your (presumably intelligent, qualified) engineers are
| at a stalemate between two things, what's to say both options
| aren't fine and they need just exactly that: someone more
| senior to pick one, given the pros and cons of each.
| [deleted]
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| > Strong cultures are well-defined with sharp edges, and well-
| understood by everyone in the organization top to bottom. Strong
| founders with unapologetic personalities set the culture early
| and maintain it.
|
| I can think of numerous historical examples of organizations
| (typically nations or empires) where this was true but the
| outcome was very bad for everyone involved.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| There are lots of variations but my list is this:
|
| No hypocrisy ( you all need to work hard while I'm only working
| 2h/day)
|
| No superstars (high performers are fine but no high performing
| jerks)
|
| No gossip
|
| Fair and easy to understand reward structure
|
| Things aren't made difficult deliberately ( 6 layers approval
| process)
|
| Laziness and poor attitudes aren't tolerated.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| A big one for me these days is "No pressure to attend non-
| mandatory outside-of-work-hours outings like after work happy
| hours".
|
| I don't really drink, I don't like bars, I often like to spend
| my evenings with my SO or my friends, not my coworkers. I don't
| like being made to feel like I am "not a team player" for not
| wanting to participate in "team building" outside of work
| hours.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| I do drink and I'm happy to go to a bar or restaurant or
| whatever else is there but only when I feel like it. There's
| no "team building" happening in a bar,unless people think
| that having a few beers together makes you a stronger team.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| You took the words right of my mouth... I also don't drink,
| but my main gripe is that I'm joining a team, not a family. I
| have other obligations and relationships that need to fit
| into my already limited non-work time.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| How about none at all? I'm not joining a cult. I go to work to
| get paid and that's it. I don't need some weird culture shoved
| down my throat and I certainly don't need to be thinking about
| work 24/7.
| bluGill wrote:
| Not having to think about work 24/7 is culture. You need to
| look for a job where that is part of the culture.
| themolecularman wrote:
| Agreed. I'm not sure what this "culture" talk is. I've been in
| the bay area for a decade now and have worked at a small YC
| startup with a modest exit, a big-ish company that got
| acquired, and a bigger company that's gone public.
|
| In all cases each company talks up it's "culture" - to me it's
| just a phrase that elicits an eye-roll.
|
| Another commenter suggested you look for a "typical 9-to-5",
| but even there I'm sure they'd talk up their amazing culture.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| Agree. Professionalism is what I look for in a company, not
| culture.
| challengly wrote:
| Take a typical 9-5 job. Problem solved.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Bad cultures ignore values, or have toxic values and toxic social
| outcomes.
|
| Good cultures incorporate values, live them consistently rather
| than just talking about them, and have good values and outcomes.
|
| This isn't just a moral position. Your culture is like code.
| Ethics define your edge cases. You do not want code - or a
| culture - that works of the time, but collapses when it has to
| deal with an input that is difficult or unexpected.
| nabla9 wrote:
| That's not my experience. In fact it's the opposite. I suspect
| that incorporating values can work, but it's not universal.
|
| Best company cultures usually concentrate on good work, not
| values. Results to the society don't matter when people get
| things done.
|
| I think most companies should try to be as amoral as possible
| outside the purpose of the company. People choose to work in
| different companies based on their values or other needs.
| watwut wrote:
| > Results to the society don't matter when people get things
| done
|
| If the results to the society are negative, I prefer if you
| dont get things done. Because it would negatively harm me
| too.
| nabla9 wrote:
| That's different discussion.
|
| Acknowledging that people can have high morale, and deep
| sense of purpose and fun when doing stuff that is net
| negative for the society is important if you want to
| improve society.
|
| When people associate causing harm with low morale, it
| distorts what people think is acceptable. "But my work is
| meaningful to me and we have a greatest team in the world".
| Loughla wrote:
| It's not that simple.
|
| I have never been convinced that there is actually such a
| thing as 'amoral' decision making. Making the sole decision
| to focus on good work and results (presumably making money
| for the company) is a moral choice. You have said to your
| employees and society at large that what is important is
| money. Make money. Ethical considerations are second. That is
| a moral stance.
|
| Let's say your company makes widget A. You can source part B
| for the widget from a company that is suspected of using
| child or slave labor overseas. They are half the price of
| part B's competitor. Your 'amoral' decision to focus on the
| purpose of the company (which, again, is presumably making
| money) would have you make a very, very bad decision,
| ethically.
|
| Ignoring your place in society and an organizations
| obligation to at least speak to the ethics of the people that
| work there is not really realistic in today's society, I
| would argue.
| bluGill wrote:
| Your example is wrong. Many companies are careful not to
| use suppliers that use child labor because if they don't
| the negative media attention will collapse their market and
| in turn result in less money.
|
| A better example is today many companies have no problem
| with doing business with suppliers that donate to planned
| parenthood, even though that means they are morally
| contributing to abortion. I know right now many of you will
| be screaming but abortion is morally okay, and others will
| screaming that they wish they could punish such
| companies...
| strathmeyer wrote:
| As an advanced programmer it always seemed I was getting rejected
| for jobs because of 'culture' because I wouldn't put up with
| their abusive environments.
| wccrawford wrote:
| IMO that's a feature, not a bug. I really would not fit into
| that culture, so I'd love for them to reject me based on my
| refusal to work overtime, except in emergencies... Which had
| better be pretty seldom.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Right. Say anything in an interview to suggest you won't work
| 60 hour weeks every week and you're suddenly not a good culture
| fit.
|
| Workaholism is a real problem in North America I guess
| bluGill wrote:
| Find a different industry. There are plenty of companies
| doing boring everyday things and going home at 5 scattered
| around that would love to hire you. Sometimes you take a pay
| cut to work there - your willingness to do this reflects on
| you.
| carmen_sandiego wrote:
| There are plenty of well-paying tech jobs that don't
| require you to work nights and weekends. No need to 'find a
| different industry'.
