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What are your company's anti-values?

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

#181

Post by jerglingu »

alecbz wrote: post #84
glenngillen wrote: post #57

> “Learn and Be Curious” - what might that cost us? Maybe focus (because it’s ok to go down rabbit holes in order to learn something). So how about “Optimise learning over focus”? Maybe, maybe not. A couple of the values pulled out here are from the Amazon Leadership Principles. So there's actually an answer to this question! The opposite of "Learn and Be Curious" is "Bias for Action" and "Deliver Results". The Amazo…

Do the LPs themselves make it clear when they're supposed to be applied?

No, and it's a source of strain for many people at Amazon. There are, however, two LP's that are understood to stand well above the rest of the others: "Deliver Results" and "Customer Obsession."

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

#182

Post by hitekker »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #10

The most famous anti-value was "Don't be evil" and look where that ended up. "Don't be a dick" has good practical mileage. The Kantian ideal of the Kingdom of Ends is pretty good one if you formulate it as "Don't use people", but that's too high a standard for almost any business today (especially the ones whose entire model is "using people"). One of my personal maxims is "Lead people not into temptation". In other…

> One of my personal maxims is "Lead people not into temptation". In other words, no addictive (engagement) features, no lock-in, don't create dependency, make sure the code you write enables people and gives then freedom and choice (migration/federation etc). Again, those values are almost impossible to maintain in todays climate of hyper-exploitation.

This is the most insightful comment I've read this week. I'm surprised no one has made the connection before. It has deep historical meaning and deep implications for where we're headed.

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

#183

Post by p1esk »

sdiupIGPWEfh wrote: post #179
p1esk wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know if there’s overtime involved? I’ve worked with people who could accomplish as much in two hours as I did in two days. Would it be “toxic” to work in such an environment?

If your colleagues are leveraging substantial undocumented overtime, you're going to find out eventually. If you know someone is in the office 40 hours a week and they submit massive pull requests first thing in the morning, even Monday mornings, for problems you know they hadn't solved or started the night or week before, you should suspect something's up. Sooner or later, if someone's breaking their neck, they will…

Why does it matter to you whether your peers are more productive than you because they are smarter than you, or because they work more? Is the former OK, but the latter "toxic"?

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

#185

Post by pessimizer »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #18

Punctuality-maniac policy. Take your seat at 09:01 (or 08:59!) rather than at 09:00 precisely and you're fucked. A delegate from a partner company or an employment candidate who would arrive to an appointed meeting 10 minutes later or earlier is considered a dick and treated with lowest priority.

Punctuality Over Progress

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

#186

Post by karaterobot »

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.

I always felt it was meant to imply something more like: "show the world that not being evil is a better business strategy".

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

#187

Post by munificent »

xhevahir wrote: post #173
nonrandomstring wrote: post #10

The most famous anti-value was "Don't be evil" and look where that ended up. "Don't be a dick" has good practical mileage. The Kantian ideal of the Kingdom of Ends is pretty good one if you formulate it as "Don't use people", but that's too high a standard for almost any business today (especially the ones whose entire model is "using people"). One of my personal maxims is "Lead people not into temptation". In other…

"Don't be evil" is a dreadful credo. Allows a ridiculous amount of wiggle room. The fact that these very smart people formulated their beliefs in such a self-consciously childish manner should have been taken as a warning.

I don't think you are giving them enough credit.

Choosing "don't be evil" as a credo deliberately encourages others to view the company through a moral lens. It is an invitation to judge the company according to a higher standard than most businesses would hold themselves to. It makes explicit that the company takes responsibility for the moral implications of what they do instead of pretending to live in an amoral value-free universe like many other corporations do.

I think it was a courageous motto and I'm sad they dropped it.

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

#188

Post by moffkalast »

david_allison wrote: post #7

This mirrors Netflix's old culture slide deck[0] > adequate performance gets a generous severance package > We’re a team, not a family; We’re like a pro sports team, not a kid’s recreational team [0] https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/

If only they spent as much time expanding their catalogue as they do making slides they'd probably leave the competition in the dust.

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

#189

Post by munificent »

Back when I worked at EA there were obviously many horrible aspects to its culture. But one thing I always thought was cool was that they had a notion of a "razor". This was a principle or guideline that was worded specifically enough to clearly slice up a set of options into whether they fit it or not.

When designing a game, "The game is fun," is a shitty razor because it doesn't tell you how to prioritize or make trade-offs. "Multi-player is the most fun mode," is a better razor because if you're trying to decide which features to cut, the single player ones are clearly it.

"Anti-value" is, I think, another way to say something similar.

This touches on a cognitive mistake I see often. We often naturally think of choices in terms of "yes or no". Do I want to go out for dinner tonight? Should I ask that person out? Should I buy that house?

But opportunity cost pervades all aspects of life. Our time and resources are finite and any "yes" choice is implicitly a "no" to the other options that give up the capacity to say yes to. It's very hard to make good choices without thinking of those other options.

Framing your values in terms of "razors" or "anti-values" is a good way to get out of the "yes/no" mindset and into the more accurate "which one" mindset. It helps you discriminate among options.

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

#190

Post by p1esk »

hutzlibu wrote: post #177
p1esk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the context was Netflix seeking top performance (results) from its employees. Whether this leads to toxic culture is a different question and up for a debate. My point is a company that offers top compensation can and should demand top performance.

"Whether this leads to toxic culture is a different question and up for a debate" And here I was thinking this whole thread was about that question ... "My point is a company that offers top compensation can and should demand top performance. " Anyway, sure they can. But no company can expect from me, to put the company over my self. A good company has those goals aligned. I get money - and they get performance. Win…

no company can expect from me, to put the company over my self

Yes, I agree, they should not have said that. That should have been left implicit. When a certain pay threshold is crossed (e.g. triple the industry average), I would expect them to expect extra from me. This might mean working nights/weekends if that's necessary for me to be "top performer" compared to my peers. Netflix expects you to keep up with their performance standards. They don't care how you do it - by working overtime, or being brilliant and working 2 hours a day, it simply does not matter, just like in professional sports. If, as you said, you get money, they get performance, it's a win win. But if you get money, but they don't get the expected performance, you can't blame it on toxic culture. If your peers are delivering and you're not, then you're toxic, and you should probably look for an easier job with less pay.

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