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I worked at Intel for two years. They don't have a "toxic" culture. They are just like any other big company. Believe it or not, Google and Facebook will end

I worked at Intel for two years. They don't have a "toxic" culture. They are just like any other big company. Believe it or not, Google and Facebook will end up like that in 25 years too. Big organizations get like that. There's a generation that's raised on the company Kool-Aid and they live and breathe the company slogans and they forget that reality is a different place. That's not TOXIC ... that's just the nature of human organizations. And I mean all organizations that are large. If you ever hang out with DNC or GOP people who work for the party you'll see the same blinders. Same goes for people that work at NASA ... or in certain academic fields. They all believe certain myths internally that no experts outside their group believe. The point about Intel being addicted to narratives that aligned with its profits is true. And Microsoft was addicted to Windows and Office narratives too before Satya Nadella. It certainly makes you admire IBM as a company a lot more, doesn't it? They have weathered so many changes in the landscape, and they are still around.

dreamcompiler 8y ago
"Around" is relative. The last thing IBM innovated was Watson and they're downsizing that division because they can't figure out how to market it. IBM is mostly just a body shop for cheap overseas code monkeys now, isn't it?
- shindog 8y ago
  Bit of an ignorant statement even if it is IBM. What’s wrong with developers “overseas” (a completely relative term but forgivable in the YC context) why call them monkeys (not an sjw so not even going to go down that words rabbit hole). Having worked with many a yank their quality is just as variable and I’ve seen better output standard maintained by some European teams even if scale is limited.
  - dreamcompiler 8y ago
    Ask an IBM employee with 20 years experience who's been replaced by someone in a country with cheap labor with 2 years experience. No, scratch that. Ask an IBM customer if the quality of IBM's workforce is as good today as it was 10 years ago.
  - flukus 8y ago
    > What’s wrong with developers “overseas” Often it's the culture and education system. Many cultures are very top down and everyone just says yes to whatever the boss wants and then tries to make it happen. The educations systems are often very focused on rote memorization. These translate to extremely poor software (among other things). > why call them monkeys It's a long standing term for people that write code but do little else. There has never been any racial undertone to the term.
    - shindog 8y ago
      Fair points in some places yeah!

dreamcompiler 8y ago

"Around" is relative. The last thing IBM innovated was Watson and they're downsizing that division because they can't figure out how to market it. IBM is mostly just a body shop for cheap overseas code monkeys now, isn't it?

shindog 8y ago
Bit of an ignorant statement even if it is IBM. What’s wrong with developers “overseas” (a completely relative term but forgivable in the YC context) why call them monkeys (not an sjw so not even going to go down that words rabbit hole). Having worked with many a yank their quality is just as variable and I’ve seen better output standard maintained by some European teams even if scale is limited.
- dreamcompiler 8y ago
  Ask an IBM employee with 20 years experience who's been replaced by someone in a country with cheap labor with 2 years experience. No, scratch that. Ask an IBM customer if the quality of IBM's workforce is as good today as it was 10 years ago.
- flukus 8y ago
  > What’s wrong with developers “overseas” Often it's the culture and education system. Many cultures are very top down and everyone just says yes to whatever the boss wants and then tries to make it happen. The educations systems are often very focused on rote memorization. These translate to extremely poor software (among other things). > why call them monkeys It's a long standing term for people that write code but do little else. There has never been any racial undertone to the term.
  - shindog 8y ago
    Fair points in some places yeah!