|
| You kinda sound like you buy in to the overwork and are
| trying to convince others of your own decision. I would
| say: the company never really appreciates or rewards it,
| and becoming a kool-aid salesman is often a path to ruin.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Mind blowing to me how a statement like "I don't want to
| work half-again as much per week as my contract requires"
| gets a response like "go find a different industry"
|
| As if I'm the one who is wrong here. Decades of workers
| rights and unions trying to make work safer and better
| for people, to work less for the same pay, but I'm the
| one who is wrong for wanting that.
|
| Why do software devs love to be exploited so much.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are lots of industries that need software
| developers. Switching industry doesn't mean you can't
| write code anymore. Banks hire a lot of great
| programmers, and they expect them to work 8 hour days,
| and many enforce a 2 week vacation every year (if you are
| committing fraud 2 weeks is long enough for someone to
| notice something that you would cover up if you had
| access to the office). Are control software for some
| valve in some industry. Or medical records need help.
| mrits wrote:
| Maybe it's because you refer to yourself as an advanced
| programmer?
| slumdev wrote:
| The GP might be a prima donna, or he might just be stating
| the facts.
|
| We have to be able to distinguish apprentices from people who
| have all of the breadth, depth, and color that comes with
| experience. In sane professions, they don't call someone
| "senior" after 3-5 years.
| winrid wrote:
| I have found that the more a company talks about culture,
| probably the worse it is... :)
| orangepanda wrote:
| > Zuckerberg's response: "I'm building a company that I would
| want to work for if I hadn't started FB. And I would want to work
| at a place that shares openly."
|
| Still sharing everything 15 years later
| twobitshifter wrote:
| We know Zuckerburg is a secret privacy fanatic. The signal app
| on his phone, buying up all property that can see into his
| enclave, the tape over his webcam. When he launched he thought
| people who shared everything with him were "dumbfucks." In
| other words, he wouldn't have shared the type of information
| that others were giving away for free - as a college student.
| fletchowns wrote:
| I think it's important to separate a desire for privacy
| outside of work with the transparency/openness in running
| Facebook, I don't see these things as being closely related
| to one another.
|
| As for the "dumbfucks" thing - somebody young said something
| stupid, news at 11. Any time somebody brings this up like
| some big gotcha I just sort of roll my eyes.
| oblio wrote:
| I don't understand this.
| guavaNinja wrote:
| Maybe the leaks of facebook phone numbers?
| misterchicken wrote:
| a joke about Cambridge Analytica scandal / facebook leak
| which happened few days ago most likely
| numair wrote:
| Before you listen to any one connected to early Facebook
| discussing their "company culture," I suggest you read the link
| below and understand what I am saying. There are deep, dark
| reasons why the word "consent" has never been part of Facebook's
| culture.
|
| There are a lot of lottery winners in Silicon Valley who leave
| out the "turned a blind eye to the sexual predator" part of their
| success stories, whether it involves founders or investors. You
| couldn't be part of "the mafia" if you didn't think that sort of
| stuff was okay.
|
| The day of reckoning is coming.
|
| https://numair.medium.com/15-years-is-enough-time-silicon-va...
| carmen_sandiego wrote:
| I read all of it against my better judgement and I still have
| no idea what you're really talking about. There was no
| substance, just vague allusions. But anyone can make those. I
| could tell you Zuck is a lizard person and make odd hand
| gestures as I whisper about dark secrets. So what? It comes off
| as being written by a crank.
| isomorph wrote:
| See full discussion here
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26724522
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| Are you planning to name this person? You should, to help
| protect others.
|
| I remember early FB employees talking to me about how they were
| spying on people's private activity (who was looking at who's
| page for instance). I have no doubt there were and are many
| unethical things going on there. It is indeed a joke to suggest
| they have a "good" culture.
| isomorph wrote:
| It's Sean Parker.
| simonsaidit wrote:
| Spend my evening going down the rabbit hole and trying to see
| what you have been up to for a few decades and seems your are
| pretty spot on and pretty informed on many things. But some of
| the things I stumble on also seems incoherent and perhaps
| that's because you can fill in the blanks in your head but
| don't write it or because you deliberately make it hard to
| decipher. If all you have said is true it's quite impressive
| what you have seen over the years but I can also see that it
| can be hard to believe the way it's communicated. I was
| wondering what happened between 2011 and now where your
| described this guy I think you are referring to as a great guy
| and I hope that if there is anything to your latest post that
| you would actually follow through with it and elaborate more on
| it.
| isomorph wrote:
| I submitted this to HN - sorry if it was premature.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26724522 I also tried to
| contact The Guardian (UK) about it today - will try again
| tomorrow.
| rchiba wrote:
| I'm a big fan of this thread because it helps correct the
| preconceived notion that culture is on a 1 dimensional spectrum
| between "bad" and "great".
|
| At our 30-person company, we did an experiment where we took a
| culture framework that was evaluated on 2 axes, and took internal
| surveys between two years to determine where on the spectrum
| employees felt our culture was currently at, and what their ideal
| culture would be.
|
| For anyone curious, I have a data visualization of it here:
| https://ryochiba.com/2016/11/22/what-is-a-company-culture.ht...
|
| For anyone in a position to explore these questions at an
| organizational level, I would highly recommend doing an exercise
| like this. It gives more agency to the employee to express what
| direction they think would be optimal and brings awareness to the
| fact that totally different cultures can both be considered
| "great".
| taxcoder wrote:
| Interesting, and thanks for the framework. As someone who leans
| heavily toward the right side of your framework, it's good to
| have a reminder there are "left-sided" companies that are
| successful.
|
| It seems to me managers may prefer the right side, while many
| employees see the left as optimal. Did your data shed any light
| on this?
| luigeus wrote:
| Humans place a high value on fairness. Companies where employees
| feel like everyone is getting a fair opportunity consistently
| report more positive employee experiences.
