5 ms·

I don't know, this super optimism as a value might lead to situations where something is going clearly in the wrong direction, but people get afraid of pointing

by vfc1 7y ago

I don't know, this super optimism as a value might lead to situations where something is going clearly in the wrong direction, but people get afraid of pointing it out due to fear of going against the company values, and getting natural overly optimistic personalities out of their delusional high and back into reality.

bestouff 7y ago
Sure. But maybe that means one could reword its "we're going headfirst into the wall" prophecy into something more constructive, like "I think we could avoid this pitfall, here's my plan".
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
bschne 7y ago
Having thought about this issue a lot previously, I think it's important to not overgeneralize based on vague value statements. Optimism can possibly mean anything from not blocking new initiatives through year-long corporate approval processes to cult-like you-have-to-drink-our-kool-aid internal communication that shuts down any and all critical voices and oversells what a company is doing and where it is currently at even to their own employees internally. For me personally, optimism is a good thing when it means not taking issues as set in stone, genuinely believing that the future will be better than now and that one has some amount of control over that, and trying things out that might not work instantly - all while retaining one's critical thinking and being honest about the facts. I have never met anyone who works at stripe or heard an inside take, but from the interviews with the founders I've heard, they don't strike me as the kind of people to push the delusional kind of "optimism" and shut down critical voices.
minxomat 7y ago
I agree in the sense that small problems which have technical solutions should be pointed out and overcome. However, in later-stage startups and in larger companies, trying to change the direction might not be the wise thing to do. This highly depends on your position, but as an individual contributor and even as someone in the lower management lane (manager, director), your job most of the time is implementing the CEO's vision, whatever that is. If you find yourself disagreeing with that vision, it might be best to change jobs.[1] In smaller startups, where you might be able to steer more aggressively, you should still ask yourself whether the company is clearly in the wrong direction only from your perspective or if there are factors which you don't have any insight into (no matter how close you are to founder(s)) which would re-contextualize the issue. Not disagreeing, but these are some caveats which I found useful to keep in mind. [1] - There was a story about someone from Apple(?) here a while ago who was let go after a lunch with <someone important> where he expressed his dissatisfaction with the company's direction. He then took up japanese caligraphy. Maybe someone remembers and can link it here.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
throwaway_str 7y ago
From the engineering friends I know at Stripe, you'd be correct: there's a strong cultural push to not question the status quo / prevailing wisdom. On the tech side, they continue to build on top of a broken foundation (MongoDB), resulting in millions of man hours wasted dealing with the complete lack of transactions. Mongo now has transactions, but last I heard Stripe was still running a very outdated version and spending absurd amounts of time dealing with issues that transactions would have entirely avoided. If you suggested that maybe it'd be worth changing course to something like Postgres because of the insane amount of work being wasted, you'd be shut down for not being optimistic enough.
- wbronitsky 7y ago
  It is always amazing to me that people downvote actual anecdotes that highlight the arguments being made, while at the same time upvote rampant speculation that has no basis in fact. Having worked at Stripe, these exact examples came up more than once. I can verify their authenticity.
- rat9988 7y ago
  Wouldn't be easier to just upgrade mongodb, which is no longer broken? Unless its api is not backward compatible?
  - stingraycharles 7y ago
    From what I understand there have been various attempts at this, as well as other data storage solutions, but they always run into issues. MongoDB is being used as a database and data warehouse and there are always complications.
    - Slartie 7y ago
      Updating any non-trivial layer in your stack usually gets you into "complications" - that alone must never be an acceptable reason to be stuck on old versions, especially if there are serious problems with them. You simply chew through those complications. Again and again. And try to optimize your application for less complications in the future, if possible.
Nemi 7y ago
I completely agree with you as taken verbatim. However, what they are really talking about is that "why will it fail" is a "conversation ender", and "how might it work" is a "conversation continuer". Those are probably bad terms, but hopefully you get my drift. One promotes conversations to end, and one encourages conversations to continue. I would personally promote that viewpoint instead to keep people from doing exactly what you are talking about.
- afarrell 7y ago
  It sounds like you are suggesting asking "how might it work under <failure conditions>?" as a way of pointing out hazards while still continuing the conversation.
- zrail 7y ago
  In improve terms, it's sort of like "yes and" vs "no but".
gwbas1c 7y ago
I think, in the case of brevity, the article probably glossed over some important parts of this topic. (Which rightly could be their own article.) There's a clear difference between giving an unusual or unconventional idea a chance; versus allowing an idea guy to let his imagination run away. In the former, giving an unusual or unconventional idea a chance, is how progress is made. Fundamentally, a startup is always taking a chance on an unusual or unconventional idea. (When I worked for a successful startup, a lot of people at networking events thought what we were doing was weird and unconventional. It wasn't.) In the latter case, when an idea guy is allowed to let his imagination run away, it just kills the company. Either he's wasting all his time, or even worse, wasting everyone else's time. (These are the kind of people who's whine that "we're supposed to be optimistic" when everyone in the room clearly rejects their ideas.)
truthwhisperer 7y ago
Agree. It's a trick to bind people emotionally with all the benefits for the employer. It's all fake and you know it deep in your heart but given the 24/7 "availability" your work becomes part of who you are (become) and that is the trick; lifestyle. Make a better world, especially for the founders/shareholders - don't forget it is business after all.
ksec 7y ago
> super optimism I finally came to the conclusion ( for now ) that these sort of super optimism persist precisely and only because they are Startups. Optimism as a Culture only works when it happens from those who held power to all the way down. It doesn't really work bottom up. When the company Culture is toxic, or bureaucratic as in every large companies, no optimism is going to save you. In Startup, everyone is in it together, and it is mostly a flat or very thin structure. There is a huge transparency in vision and Goal. Everyone knew what their others are doing, and as long as everyone is fighting for it there will always be a fighting chance.

by vfc1 7y ago

bestouff 7y ago

Sure. But maybe that means one could reword its "we're going headfirst into the wall" prophecy into something more constructive, like "I think we could avoid this pitfall, here's my plan".

