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I am going to wrap this article around a bigger more general concept. I might be going off topic but bear with me. The difference between a startup culture an
by nashashmi 9y ago
I am going to wrap this article around a bigger more general concept. I might be going off topic but bear with me.
The difference between a startup culture and a corporate culture is the difference between a creative company and a disciplined company. "Discipline" is like a swiss knife, something that can work anywhere and everywhere. Creativity only works in some places, in places that are desperate, in places that are still making basic decisions, in places where the problems are high and the solutions are few.
A disciplined company has no problem being acquired by a creative company. But a creative company has many problems when they start masquerading in a disciplined company. (Read: Microsoft acquires Company X and writes it off 5 years later.)
Working in a disciplined company is easy for most people. No manual required. Working in a creative company is difficult for most people but easy for creative people. Most foreigners or people with diverse minority backgrounds have a difficult time adapting to very social environments. They would rather stay strictly professional and confined to their work.
But here is the problem: what is the point of having diversity if social interaction is nil? How messed up is your social world if it does not include unsocial minorities?
There is a balance that is needed. Google started as creative and became more corporate and also became more "boring". (Sergey Brin's word)
- blablabla123 9y agoI very much agree to most part. So regarding your question, that's really a problem I guess. The obvious bottom line is that for obscure reasons diversity works well in these mega boring environments. But in the very lively places not. So the irony is that in the private life it tends to be vice versa. In the super conservative world you find males only hanging out with males - not sure what the women do to be honest. On the other hand really chaotic people tend to have much more diverse friendships. (Just stating the obvious ;)) But back to the companies: yes it's much tougher to get the chaotic work place right. I had pretty much given up on that to be honest. I still believe in it, but probably you must be suuuper careful who you work with. What if the secret to 'success' is a top notch HR? Most startups have virtually no real HR people.
- brixon 9y ago"Most foreigners or people with diverse minority backgrounds have a difficult time adapting to very social environments. They would rather stay strictly professional and confined to their work." Maybe rephrase this sentence, this reads like anyone not like you cannot do creative work. It sounds extremely racist and other 'ists.
- nashashmi 9y agoI guess I stepped on a racism mine, even if I happen to be of a minority myself.
- taysic 9y agoSimply, people socialize more with people like them. It has nothing to do with "creative" or "disciplined". In that environment, it may appear like less social is more work focused or disciplined in some stretch of the imagination but really that is a big stretch, and has nothing to do with that person's capability.
- SolaceQuantum 9y agoHow is this statement even possible to make that because it's a creative environment it drives away minorities when the vast majority of actually artistically creative pursuits like theatre, several fine arts, and fiction have massively more diversity than startup culture?
- HelloNurse 9y agoIf there is a "very social environment" it is a club of friends that supports itself by doing work, not a company in which employees meet colleagues that might become friends. Discipline and creativity are attributes of the professional side of a company, and a successful company needs both; they cannot be associated with mature or immature workplaces. Are the youngsters that flock to startups creative or merely clueless optimists?