| codehawke wrote:
| A company that does not micro-manage and trusts its employees to
| do the right thing. Anything else is secondary.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| Agree to disagree.
|
| These are two obscenely rich companies. I don't believe that it
| is possible to dominate market(s) _and_ maintain "great
| culture".
|
| In my view there is an inverse relationship between ethics and
| profits. I don't see any reason to assume that these companies
| have "great culture" simply because they are very rich. Quite the
| contrary.
| fractionalhare wrote:
| I don't think the author is drawing any connection between
| great company culture and great company ethics. The culture
| refers more to group dynamics, which values are embraced and
| which are ignored, the kind of leadership, etc.
|
| In this context, great has more to do with efficacy and
| consistency. The author would probably say a company can have a
| great culture and still be very polarizing or controversial.
| reportgunner wrote:
| Great for whom ?
| mft_ wrote:
| Great question - it depends what (or who) you're optimising
| for.
|
| I'm generalising, but as an example:
|
| The optimal culture to get very difficult things done far more
| quickly and efficiently than other companies could (think
| SpaceX) probably often won't have the best work-life balance.
| In contrast, a culture which optimises (at least partly) for
| employee well-being will very likely lose some edge,
| efficiency, innovation, drive... along the way.
|
| There are of course myriad other variables, but there probably
| isn't an ideal answer to the culture question: it all depends
| on what you want to do, and how you're willing to act to do it.
| etripe wrote:
| From an employee perspective, the one fairly definitive upside
| I can spot is knowing what to expect ahead of time.
|
| Are you implying it's mainly/only great for management?
| sitkack wrote:
| Autonomy, agency, trust and shared goals. Knowing that everyone
| is doing their 80% and looks out for the team, not themselves.
| shoulderfake wrote:
| lol culture at a big co...dont bs me plz.I've worked at big co's,
| and theres no culture there. Only places with any sort of
| character are small - mid sized startups.
| oblio wrote:
| That would assume that all big companies are the same. Which is
| provably false.
| beckingz wrote:
| Chaos is a culture, right?
| bluGill wrote:
| You don't seem to know the difference between character and
| culture.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| I find this thread kind of confusing, it basically seems to say
| the culture itself doesn't matter. What matters is that it is
| strongly held. Which means top down, ritualized and vigorously
| defended against any attempts at change.
| teachingassist wrote:
| The way I understand this is: consistency is important for
| managing expectations.
|
| Change is not a problem but consistent application of
| expectations is important (in my opinion, this would include
| expectations around how you manage change).
|
| If you have one set of expectations from one manager, and a
| different set of expectations from another manager, the
| complexity of your work just squared.
| jodoherty wrote:
| The major takeaway for me is that with a strongly held culture,
| everyone in the company is playing the game by the same rules,
| making it clear how to succeed, how to fail, and as such, how
| to conduct business. It's also clear whether or not you would
| enjoy working there -- there's no finding the right team or
| department with its own culture if everyone has the same
| culture there.
|
| Of course, he doesn't explore whether or not the benefits of
| this are worth the disadvantages, and there's plenty of room
| for argument either way, especially with large organizations.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, of course, the complement is that a diverse culture is
| one where most people can find some place they can add value
| and be recognized, and if they get in a team they don't fit
| well, they can just move into a different one, instead of a
| completely new job.
|
| Both of those versions are gross oversimplifications.
| watwut wrote:
| Yeah, it seems to me the same. I dont see that as massive
| positive.
| Aeolun wrote:
| A good company culture is one that the whole company follows.
| As opposed to a bad company culture, where there is basically
| no global culture to speak of, and every manager has their own
| little fiefdoms.
| Draiken wrote:
| So if I create a culture of fear and abuse, but everyone on
| the company follows it, it's suddenly a good culture?
|
| That's very reductionist.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| That's such a narrow definition it almost feels circular. If
| there is no global culture throughout a company can you even
| describe it as having a company culture?
| Aeolun wrote:
| Probably depends on who you ask :)
| danjac wrote:
| Fiefdoms are bad, but is a company monoculture necessarily a
| good thing? Perhaps different teams (especially if
| geographically dispersed) can adopt a culture that works for
| them rather than follow some top-down mandate that they'll
| follow half-heartedly if at all.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > that they'll follow half-heartedly if at all
|
| At that point it's bad company culture right?
| danjac wrote:
| Arguably beyond a certain size and other than some basic
| rules around things like good behaviour and ethics, I'm
| not sure you can have a one-size-fits-all for a company
| (or any other) culture.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> I find this thread kind of confusing, it basically seems to
| say the culture itself doesn't matter. What matters is that it
| is strongly held. Which means top down, ritualized and
| vigorously defended against any attempts at change.
|
| Yes, because you're taking a significant risk joining any
| company (in the sense that you have limited time and want to go
| where you can have the most impact for the firm and best
| outcomes for your goals).
|
| You often dont know details about projects, people, etc -- but
| if you vibe with the culture, you can easily find your place
| there. If the culture is all over the place, it is hard to know
| from the outside. And if the culture is a mismatch for you,
| better to neither waste your time nor that of the firm. Without
| a strongly projected culture, that is hard to do.
| beforeolives wrote:
| The message is that consistency matters and that strong
| leadership can produce good results in the right circumstances.
| Top-down isn't necessarily a bad thing.
|
| And what are the alternatives? No consistency throughout the
| company would mean that there wouldn't be any company culture
| to speak of. And if your processes aren't (ultimately) top-
| down, then what's the company leadership actually for?
| meheleventyone wrote:
| I think it's basically the thought that a great culture is
| one that is strongly held. The wheels are liable to come off
| quite quickly if that's the only criteria. I'm confused
| because it's quite simplistic and reductive.
|
| The obvious alternative is a bottom up organization of
| culture although most companies are not setup for that to
| work well. The actual reality is going to be a combination of
| both. I'm sure everyone's worked in environments where the
| corporate values are treated as a joke.
