This was posted in (2016), where it was flagged to death due to drama. HN discussion around that time: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12682944" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12682944</a><p>My comment from back then:<p>> Although I genuinely miss Valleywag and all the absurdity that it covered (e.g. Clinkle), I'm not sure if this is a fair critique of startup culture outside of having the excuse to say the F word a lot. As someone living in San Francisco, I can say that there are more to startups and startup culture than the stereotypes seen in Medium thought pieces and the Hacker News front page, although given the end of this particular Medium thought piece, that may be the point.<p>Given that the OP now works at WeWork, I suppose the startup world can't be f'ed forever.
I understand and empathize with the sentiment but the rhetorical style really takes away from this piece for me. Peak medium right here. Comes off sounding like a pissed off child more than real critique.<p>Not worth reading in my opinion.
Hmm.
"Fuck reading a book a week. No one can read that fast. Let me repeat that -NO ONE CAN FUCKING READ THAT FAST."<p>He/she/it thinks so? Maybe if it's a useless self improvement book. Perhaps he/she/it should practice their reading skills...
Came here to complain about the drinking.
When I worked for a startup, they had days where the company bought people beer.<p>- I don't drink, but I felt pressure to do it anyway, so I could be part of the team.<p>- There was an alcoholic on the team. Can't imagine what that was like for him.<p>- People would inevitably get drunk and do stupid shit. I remember when a senior employee got drunk and completely embarrassed herself in front of a client. She was fired the next day.<p>Can't we enjoy beer at home or at the bar? Why do we have to drink at work?<p>I get the feeling that for some people, startups are just a way to make college last for ever.
There is some throwing out the baby with the bath water here. It's taken me a decade to understand what I value in a working environment, everyone should examine that for themselves, especially people straight out of college. Many of the things listed are tools used by startups to attract young, impressionable people and keep them at the office at all hours. I disagree with that mentality, but it took me a long time to identify that incentive.<p>10x, Rockstar, Ninja, open office, stock over cash all tend to make me go the other way at this point.<p>There is also the issue of sweating blood for someone else's success or for toliet paper.
> But more than all, start-up world, fuck you for making me one of you.<p>There are plenty of bootstrapped startups quietly humming along, working normal hours, where the employees enjoy life and family time without engaging in the culture. You don't hear about them as much.
I recently went through an interview process at a downtown SF startup, from their words I 'aced' all technical aspects and they were 'dying' to get me in town for an on-site, final interview.<p>What did the on-site interview consist of? I was scheduled quick meetings with various people in the chain of command, all of whom I had already spoken with (some at great length) and then I was to accompany the whole team out for drinks/happy hour at a local pub.<p>I don't drink. I told them I don't drink. This was a culture fit test, I never went to the interview as that wasn't a team I wanted to be a part of. I want to write code, work with people who are better/smarter/more experienced than I am in order to better myself - happy hour isn't going to do that.
> I don’t fucking care about the complexity of this code block because I can afford another EC2 instance<p>Ironically, these words are a good example of start-up mentality.
Im not sure about some of these.. but this one is so wrong I feel like it should be addressed:<p><i>Fuck reading a book a week. No one can read that fast. Let me repeat that -NO ONE CAN FUCKING READ THAT FAST.</i><p>Yes you can. If you find this difficult, please start reading regularly. You'll get better at it over time. This should not be a challenge.
This title, in addition to being obvious click bait, contains inappropriate and offensive language. Profanity is generally used by people too stupid to come up with something more intelligent to say.
The only thing I got from this post is that I want to seriously avoid working with a person who expresses themselves in such an unproductive way.<p>Look, just because people care about some things that you don’t seem to care about doesn’t mean you get to step into their world and tell them that everything they do is wrong using vulgar language. If you don’t like the culture, leave.<p>If you think aspects of the culture can be improved, then help in identifying the problems and offer constructive solutions. Instead this guy just says “Fuck XYZ” a hundred times and thinks he has some unique insight to offer.