(2022) At the time (121 points, 155 comments) <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30125218">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30125218</a>
To get off the flamewar channel, I read somewhere that sitting in the cafeteria will tell you quickly if the "values" and "mission statement" are for real or just sheer bullshit posted on the walls for looks, and because printing them is a lot cheaper than buying nice art prints. Supposedly, employees can tell (and will tell) if the CEO is committed to the values or snickering at them.<p>Now, for the flamewar part. I have worked in many companies that were all white male boys clubs, and also at University. I felt more involved with the company team, or the department and university team than the white boy team.
Monoculture is not your customer demographic. It's a fantasy from the days when TV and movies were afraid of their shadow.<p>Techies rarely see privilege, but often act it out, and as with all privilege, earned or unearned, people desperately fear losing the privilege once they've got it, and hoard it, rather than putting it to some good.<p>I worked for one boss who was a fighter pilot. Everyone else was a lesser person. You could see it in his sneer. Even being a veteran had no pull with him. Fighter pilot it was. If you're well educated, think of kids who had to endure craptastic slum schools, fear for their lives at every traffic stop or occasionally get slammed to the ground for looking "different".<p>Try putting yourself in the other person's shoes. Jeff Hammerbacher famously looked back on his big data work and remarked:<p>"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads," he says. "That sucks."<p>What will you build?<p>The real (customer) world is not a monoculture. If your business is one, you're designing for yourself, not the real world, and it is a lot easier to open up to that real world than trying to change it to the monoculture that too many are trying to do.<p>The quote be seen archived from Bloomberg Businessweek: [0]<p>Or at Sydney Morning Herald [1]<p>[0] <a href="https://archive.md/IVFeY" rel="nofollow">https://archive.md/IVFeY</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/why-this-tech-bubble-is-different-20110415-1dhbm.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.smh.com.au/business/why-this-tech-bubble-is-diff...</a>