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Getting free of toxic tech culture

blog.valerieaurora.org

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Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#101

Post by Karrot_Kream »

smsm42 wrote: post #73
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, marketing sometimes goes a bit over the board, and each release of version 8.4 is the best thing that happened to humanity since v8.3 was released and before it's time to release v8.5. But that's kind of expected, nobody I know takes it as a literal truth. > And of course (almost) each startup CEO thinks his (or her) startup is going to change the world, or at least some part of it. That's how you should…

That's the whole point, let me refine it further: the bad aspects that mentioned in the article are not unique to tech: the world is full of overboard marketing, I see ads promising scantly-clad women flocking to me if I drink sugared water of $BRAND and muscular attractive men inviting me to the world of opportunities if I use shampoo $BRAND2 - btw, if you think tech world is sexist and pigeonholing try watching TV…

> btw, if you think tech world is sexist and pigeonholing try watching TV ads... And the other aspects are not bad but just a normal imperfect human behavior.

I didn't claim this. However, there's no correlation between sexist marketing and sexist work culture. On top of this, writing off bad behavior as "normal imperfect human behavior" is just an excuse to break rules. Two wrongs don't make a right.

> Maybe if they did, they'd be a large national chain of bike repair shops now?

Are you implying that the hyperbolic marketing of startups is a feature and not a bug? If so, then we're probably not going to see eye-to-eye in this discussion. I do not think that hyperbolic marketing is a necessary condition to success.

> The point is there's nothing inherently bad in wanting to change the world of bikes forever.

Indeed, but there's a cognitive dissonance when 500 startup founders believe they are all changing the world. If 500 intelligent, aware people are all convinced that they are going to change the world then, well I'm interested in whatever kool-aid they're drinking and how. Moreover, you seem to be implying that founders actually believe their mission statements. I'm going to rebut and say no, most founders use the mission statement as another form of marketing.

> And SV companies surely provide ample evidence that marketing is not the only thing they do.

But there are SV companies which provide ample evidence that marketing is all the do. Juicero, Yo, etc.

> Surely, some companies are just hype, and those get up, stay up for a short while, and go down to the ash heap of history, never to be spoken about again (would anybody know what Juicero was in 5 years? maybe some ubergeeks would)

While this is a slightly different issue than the one discussed in the article, I'd like to reply to this. Behind each of these pure hype Silicon Valley companies are VCs who actually invested in them, who wrote them checks of $10,000+ that believed in the hype and marketing potential of these startups. This is a very unique aspect of tech culture, and not at all a good one in my opinion.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#102

Post by malvosenior »

majormajor wrote: post #99
malvosenior wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is and always has been to judge people by the output of their work and nothing else. As soon as you bring identity politics into to equation, you’ve lost because many people will (rightly) take attacks on white people and men as racist and sexist respectively.

Could you elaborate on the form of the attacks on white people and men you're seeing in SV companies? I'm both white, male, and at an SV company, and haven't seen them in my experience. From a managerial perspective I'd love to hire more people from underrepresented groups because it would mean a bigger pool to hire from, so I'm all for recruiting efforts, outreach/education programs, etc, but at the end of the day t…

Sure, from Damore’s Google lawsuit: https://twitter.com/mjaeckel/status/950446329603461121

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#103

Post by [deleted] »

reaperducer wrote: post #24
jackgolding wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if any managers can answer this, how do, or do you deal with employees that act within their rights and don't drink the cool-aid? There have been so many times where I have worked beyond the call of duty and on reflection I don't know why I did it - there is a low chance of getting a bonus or raise compared to spending the time actually getting paid to do something and you are in your right to say no (to som…

> employees that act within their rights They fire the employee. I'm not a manager, but I know someone at a startup who, completely within their rights, complained to state regulators when the company's payroll became erratic. Next thing you know, she was out the door. (In the state in question, filing a formal complaint requires the complainant to give their real name and address, etc... and the employer gets a copy…

[deleted]

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#104

Post by dang »

hondo77 wrote: post #97
oceanghost wrote: post #8

I've written software for Intel, Nintendo, Samsung, LG, DirecTV, Applied Materials, Microsoft, and Apple to name a few. My last project was the basis for an entire business line at a 500m/yr company. I am unemployable because I'm a white male whose in his 40s, has a family, and because somehow, in this industry experience is a bad thing. It amazes me how intolerant of age and differing opinion tech culture is.

I'm a white male programmer in my mid-50's, have a family, and I am very employable. Quit whining.

Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this to HN.

The comment would have been just fine with only the first sentence.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#105

Post by geofft »

malvosenior wrote: post #75
adamsea wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) With respect, your experience and the author's experience may vary, for a variety of reasons, so I'm not sure it makes sense to pit one set of experiences against another, so to speak. B) Would you be willing to clarify what was toxic about your experience with SV startups as you described? C) Realistically, without denying the problems which probably do exist with "intersectionaly identity politics", etc, it seem…

The answer is and always has been to judge people by the output of their work and nothing else. As soon as you bring identity politics into to equation, you’ve lost because many people will (rightly) take attacks on white people and men as racist and sexist respectively.

> The answer is and always has been to judge people by the output of their work and nothing else.

Should it not be to judge people by the output of their work relative to their working conditions?

