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.
Take a typical 9-5 job. Problem solved.
What defines a great company culture?
101–110 of 176 posts
Re: What defines a great company culture?
#102This 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 wit…
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 supp…
What are the differences between hardware and software culture?
Re: What defines a great company culture?
#103> 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 ca…
> 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.
Re: What defines a great company culture?
#104When 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.
Re: What defines a great company culture?
#105This 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 wit…
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.
Re: What defines a great company culture?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
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.
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.
Re: What defines a great company culture?
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 supp…
What are the differences between hardware and software culture?
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.
Re: What defines a great company culture?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
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.…
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.
Re: What defines a great company culture?
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 supp…
What are the differences between hardware and software culture?
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.
Re: What defines a great company culture?
#110> 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
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.