"In the software business, you can't afford not to have a hacker-centric culture." I think you have to tread carefully in an area like this if you are a progra

"In the software business, you can't afford not to have a hacker-centric culture." I think you have to tread carefully in an area like this if you are a programmer. Many opportunities to to confirm a bias. First, the world is not composed of productive hackers and politicians. In a media company, for example, there are writers, producers, actors, etc. Some of them brilliant. A good strategy for a media company could be to have the best of these. Second, it's not always obvious what business you are in. I think this is especially for startups because they don't have a big version of themselves to look at. If you are a budding fast food chain, you know what business you are in and you've got examples. Yahoo didn't. Not all internet companies turned out to be technology companies. Not all such companies in the future will either. I'm sceptical that Yahoo was ever a great media company either.