| michaelt wrote:
| _Some_ values ought to be universal across a company. I 'm
| sure everyone at Volvo could agree that driver safety is a
| high priority.
|
| _Other_ values may well vary between departments - People
| working on the car 's software can do weekly releases at
| little or no cost with lightweight planning - but the
| injection-moulded door handle will need a $$$$$ mould and
| several months for every design change, so they'd certainly
| better have frozen the design several months before product
| launch.
|
| There might not be much common ground on ideas like starting
| with an MVP and iterating, moving fast, dealing with changing
| requirements, two week sprints, and so on.
| watwut wrote:
| It seems to me that it will prevent adaptation to changes.
| dh2424 wrote:
| Yeah, it certainly doesn't define what great company culture
| actually is.
| paulcole wrote:
| I think it does. Great culture is different for everyone. I
| like a culture built around fast innovation. My friend likes
| a culture built around slow and steady progress. Neither
| culture is right or wrong, they are just different.
|
| But a great company culture is one (regardless of its core
| tenets) that's followed strongly throughout the organization,
| top to bottom, starting with the CEO.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Though I'm an atheist, I think that many different churches do
| good things for their participants from a community and social
| perspective, even though they may differ from each other
| significantly in their specific religious doctrine.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Sometimes I think there's too much obsession over culture, to
| point its become too naval-gazing and even cargo-culting.
|
| Culture is the result of doing other things right, like hiring
| smart, relentlessly resourceful people who get things done and
| who are deeply interested in their work.
|
| Beyond that, maintain a standard of excellence and integrity
| throughout the organization, and you're pretty much done. From
| that point, success is up to hard work and some luck (timing,
| right place at the right time, etc).
| dmje wrote:
| The thing I've seen, read and heard for years is "agency".
| Buzzword, but "having some ability to affect outcomes", so
| whether "I've moved the photocopier because people couldn't get
| to it where it was" or "I've moved the marketing team because
| they needed X" - as long as people feel they can make a
| difference, are listened to and their skills are used - they're
| more likely to be happy.
|
| And this, presumably mean "great company culture" too.
| bluGill wrote:
| But what you are allowed to do needs to be limited. That
| photocopier might be in a bad spot, but that is the only place
| where we have have enough power to run it. Marketing needs X,
| but they are by Y instead because I want them to be forced to
| interact with Y (at least when getting coffee), a team they
| would otherwise ignore to our eventual failure. Or worse the
| person I caught trying to use GPL-3 code in our proprietary
| code base.
|
| Agency is good, but only if people understand where they have
| agency and make changes in those areas and leave the others to
| someone else.
| kache_ wrote:
| The amount of money that gets direct deposited into my bank
| account, biweekly
| m463 wrote:
| You should try to get past that to post-scarcity thinking,
| possibly interstellar.
| bluGill wrote:
| There doesn't seem to be any hope of me living that long.
| Interesting to think about in a science fiction world, but
| for now there are a lot of toys that I can't afford.
|
| I don't think we will ever get there. The energy required for
| interstellar is too high, and global warming is a concern
| with anyone using too much energy. (Dyson spheres sound good,
| but mathematically they are tricky because they imply some
| form of global warming that you need to work around)
| paxys wrote:
| The thing with salaries is, there is a certain number
| (different for everyone obviously) at which you are happy and
| comfortable, and each incremental dollar from there on matters
| less and less. That is the point where you can afford to care
| about things like social impact, company culture, fulfillment
| and more.
| ecf wrote:
| When company culture is created without it becoming the defining
| factor in performance reviews. Or having your calendar filled
| with daily culture events that just make entire coworker
| relationships feel forced.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| I do agree with the consistency thing. One bad culture failure
| mode is a case where one or two senior executives run amok
| enforcing their view of culture, while the CEO fails to enforce
| consistency and a bunch of other executives, directors, etc.,
| just try to "stay out of it" and remain culturally neutral (which
| isn't really possible).
|
| I saw this in one company where it was the CTO running amok with
| an aggressive culture of yelling in meetings, slamming doors, and
| emphasizing arbitrary deadlines.
|
| I saw it in another org where it was the CPO instead, trying to
| install Dilberty consultant snake oil with constant reorgs and
| zero accountability for product managers.
| benlivengood wrote:
| I tend to agree with the commentors saying that culture is
| secondary to business reality.
|
| Most startups and even a lot of established companies have a
| nebulous and weak business model; success or growth is not
| assured. Culture moves the deck chairs into different patterns
| but the odds are still that the ship goes down.
|
| People who want culture to drive growth are misguided.
| edejong wrote:
| In short: shared values.
| papito wrote:
| You hire the right people and they make the culture. Culture is
| NOT enforced. It is simply the reflection of you as a good or bad
| hire-er.
| ebiester wrote:
| I once worked at a place with a strong, great culture. They
| acquired another place with a strong, great culture. The
| cultures were diametrically opposed. It turned into an awful
| culture for both.
|
| People find like-cultured people. Don't hire someone who is a
| mob programming advocate into a culture that thrives on
| individual work, or vice versa. Don't hire someone who wants a
| completely transparent culture into Amazon.
| yitchelle wrote:
| Its a bit of a chicken/egg situation. The right people to hire
| are the people that meets your requirements. Some of the
| requirements would be what their cultural beliefs and
| behaviours. So the cultured is enforced by enforcing the right
| type of people you hire. It is a vicious circle.
| bluGill wrote:
| Sort of. However you need to be careful about unexpected
| consequences.
|
| The vast majority of programmers are male, so if you only hire
| the best you might go a long time without hiring any females,
| thus developing a male-only culture. I've been told the worst
| case of this is one female the rest males, as the one female
| encourages that bad parts of male only culture to ensure that
| she is always the most powerful female in the room (because she
| is the only one). None of this needs to be true, but when you
| only have 3 males total you need to ensure that you are not
| developing female hostile culture by accident. Once you have a
| few females around they can moderate the male only culture, but
| going from 1 to a few is hard because the great females you
| want to hire will check your culture and not even apply thus
| locking you out of that market.
