Run Your Startup Like a Cult

Well, in the adult world, you hire mature, professional people who learn to work with each other and overcome their differences. It's fine if they aren't all buddies outside of work. In the startup "Real World" (a la MTV), you artificially craft a group of people who seem to "mesh" and then suffer the consequences later when the latent adolescent dynamics emerge.

I remember interviewing at a certain prominent software agency. I won't say who they are, but will only say that you've probably heard of them. Things went great, as far as I could see. I represented myself as someone who was technically competent and could get the job done. Great, right? They ended up passing and not taking me on. It took me a long time to extract the reasons why, but eventually they revealed that it was because of a perceived "culture issue."

Startup geeks don't seem to realize how frustrating an experience like this is. You go in, having done all your homework, having all the right experience, then you're turned down over something that you have absolutely no control. Something that is completely un-actionable and basically equates to saying "we just don't like you."

This cannot and should not be the way that people conduct business in the tech world.

Consider that a gym membership might cost $50/month at a private gym because the gym needs to make a profit. There is also dead loss because of time travelling between work and the gym.

A company might well be able to provide on site gym services to employees at a much cheaper rate, especially if they already have space that is underutilised, they don't need it to be profitable and the facilities are so close that employees can just work out during their lunch break.

So with everything factored in you might be comparing $60/month to compensate an employee for a private gym vs $15-20/month with an employer provided gym.

The net result is healthier employees because more of them are likely to use the gym than if it was not provided and it's also a more efficient way to provide gym services if it is used by more than X% of employees.

It isn't healthy in personal or business relationships for one partner to expect you to break promises. I keep my agreements and I expect others to do the same. If you expect other people to break promises to indulge your whims, you are too selfish for me to tolerate you.

I would never, ever, ask people to fail to meet their obligations to other people unless it was an emergency. Anyone who does is someone to avoid at any reasonable cost.

> I think this sounds intentional.

I know it wasn't intentional because I had made it clear in the previous email that it was a line I wouldn't cross. The effort they went through after that email made it very, very illogical for them to have continued the conversation. They wasted at least 30 minutes of their time on the phone + whatever it took to setup the environment they wanted me to use.

The alternative is they didn't believe me, in which case they are stupid, given the weight I give to promises and clearly established boundaries. I'm assuming since they got into YC they aren't stupid.

You just described a specific personality trait - that of someone who can moderate their desires in order to get along with the broader group. This is exactly the same reasoning that people are looking for with "culture fit" - they are looking for a very specific personality trait.

This cannot and should not be the way that people conduct business in the tech world.

Why? The tech world, like any other business place, is a mixture of people with different attitudes and personalities. If you clearly would have a personality clash with someone, why would it be worth hiring them?