"Less well-known is the all-in corporate culture at Axon, which has tested employees’ commitment and fealty in unusual ways<p>Shawn Gorman, a lawyer who worked at Axon until 2019, said the company had a high-pressure culture of loyalty, unlike anything he has seen in nearly two decades of practice. “It was truly toxic,” he said."<p>Axon wants to expand their Arizona campus with residential housing for their employees ... after reading this it sounds like a recipe for disaster.<p><a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/scottsdale/2023/08/23/axon-proposes-2500-apartment-units-near-scottsdale-headquarters/70654497007/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/scottsdale/2023/0...</a>
I find that the demand for "loyalty" is even more problematic than the tasing or tattooing, to be honest. When anyone stresses "loyalty", especially to such a degree, that's an indication that something is very, very wrong with that person or group of people.
Preface this with I’ve been at axon for a few years now. Feel free to skip reading my opinion.<p>I don’t subscribe to the whole being loyal to a company we are a team stuff that many tech companies seem to have (you can’t always expect the same “loyalty” back once times are hard or stock price needs some help). I can say that in the time I’ve been here I’ve never seen any of this and I’ve been at corporate h.q. for much of that time (remote now). I haven’t been tased. Honestly I kind of wanted to and when I joined some folks I worked with said it was always an option if I wanted to. I kind of like the idea in some ways - we are selling these products to the police and others to use on people - it makes some sense to me to understand just what the use of our products entail in the instance to get the gravity of the situation etc.<p>All that being said if folks have felt this way that’s no good to me and I guess I can’t really speak to other teams in the company. I’m farther in my career and a middle age white guy, it’s always possible that I don’t experience a feeling of pressure, regardless of whether it is intended to be there, the same way younger or more junior folks might.
> “Most of our board and many of our most senior executives have chosen not to experience Taser devices.”<p>I can understand younger employees—or maybe those who give a shit about what they’re inflicting on others—being curious about “experiencing Taser devices”.<p>Making it a cult camaraderie ceremony seems ill-advised.
Axon hosted an AI meeting in Seattle recently. Their office was a bit...much. There were these weird spaceship-looking doors that opened to the office itself and the theme was very much "you are in a scifi space ship". I didn't get any vibes that this would be a place wherein you'd have to be tased, though. Bad if true.
It sounds more fratbro than many tech companies.<p>But this is an opportunity to look at one's own company, and what stereotypical fratbro influences it's picked up. Commonplace ones in tech: hazing rituals for negging pledges, bro/class culture fit screening, demonstrations of loyalty, questionable organizational behavior with everyone complicit...
I'm mildly ok with this. The cops seem to use these pretty willy nilly for how painful and dangerous they seem. There's a kind of karmic balance in executives suffering the same ordeal that they unleashed into the world. Appeals to my sense of balance.
I don't know what is with companies who pretend that the work environment should be more than an exchange of skills for compensation. Even ignoring these kinds of egregious examples, I find the rah-rah-rah of companies where people are excited to hear the CEO speak to be creepy and weird.
Surprised no one has mentioned this but there is actually a documentary called "All Light, Everywhere" with a pretty extensive tour of the Axon offices. I believe it is available to stream on Hulu (in the US at least).
The tattoo thing really shocked me but I've seen people with Nike logo tattoos, of their own free will, choosing (unpaid!) for their body to be an advertisment for a company. So I guess so what, if you're sufficiently stupid or ovine.
Maybe it's not entirely bad that employees are subjected to effects of their products this way. Police officers should also be tased as a part of weapon training, just to understand how the device works
Do you mean the inventors of "Excited Delirium" who paid a bunch of doctors to make up a disease that justifies the use of their product might not be on the up-and-up? ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ<p>Ah crap, my HN filters are slipping. What I meant was, "oh gosh, bad apples, the truth is in the middle, etc".
> James defended Axon’s culture, describing it as “a collaborative environment of mission-driven individuals who join forces to deliver an extraordinarily profound impact on society.”<p>Meta: ChatGPT is excellent at generating blanket corp speech. It’s quite fun to prompt for passive aggressive statements in that style.
Employees of a taser company getting tased doesn't seem that extreme, as long as you COULD opt out.<p>My old employer asked men in the office to take a photo wearing red high heels as a photo of solidarity to idk.. #metoo or feminism or who knows. I imagine the men in that office felt more pressure to be in that photo than people felt pressure to get tased.
And if it was up to me, I'd rather get tased than have a photo of me in high heels. Luckily I was gone by then. But I've seen the photo.