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What are your company's anti-values?

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Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#141

Post by Edman274 »

xiaq wrote: post #22
d--b wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be evil, is not an anti-value. It's negatively-stated-yet-positive value. The article says people should state values as a tradeoff. So for google it should have been something like: Favor not being evil over making more money.

I think "favor not being evil over making more money" is exactly how the "don't be evil" motto is commonly interpreted.

As a shareholder, I think that not making as much money as possible is the real evil here. I always interpreted "don't be evil" as "don't waste money building an aquarium for sharks with lasers on their heads". I never in my darkest nightmares thought it meant "shut down profitable centers of corporate growth just because some bleeding hearts say that it's bad to pollute developing countries with planned obsolescent e-waste."

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#142

Post by rjbwork »

Edman274 wrote: post #141
xiaq wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "favor not being evil over making more money" is exactly how the "don't be evil" motto is commonly interpreted.

As a shareholder, I think that not making as much money as possible is the real evil here. I always interpreted "don't be evil" as "don't waste money building an aquarium for sharks with lasers on their heads". I never in my darkest nightmares thought it meant "shut down profitable centers of corporate growth just because some bleeding hearts say that it's bad to pollute developing countries with planned obsolescent…

Poe's law right here. I really had no idea if this was genuine or satire the first 3 times I read it. I'm pretty sure it's satire.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#143

Post by lupire »

Edman274 wrote: post #141
xiaq wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "favor not being evil over making more money" is exactly how the "don't be evil" motto is commonly interpreted.

As a shareholder, I think that not making as much money as possible is the real evil here. I always interpreted "don't be evil" as "don't waste money building an aquarium for sharks with lasers on their heads". I never in my darkest nightmares thought it meant "shut down profitable centers of corporate growth just because some bleeding hearts say that it's bad to pollute developing countries with planned obsolescent…

Your problem is that you are "as a shareholder" where the values are the business proposition to the customers.

Also your problem is that you favor evil ways of making money, but don't call it evil, instead of owning the evil.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#145

Post by lupire »

MisterTea wrote: post #133
0x445442 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is adequate and what is the frame of reference? If adequate is average by some objective metrics and the frame of reference is Netflix itself then they would need to be terminating half their work force annually to make good. This sounds like braggadocio to me.

"Completed their tasks in a timely manner when asked" sounds good enough to me.

The real problem is Netflix rally refuse to hire merely competent staff for boring work? Do they really need 10,000 major innovations every year?

Even pro sports teams have paid support staff working with the "players".

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#146

Post by sebastianconcpt »

In my social media profile image I use a Saint Augustine maxim for friendship:

Ubi amicita est, ibi idem velle et idem nolle.

"True friendship is in, same likes and same dislikes." [1]

Is the best radar (sonar?) I've found to predict and sense how shallow or deep a friendship with any person you'll have.

Now you can use it as a generator of the types of relations with individuals that you company has/wants to have: founders, developers, marketeers, commercial, support, partners and customers.

[1] So the dislikes part you might take it as the anti-value notion proposed here but is still a value.

PS: about the anti-value notion, I think we're still talking about values. Like a value matrix you have in your deep psychology that is symmetrical. It has the values of the things you're attracted to and the things you are repelled from. Like all the cells in the matrix being little vectors that will eventually synthesise a final position on everything you input.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#147

Post by p1esk »

lupire wrote: post #145
MisterTea wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Completed their tasks in a timely manner when asked" sounds good enough to me.

The real problem is Netflix rally refuse to hire merely competent staff for boring work? Do they really need 10,000 major innovations every year? Even pro sports teams have paid support staff working with the "players".

The point is that even for boring work (e.g. a janitor) it’s better to hire one really good worker than two average ones.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#148

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

I like the idea of anti values, the idea you have to trade something off.

It doesn't always make sense though. The only company I've worked at whose values actually resonated with me, and evidently a lot of other people there, was at Maersk. They are [1]:

* Constant care * Humbleness * Uprightness * Our employees * Our name

They were a great place to work and I saw those values embodied there. Hard to see what the anti values would be for those.

The basic principle they are working on is building trust.

[1] https://www.maersk.com/about/core-values

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#149

Post by p1esk »

sakarisson wrote: post #34
hutzlibu wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask, what you find toxic about them? I thought them to be refreshing honest and clear (but have not yet read all slides). I mean, it is also not attractive for me, because I would not put what is good for Netflix, over what is good for me - but otherwise I do not think a professional, internal competing sports team as a goal, is necessarily toxic.

I do agree that the honesty is refreshing. That said, I personally feel like the mentality of "We will fire you if you aren't doing an _exceptional_ job" reads as a serious red flag. The implication here is that you should expect to work overtime and prioritize your job over all else. Even then, we might still fire you. Of course I'd rather have a company being open and upfront about their unsustainable expectations,…

You do realize they offer top of market compensation (250k fresh grad, >500k senior SWE, etc) for what they are looking for?

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#150

Post by papito »

bluedino wrote: post #113
papito wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think claiming that "we are a family" is actually the toxic one. It's incredibly dishonest to claim that. No one gets fired from a family because the family is "right-sizing".

Some families get together to have an intervention for their alcoholic brother and cut him off.

That takes years of building up until that happens.
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