I'm much more interested in hiring someone who operated 5 servers in a culture of manual configuration over ssh by introducing automation than someone who operated 500 servers by following existing procedures and using Ansible playbooks that they didn't contribute any improvements to, even though the second person produced quite a bit more output.

(If by "output" you mean to count in this way, then sure, but a lot of people don't—for instance, lots of people want to see GitHub activity without asking whether the previous employer had onerous IP rules, or the candidate has a family they're busy with on evenings and weekends, or whatever.)

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#106

Post by malvosenior »

adamsea wrote: post #95
malvosenior wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is and always has been to judge people by the output of their work and nothing else. As soon as you bring identity politics into to equation, you’ve lost because many people will (rightly) take attacks on white people and men as racist and sexist respectively.

I concur that judging someone by the output of their work as opposed to their sex or skin color is extremely important, however, I believe that by itself is a narrow and inaccurate view of the whole situation/problem. In fact, acknowledging the vastness of the problem is a major challenge in and of itself. > As soon as you bring identity politics into to equation, you’ve lost because many people will (rightly) take a…

As a non-white male who has succeeded in this industry based on talent alone, I couldn’t disagree more. I also take offense to people suggesting I need some sort of handout or special attention. Feels infantalizing and quite frankly terrible.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#107

Post by adamsea »

peterwwillis wrote: post #81

What is the point of allowing discussion? HN would not allow a post on this topic from an opposing viewpoint to get to the front page. Moreover, this particular point of view is from a radical organization - you can't really have intellectual discourse with people who refuse to see any other position than theirs.

> HN would not allow a post on this topic from an opposing viewpoint to get to the front page.

Proof?

> Moreover, this particular point of view is from a radical organization

Define "radical."

> you can't really have intellectual discourse with people who refuse to see any other position than theirs.

How does one tell if this is the case? How does one tell _which_ party refuses to see things from another position? How does one tell if it is in fact miscommunication, or lack of a shared understanding? How does one tell if in fact one of the parties is not discussing in good faith?

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#108

Post by malvosenior »

geofft wrote: post #105
malvosenior wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is and always has been to judge people by the output of their work and nothing else. As soon as you bring identity politics into to equation, you’ve lost because many people will (rightly) take attacks on white people and men as racist and sexist respectively.

> The answer is and always has been to judge people by the output of their work and nothing else. Should it not be to judge people by the output of their work relative to their working conditions? I'm much more interested in hiring someone who operated 5 servers in a culture of manual configuration over ssh by introducing automation than someone who operated 500 servers by following existing procedures and using Ansi…

> Should it not be to judge people by the output of their work relative to their working conditions?

No we shouldn’t look at that. I only care how you can produce in the role you occupy.

To clarify by “output” I mean work output, not public display output.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#109

Post by Karrot_Kream »

acchow wrote: post #70
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #3

> The refrain of how a startup CEO is going to save humanity is so common that it’s actually uncommon for a CEO to not use saviour language when describing their startup. Cult leaders do the same thing: they create a unique philosophy, imbued with some sort of special message that they alone can see or hear, convince people that only they have the answers for what ails humanity, and use that influence to control the…

Can you describe in what ways SV feels like Animal Farm? > The Orwellian mismatch between rhetoric and action feels like cult-like propaganda to me. Can you list out a few of these actions?

Maybe I should tell the (abridged) tale of XMPP. Once upon a time, XMPP was an open standard that allowed FB, Google, and independent clients federate at once. The reason Google and FB were able to become such popular messengers is because they allowed all sorts of clients to federate with them. This was the world of Pidgin, Trillian, GTalk, Adium, and others. Then Google and FB both closed off their XMPP support, citing overhead in maintaining a federated service.

Facebook thought it was a better use of its resources to build a Snapchat clone named Slingshot. Google decided it was a better use of its resources to build a social network named Google+.

Animal Farm: "Four legs good, two legs bad" Google: "Don't be evil"

Animal Farm: "Four legs good, two legs better" Google: "You can make money without doing evil" [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil#cite_note-Goog...

In the old days, this was called Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

Re: Getting free of toxic tech culture

#110

Post by bduerst »

smsm42 wrote: post #12
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #3

> The refrain of how a startup CEO is going to save humanity is so common that it’s actually uncommon for a CEO to not use saviour language when describing their startup. Cult leaders do the same thing: they create a unique philosophy, imbued with some sort of special message that they alone can see or hear, convince people that only they have the answers for what ails humanity, and use that influence to control the…

I've been in SV for a decade now and I am not observing anything cult-like. I haven't worked for companies like Google or Facebook or any other giant behemoths, so no idea how things are there, but in other places it's pretty far from a cult where I am. Of course, marketing sometimes goes a bit over the board, and each release of version 8.4 is the best thing that happened to humanity since v8.3 was released and befo…

Since we're going with anecdotal evidence here: My wife worked at a start up in SV that had a 'management' consultant agency come in and set up cult-like team building events, where employees would shame someone up on stage in front of each other. Predictably, people were brought to tears. My wife was threatened to be fired (and lose her work visa) when she walked out and refused to participate. She and a couple others were lucky to find new jobs quickly, but not everyone could. The startup has since stopped the events because they were sued.

Just because you don't personally experience it doesn't mean that it's not happening. If there is data to show that people are being marginalized in the bay area, then odds are it's happening even if you haven't seen it yourself.

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