|
| I used females, but there are plenty of other minorities. If
| the subject was nurses you would reverse the minorities, some
| of their cultures are male hostile.
| mightyRodri wrote:
| "helps avoid politics" thats how we got where fb is now
| happimess wrote:
| I think the author is talking about office politics, not
| electoral politics.
| closeparen wrote:
| This really doesn't match my experience about what the
| interesting parts of "culture" are.
|
| How much do we value doing the work vs. talking about it? Are the
| highest-status people the most skilled practitioners, or
| something else? Are policies and processes designed with empathy
| for practitioner workflows, do they make any intuitive sense to
| practitioners, or are they decrees from clueless faraway box-
| tickers?
|
| Are people on top of their shit and constantly improving it, or
| do they not even realize what's wrong with it until you tell
| them? When you file bug reports and feature requests are they
| responded to promptly and taken seriously?
|
| How much do we value consistency, reliability, stability - both
| in our work product and in our interactions with each other? Are
| APIs stable? How are migrations handled? Do platform teams
| provide nice off-ramps? Do they continue providing adequate
| support for the old thing until you're actually off, or just
| shrug and say you should have been using the shiny new? When you
| get a "monthly newsletter" - was there an issue last month? Will
| there be next month? If you come across a 2-year-old "approved"
| design doc in unfamiliar territory, what are the chances it was
| actually executed?
|
| I have seen all these things vary quite a bit between teams and
| over time.
| shadowtree wrote:
| It's a function of growth and success.
|
| If the company is growing, winning deals, all people are busy it
| feels great. A lot of energy is pointed outwards, competing,
| hustling, convincing. Literally no time for internal politics.
|
| Once a company stalls, the energy, actions, focus, drift inward.
| "Politics". Shit culture.
|
| Now, what is correlation, what is causation?
|
| I suspect results drive culture. Culture can't make up for
| overall failure.
| [deleted]
| plank_time wrote:
| A great company culture is one where everyone is aligned to the
| mission of the company and everyone is aligned, empowered and
| incentivized in this exact same direction.
|
| I've worked at a couple of companies that had great culture and
| the best was Uber. Uber, post-shenanigans and pre-Susan Fowler
| memo, was hands down the best company I've ever been at. Everyone
| was aligned together which meant that everyone was working
| together, everyone had the same mission and understood it and we
| were empowered to do great things.
|
| Similar to Facebook, TK had weekly Q&A that was incredibly open
| and transparent. TK, contrary to the popular narrative, was an
| extremely progressive person and it showed in the company. Things
| weren't perfect, but perfection isn't the enemy of great and it
| was great working at Uber between about 2014 and 2017.
|
| The Susan Fowler memo was an inflection point that lead to its
| culture being essentially destroyed. People were no longer
| aligned or empowered, and the incentive system was changed to
| basically destroy engineering culture. By 2020, when I left, the
| engineering culture was a bad joke. The only thing on most
| people's minds was "How do I get promoted?" and the incompetency
| of engineering leadership lead to decisions like "Toil vs Talent"
| which meant incentivized people to create their own microservices
| and not work together with others.
|
| I don't discount anything Susan Fowler wrote in her memo,
| everything she wrote was verified by Thuan Pham himself. I didn't
| know her personally but I know people that did, and she was known
| to be very smart. But her experience was not the majority
| experience. I think most people and especially most women had
| very positive things to say about working at Uber. But it was a
| wake up call that things needed to be changed, but what they
| ended up changing ruined what made it great. It's a fascinating
| topic that I daydream about writing a multi-part Medium post
| about but never will.
| teachrdan wrote:
| > TK, contrary to the popular narrative, was an extremely
| progressive person
|
| Travis Kalanick illegally obtained and read the private medical
| records of an Indian worman who was raped by her Uber driver.
| He publicly claimed she was lying to frivolously sue the
| company, despite absolutely no evidence to support those
| allegations.
|
| > Uber, post-shenanigans and pre-Susan Fowler memo
|
| The "shenanigans"--I think you mean systemic discrimination
| against women via a culture of sexual harassment by high-
| ranking men with the complicity of HR--continued until Susan
| Fowler published her memo and the board belatedly fired TK.
|
| > The Susan Fowler memo was an inflection point that lead to
| its culture being essentially destroyed.
|
| > I don't discount anything Susan Fowler wrote in her memo
|
| This reads like you're trying to blame the fall of Uber's
| engineering culture on Susan Fowler without saying so. And
| sure, there's room for people to disagree: I personally think
| the board fired Travis Kalanick because he didn't IPO as
| quickly as they wanted. But this honestly reads like
| "Everything at Uber was great until this one woman complained
| and ruined it for all of us." And I don't think that's what you
| actually want to communicate.
|
| https://www.vox.com/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-india-a...
| plank_time wrote:
| By shenanigans I mean all the stuff they did in the name of
| competition. Lyft and Uber both did shitty things to each
| other but somehow Uber got the rap as the bad one. Globally,
| every single company Uber competed against did shitty,
| illegal stuff but you never hear about it. Didi sent in spies
| to Uber China to work there and steal data. No one talks or
| cares about that.
|
| You didn't read the article you linked to, didn't you? It's
| pretty funny. Neither TK nor Uber blamed the victim ever. And
| TK didn't order getting the medical records. His subordinate,
| Eric Alexander, who I had the pleasure to work with once and
| he was an asshole, obtained them and showed TK. TK shouldn't
| have looked at it, but he did. Nothing came of it except Eric
| Alexander was fired.
|
| I didn't blame Susan Fowler. I know you have an agenda
| against Uber, so feel free to believe what you want to
| believe. The reaction to her memo ruined Uber because
| leadership was incompetent. She was right to have written
| that memo, so don't try to make it seem like I'm blaming her.
