Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What defines a great company culture?

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 176 posts

Re: What defines a great company culture?

#41

Post by watwut »

nabla9 wrote: post #24
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #15

Bad cultures ignore values, or have toxic values and toxic social outcomes. Good cultures incorporate values, live them consistently rather than just talking about them, and have good values and outcomes. This isn't just a moral position. Your culture is like code. Ethics define your edge cases. You do not want code - or a culture - that works of the time, but collapses when it has to deal with an input that is diffi…

That's not my experience. In fact it's the opposite. I suspect that incorporating values can work, but it's not universal. Best company cultures usually concentrate on good work, not values. Results to the society don't matter when people get things done. I think most companies should try to be as amoral as possible outside the purpose of the company. People choose to work in different companies based on their values…

> Results to the society don't matter when people get things done

If the results to the society are negative, I prefer if you dont get things done. Because it would negatively harm me too.

Re: What defines a great company culture?

#42

Post by michaelt »

beforeolives wrote: post #5
meheleventyone wrote: post #3

I find this thread kind of confusing, it basically seems to say the culture itself doesn't matter. What matters is that it is strongly held. Which means top down, ritualized and vigorously defended against any attempts at change.

The message is that consistency matters and that strong leadership can produce good results in the right circumstances. Top-down isn't necessarily a bad thing. And what are the alternatives? No consistency throughout the company would mean that there wouldn't be any company culture to speak of. And if your processes aren't (ultimately) top-down, then what's the company leadership actually for?

Some values ought to be universal across a company. I'm sure everyone at Volvo could agree that driver safety is a high priority.

Other values may well vary between departments - People working on the car's software can do weekly releases at little or no cost with lightweight planning - but the injection-moulded door handle will need a $$$$$ mould and several months for every design change, so they'd certainly better have frozen the design several months before product launch.

There might not be much common ground on ideas like starting with an MVP and iterating, moving fast, dealing with changing requirements, two week sprints, and so on.

Re: What defines a great company culture?

#43

Post by Loughla »

nabla9 wrote: post #24
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #15

Bad cultures ignore values, or have toxic values and toxic social outcomes. Good cultures incorporate values, live them consistently rather than just talking about them, and have good values and outcomes. This isn't just a moral position. Your culture is like code. Ethics define your edge cases. You do not want code - or a culture - that works of the time, but collapses when it has to deal with an input that is diffi…

That's not my experience. In fact it's the opposite. I suspect that incorporating values can work, but it's not universal. Best company cultures usually concentrate on good work, not values. Results to the society don't matter when people get things done. I think most companies should try to be as amoral as possible outside the purpose of the company. People choose to work in different companies based on their values…

It's not that simple.

I have never been convinced that there is actually such a thing as 'amoral' decision making. Making the sole decision to focus on good work and results (presumably making money for the company) is a moral choice. You have said to your employees and society at large that what is important is money. Make money. Ethical considerations are second. That is a moral stance.

Let's say your company makes widget A. You can source part B for the widget from a company that is suspected of using child or slave labor overseas. They are half the price of part B's competitor. Your 'amoral' decision to focus on the purpose of the company (which, again, is presumably making money) would have you make a very, very bad decision, ethically.

Ignoring your place in society and an organizations obligation to at least speak to the ethics of the people that work there is not really realistic in today's society, I would argue.

Re: What defines a great company culture?

#45

Post by EGreg »

ysavir wrote: post #29

This 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…

This kind of comment is underrated. A lot of advice is really survivorship bias descriptions!

Relatively useful:

“All you need is access to capital, or a lot of stuff that can only be done with capital, and that’s what you’re missing, girl.”

Not useful at all:

“What you really need is this cargo-cult aspect that the successful companies have years after their success, but also tons of failed companies have that we never consider, and it isn’t the main reason for the company’s success”

Re: What defines a great company culture?

#46

Post by misterchicken »

oblio wrote: post #36
orangepanda wrote: post #16

> 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

I don't understand this.

a joke about Cambridge Analytica scandal / facebook leak which happened few days ago most likely

Re: What defines a great company culture?

#48

Post by guavaNinja »

oblio wrote: post #36
orangepanda wrote: post #16

> 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

I don't understand this.

Maybe the leaks of facebook phone numbers?

Re: What defines a great company culture?

#49

Post by numair »

Before you listen to any one connected to early Facebook discussing their “company culture,” I suggest you read the link below and understand what I am saying. There are deep, dark reasons why the word “consent” has never been part of Facebook’s culture.

There are a lot of lottery winners in Silicon Valley who leave out the “turned a blind eye to the sexual predator” part of their success stories, whether it involves founders or investors. You couldn’t be part of “the mafia” if you didn’t think that sort of stuff was okay.

The day of reckoning is coming.

https://numair.medium.com/15-years-is-enough-time-silicon-va...

Post reply on HN