|
| Companies the size of Uber will always have harassers and
| assholes. It's unavoidable. The best you can do is create a
| culture that calls it out and fires them immediately. Uber
| hired a VP of engineering from Google but he was fired
| because he left Google because of sexual harassment. But
| Google covered it up. Same with Andy Rubin and his sex
| slaves. Yet how many of you still use Android?
|
| I agree that TK should have brought Uber to IPO years sooner.
| [deleted]
| teachrdan wrote:
| Here's the result of 30 seconds of googling:
|
| USA Today:
|
| "The Uber executives who viewed her files, which included
| CEO Travis Kalanick and senior vice president Emil Michael,
| had started to believe the incident had somehow been
| orchestrated by Indian ride-hailing company Ola, according
| to reports"
|
| The Guardian:
|
| "Last week, however, it was reported that Uber took a
| different view of the assault internally. Alexander, then
| the president of business for Uber Asia Pacific, reportedly
| traveled to India in the days after the attack and obtained
| the victim's medical records. He then allegedly shared
| those records with Kalanick and Michael, the senior vice-
| president for business, and the group theorized that the
| victim was part of a conspiracy by rival Indian firm Ola to
| damage Uber's reputation."
|
| BBC:
|
| "Several media reports cited in the lawsuit said that
| senior staff at the ride-hailing company, including Travis
| Kalanick, the former Uber chief executive who was ousted in
| June this year, and former executives Emil Michael and Eric
| Alexander, had questioned the victim's account of her
| ordeal."
|
| The suit settled out of court, so we'll never see all the
| evidence, but this behavior by Kalanick and other upper
| management would be in line with his their hiding Uber's
| actions from regulators via "Greyball" and spying on Lyft's
| drivers. (Google "Uber Greyball" or "Uber Hell" to learn
| more about those programs. Contrary to your claims, neither
| of them were ended before Fowler's open letter.)
|
| It is certainly true that their competitors also behaved
| badly. But your original post was about how amazing Uber's
| engineering culture was before Susan Fowler publicized the
| ongoing, systemic discrimination against women there, at
| which point all the goodness went away and your good times
| were spoiled. That honestly makes you look like a clueless,
| sexist jerk, which I would like to think that you are not.
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/06/15/uber-
| sue...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/15/uber-
| indi...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/15/uber-
| indi...
| triceratops wrote:
| > but what they ended up changing ruined what made it great
|
| Please explain more. Did they change more than just sexual and
| other harassment reporting and handling policies? Why did any
| of the changes have any effect on engineering?
| plank_time wrote:
| The engineering culture didn't working together to succeed.
| It incentivized people to keep creating new services that
| were a little different so that they could get promotions. It
| caused a lot of unnecessary work and an explosion of
| services. It was very stupid. Blame Thuan for that. He was a
| terrible CTO.
| challengly wrote:
| > People were no longer aligned or empowered, and the incentive
| system was changed to basically destroy engineering culture.
|
| Same with Google. The intentional misrepresentation and ousting
| of Damore was a turning point where engineering culture was run
| over by activist culture.
| tolbish wrote:
| Would you argue that the outsing of Gebru and others is a
| turning point where engineering culture is running back over
| activist culture?
| challengly wrote:
| That's pushback, but engineers haven't reclaimed the
| culture and are mostly still silent and afraid.
| _carbyau_ wrote:
| My take is to ask: for who?
|
| "Who" is this great company culture for?
|
| Is it for the company to be more competitive in the market and
| make more profits? Well, Amazon seems to be doing not too bad.
|
| But as an individual, would I want to work there? Not from all
| reports...
| nitwit005 wrote:
| I find the idea of success through culture hard to believe for
| companies that are both old and large. Hiring processes are very
| random, so if you hire vast numbers of people, you're going to
| end up with typical employees eventually.
|
| Setting an example as a CEO might have some effect, but I
| honestly have no clue what my CEO, or the people immediately
| below them, are up to.
|
| People do seem to realize this, which is why you end up with
| lists of "company values", but if you look at a few of those
| lists, you'll notice that every company claims to have fairly
| similar values. People mostly just ignore it as a result.
| wunderflix wrote:
| _> They key to a strong culture is consistency from the top. The
| CEO 's job is to make sure everyone on the management team is on
| the same page. If a senior leader wants to create their own
| unique culture for their part of the org, they can't be allowed
| to stay._
|
| I love this entire thread and it resonates a lot with me. I, too,
| believe that there is not THE right company culture that will
| solve everybody's problems. Many in the agile or "new work" camp
| seem to believe that their way is the ONLY way, for example.
|
| Consistency is much more important than how the culture actually
| is.
| hrktb wrote:
| I think consistency is overrated, and a cause of countless
| undue issues.
|
| We seem to mostly agree that diversity is important, and having
| employees from different background help bring different ideas
| and solutions to the table, react with more agility on
| unforeseen situations.
|
| On a fundamental level, applying the same vision and forcing
| the same values and rituals on everyone looks to me at odds
| with what diversity is supposed to bring.
|
| As an aside, if a company has a credit card processing division
| and mini-game producing divisions, I'd see a clear case for
| them to not have the same values nor the same priorities, and
| in the end the same culture. That's what I also felt reading
| accounts from UX designers at Google in the early days, when
| they seemed to be crushed by the 100% data driven culture from
| which they tried to carve a small niche.
| daniellarusso wrote:
| Personally, I believe consistency is an indicator of defined
| process.
|
| Consistency can still produce negative results, but, because
| it is a defined process, it is much easier to 'pull the
| levers', and wrangle the process into an outcome you want.
|
| Serendipity is great, but it really does take a special group
| of people for that synergy to work, absent a process.
|
| I think of it like a good band.
| hrktb wrote:
| Yes, I think at an individual level there needs to be clear
| rules and expectations, and the sense of belonging to a
| coherent group sharing the same values.
|
| It's more at an organization level where I see the need to
| have niches accomodating groups that have different
| dynamics, perhaps goals and working patterns.
|
| Another instance of that could be customer support centers,
| who work hand in hand with the product and dev centers,
| while having wildly different composition, processes and
| targets from the rest of the company.
| wunderflix wrote:
| I guess it depends on how hard it is enforced. In the end,
| consistency is something gray and not black and white.
| bumby wrote:
| > _On a fundamental level, applying the same vision and
| forcing the same values and rituals on everyone looks to me
| at odds with what diversity is supposed to bring._
|
| IMO the difference is that consistency brings people together
| to agree on the same goals but diversity brings different
| perspectives on how to reach said goals. It's a bit of
| nuance, like the distinction between strategy and tactics.
|
| Having disjointed strategy wreaks havoc because people can't
| agree on what's ultimately important in determining success.
| Differing tactics brings a bit of experimentation to the
| table where groups may try out different paths but are all
| honed in on the same end goal.
|
| I've worked in organizations that couldn't align on strategy
| and it was horrendous. One level wanted the focus to be on
| creating an organization that is known for high-quality
| "world-class" work. The other wanted to move fast and bring
| in as much work as possible, sometimes at the detriment of
| quality. Leadership couldn't get on the same page and it
| created a fracturing of the workforce into competing camps,
| neither of which trusted (and at time worked to undermine)
| the other.
| throwaway823882 wrote:
| > Many in the agile or "new work" camp seem to believe that
| their way is the ONLY way, for example.
|
| I think many in the Agile camp are fed up with being held back
| by people who are unwilling to change, and are willing to break
| the mold (and some eggs) in order to find a new, better way to
| work.
|
| > Consistency is much more important than how the culture
| actually is.
|
| This just leads to a consistently toxic culture that nobody
| wants to work for. I have worked for plenty of places where
| nobody gives a shit and nobody tries to change anything, and it
| was terrible. Our working life should mean more than a stock
| ticker.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| The "Agile" problem is more like a bunch of consultants and
| managers polarizing the population while the middle waves
| their hands and goes "uh, guys, you know 'agile' isn't the
| same as Scrum, and many more implementations exist beyond it,
| right?". As the consultants and managers keep insisting that
| if you don't want to participate in "Agile Scrum" (how in the
| world did we get this abomination of a word anyway?), you
| "don't understand the values of Scrum and/or Agile". In turn,
| monopolizing the ideology of iterative, short cycle
| development.
|
| The last being absolutely insane, since both the values in
| Scrum and the values in the Agile Manifesto are extremely
| broad and abstract. Even the guide itself clearly states
| Scrum only being an implementation for those values, not the
| definition of those values.
| yaml-ops-guy wrote:
| I've always found it ironic when coming across discussions
| of people's frustration with Agile (uppercase A) only to
| see the "you're doing it wrong" comment-which I've seen
| often right Here on HN, among other places.
|
| Mainly because wasn't one of the foundational elements of
| agile (lowercase A) "people and tools over processes"?
|
| Lately Agile feels as ritualistic and process-heavy as a
| checklist for a rocket launch.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Is there any reason to think Facebook or Amazon are examples of
| "great company culture"?
|
| From the outside looking in, these companies seem like the two
| most toxic workplaces in big tech. What makes their culture
| great?
| ysavir wrote:
| This thread isn't really clarifying or defining what a "great"
| culture constitutes, and it strongly suffers from survivorship
| bias.
|
| The author is pointing out that a necessary ingredient (among
| others omitted) is strong culture--which is something of a
| tautology. Of course a company with great culture has a strong
| culture; if it were a weak culture, it wouldn't be pervasive or
| definitive of the company. A company with weakly held cultures
| wouldn't be described as a "company with great culture". At best
| it would be described as a "company with great team cultures", at
| worst a "company without culture". But none of these three
| statements hold any inherent truth about how productive the
| company might be, how happy people might be working at said
| companies, the values of the people working for these companies,
| or how the collective values of the employees impact the company.
|
| The author is also looking at two companies that have been around
| for 15+ years. Where is the evaluation of all the companies with
| similar leadership values to Amazon and Facebook that didn't
| survive? Was their strong culture an aid or a hindrance? Did they
| fail despite their strong culture or because of it? Where is the
| evaluation of companies with similar success and longevity that
| don't have top-down cultural values? Can we say definitively that
| they don't have great culture?
|
| I appreciate that the author has a lot of respect for and values
| the culture of previous employers, but when asking the question
| "What defines a great company culture?", I would hope for a more
| substantive answer. Reinforcing that "whatever the cultural
| values might be they have to be strongly endorsed by the
| leadership" can be part of that, but that's describing something
| other than the "great culture" itself.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| Agreed!
|
| Microsoft is a great example of a company which had...
|
| a) many cultural shifts over time
|
| b) still is a company with many different sub team cultures
|
| ...and regardless of where they were on the spectrum they have
| always managed to sell Windows, Office and SQL Server very
| well.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| > a) many cultural shifts over time
|
| MS lost a decade because of stack ranking under Ballmer.
| Dropping that has allowed them to get back to being more
| competitive with Google and Apple.
|
| https://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2012/08/microsoft-l.
| ..
| BayAreaEscapee wrote:
| I saw a video once, the goal of which was to sell to
| Microsoft execs how to market the first Xbox. The video
| explained that the target market wasn't fortysomething guys
| wearing suits in cubicles. It was skateboarders with tattoos
| on their neck. (And many other demographics that varied
| significantly from middle-aged IT people).
| alex_anglin wrote:
| As a middle-aged IT person, that sounds like poor advice to
| me for two reasons:
|
| 1. Marketing to the 'cool kids' with the expectation that
| everyone else will follow-along... is probably not good
| advice in the absence some key differentiation. For
| Microsoft, this could have just been the massive amounts of
| capital they could deploy towards getting the Xbox to
| market. Even then, just spending money is not a strategy.
|
| 2. Middle-aged IT people are likely to have more disposable
| income to afford a $X00 device and a library of games
| (where the real revenue is). They could also be thought to
| have less leisure time and place more value on it
| accordingly, which would correspond to spending decisions.
| They may also see themselves as 'skateboarders with
| tattoos.' There's nothing demographic specific about those
| properties.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| > Middle-aged IT people are likely to have more
| disposable income to afford a $X00 device and a library
| of games (where the real revenue is).
|
| This is not as relevant as many think...
|
| Good sales people know that..
|
| - it's hard to sell expensive items to anyone, let alone
| middle aged people who have many other things to pay for
|
| - the best people to convince a middle age person to
| purchase something are their children
|
| - it's infinitely easier to convince children that they
| need something
|
| ... which is why so many industries focus on selling it
| to the cool kids. Once the cool kids have something then
| the other kids want it. When kids want something they
| will get on parent's nerves until they eventually get it,
| unless the parents truly can'f afford it.
| ysavir wrote:
| This might be a valid perspective today, but the first
| X-Box came out in 2001. How many middle-aged people in
| 2001 were playing console video games? Some, I'm sure,
| but it's probably a much more significant demographic in
| 2021 than it was in 2001. Back then it was much more
| lucrative to market to teenagers and young adults who's
| parents had disposable incomes.
| [deleted]
| jhrozek wrote:
| Regarding 2. -- are you sure the people with disposable
| income would buy a gaming console of all things? I mean
| it requires time to enjoy which is something a middle
| aged person trying to dance between family and work
| doesn't have.. Also those younger people that are being
| targeted have middle aged parents with money:)
|
| Of course it's entirely possible that you're right and
| I'm just bitter that I can't spend more time gaming :)
| kortilla wrote:
| Only targeting people "with disposable income" is a
| losing strategy. If you're making something in this sub
| $1k range, people will find ways to save up for it if
| it's cool. I remember people struggling to pay rent
| coming up with ways to manage to buy iPhones.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| As the post says, "the knife cuts both ways".
|
| You're missing the point! One can't say what are the cultural
| elements of "great". All you can do is tradeoff one element for
| another. What defines a great company culture is one that is
| held consistently, and that _you_ , personally, as a person
| with your own particular outlook (let's call it red or blue),
| enjoy and are productive in. What's great for you is not what's
| great for another.
|
| Too bad we can't understand this in our politics.
|
| > Reinforcing that "whatever the cultural values might be they
| have to be strongly endorsed by the leadership" can be part of
| that, but that's describing something other than the "great
| culture" itself.
|
| Necessarily so! You cannot define "great" culture because there
| is no such single thing. You can define consistency, though.
| This is the critical element because it means that you can
| predict the repercussions of your actions and act accordingly.
| Rewards and punishments don't feel capricious and subject to
| "politics". You don't have to guess what your particular
| manager will do based on his particular and inconsistent whims.
| ysavir wrote:
| True, but none of this changes that the author didn't answer
| their own opening question. If it was framed as "How can a
| company support great culture"?, then it would be a fantastic
| thread to read through for those curious. But leading with
| one question and then answering another is essentially click-
| bait.
| spawarotti wrote:
| > What's great for you is not what's great for another.
|
| > Too bad we can't understand this in our politics
|
| Unless you have a _very_ good reason to not get a vaccine and
| not wear a mask I will expect from you to do these things.
| Not because I don 't understand what's not great for you.
| It's because I understand the objective reality of the
| disease.
| fsociety wrote:
| My view on what the thread is saying, is that having everyone
| aligned on the same page of how to work and communicate means
| you don't waste time on arguing on how to work and communicate.
|
| Instead things become frictionless and the organization can
| become fluid.
| EGreg wrote:
| This kind of comment is underrated. A lot of advice is really
| survivorship bias descriptions!
|
| Relatively useful:
|
| "All you need is access to capital, or a lot of stuff that can
| only be done with capital, and that's what you're missing,
| girl."
|
| Not useful at all:
|
| "What you really need is this cargo-cult aspect that the
| successful companies have years after their success, but also
| tons of failed companies have that we never consider, and it
| isn't the main reason for the company's success"
| riffraff wrote:
| "Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies" is
| a very good book on what makes companies great, and a lot of
| the points echo this twitter thread, especially "cult-like
| culture".
|
| It's also very interesting because quite a few of the
| "visionary companies" have failed in the 30 years since it
| was written.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Same with Good to Great (I think that was also written by
| the same guy). Some of those companies applauded are still
| doing well and others are embroiled in scandals of various
| sorts.
| dasil003 wrote:
| Yeah, a lot of this is just retroactive justification and
| narrative building, which then gets cargo culted because
| everyone wants to repeat the success. But in fact what makes
| these billion dollar companies successful is the outlier
| confluence of product-market fit, timing, strong execution, and
| a million small decisions along the way that compounded returns
| on a few lucky breaks. I don't doubt the importance of company
| culture to operate effectively, but I am very skeptical of
| crediting the success mega corps to any particular aspect of
| company culture.
| qznc wrote:
| A company culture is great if it fits the company strategy. In
| other words, the company should value internally what the
| customers like about the company. It might high quality or
| agility or efficiency or whatever.
|
| If a company changes its strategy, the culture can be too
| strong. You can see that a lot where established hardware
| companies struggle to adopt more of a software culture. A
| culture can be too weak to support the company strategy in any
| meaningful way. That is a competitive disadvantage because
| there is a lot more need for communication and coordination.
| selestify wrote:
| What are the differences between hardware and software
| culture?
| qznc wrote:
| With hardware the lead times are longer and there are no
| updates after delivery. Thus, a waterfall approach is more
| suitable. Customers can actually provide useful and
| comprehensive requirements.
| [deleted]
| foobiekr wrote:
| Software people are comparatively terrible at schedules,
| schedule fidelity, long term planning (in terms of what
| needs to be considered now to satisfy anticipated
| requirements later), cost management, cost over time
| modeling, and day one quality, among other things.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| To me a great company culture is trust and honesty. Being able to
| speak truth and people trusting each other.
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