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

bschne 7y ago

Having thought about this issue a lot previously, I think it's important to not overgeneralize based on vague value statements. Optimism can possibly mean anything from not blocking new initiatives through year-long corporate approval processes to cult-like you-have-to-drink-our-kool-aid internal communication that shuts down any and all critical voices and oversells what a company is doing and where it is currently at even to their own employees internally. For me personally, optimism is a good thing when it means not taking issues as set in stone, genuinely believing that the future will be better than now and that one has some amount of control over that, and trying things out that might not work instantly - all while retaining one's critical thinking and being honest about the facts. I have never met anyone who works at stripe or heard an inside take, but from the interviews with the founders I've heard, they don't strike me as the kind of people to push the delusional kind of "optimism" and shut down critical voices.

minxomat 7y ago

I agree in the sense that small problems which have technical solutions should be pointed out and overcome. However, in later-stage startups and in larger companies, trying to change the direction might not be the wise thing to do. This highly depends on your position, but as an individual contributor and even as someone in the lower management lane (manager, director), your job most of the time is implementing the CEO's vision, whatever that is. If you find yourself disagreeing with that vision, it might be best to change jobs.[1] In smaller startups, where you might be able to steer more aggressively, you should still ask yourself whether the company is clearly in the wrong direction only from your perspective or if there are factors which you don't have any insight into (no matter how close you are to founder(s)) which would re-contextualize the issue. Not disagreeing, but these are some caveats which I found useful to keep in mind. [1] - There was a story about someone from Apple(?) here a while ago who was let go after a lunch with <someone important> where he expressed his dissatisfaction with the company's direction. He then took up japanese caligraphy. Maybe someone remembers and can link it here.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

throwaway_str 7y ago

From the engineering friends I know at Stripe, you'd be correct: there's a strong cultural push to not question the status quo / prevailing wisdom. On the tech side, they continue to build on top of a broken foundation (MongoDB), resulting in millions of man hours wasted dealing with the complete lack of transactions. Mongo now has transactions, but last I heard Stripe was still running a very outdated version and spending absurd amounts of time dealing with issues that transactions would have entirely avoided. If you suggested that maybe it'd be worth changing course to something like Postgres because of the insane amount of work being wasted, you'd be shut down for not being optimistic enough.

wbronitsky 7y ago
It is always amazing to me that people downvote actual anecdotes that highlight the arguments being made, while at the same time upvote rampant speculation that has no basis in fact. Having worked at Stripe, these exact examples came up more than once. I can verify their authenticity.
rat9988 7y ago
Wouldn't be easier to just upgrade mongodb, which is no longer broken? Unless its api is not backward compatible?
- stingraycharles 7y ago
  From what I understand there have been various attempts at this, as well as other data storage solutions, but they always run into issues. MongoDB is being used as a database and data warehouse and there are always complications.
  - Slartie 7y ago
    Updating any non-trivial layer in your stack usually gets you into "complications" - that alone must never be an acceptable reason to be stuck on old versions, especially if there are serious problems with them. You simply chew through those complications. Again and again. And try to optimize your application for less complications in the future, if possible.

Nemi 7y ago

I completely agree with you as taken verbatim. However, what they are really talking about is that "why will it fail" is a "conversation ender", and "how might it work" is a "conversation continuer". Those are probably bad terms, but hopefully you get my drift. One promotes conversations to end, and one encourages conversations to continue. I would personally promote that viewpoint instead to keep people from doing exactly what you are talking about.

afarrell 7y ago
It sounds like you are suggesting asking "how might it work under <failure conditions>?" as a way of pointing out hazards while still continuing the conversation.
zrail 7y ago
In improve terms, it's sort of like "yes and" vs "no but".

gwbas1c 7y ago

I think, in the case of brevity, the article probably glossed over some important parts of this topic. (Which rightly could be their own article.) There's a clear difference between giving an unusual or unconventional idea a chance; versus allowing an idea guy to let his imagination run away. In the former, giving an unusual or unconventional idea a chance, is how progress is made. Fundamentally, a startup is always taking a chance on an unusual or unconventional idea. (When I worked for a successful startup, a lot of people at networking events thought what we were doing was weird and unconventional. It wasn't.) In the latter case, when an idea guy is allowed to let his imagination run away, it just kills the company. Either he's wasting all his time, or even worse, wasting everyone else's time. (These are the kind of people who's whine that "we're supposed to be optimistic" when everyone in the room clearly rejects their ideas.)

truthwhisperer 7y ago

Agree. It's a trick to bind people emotionally with all the benefits for the employer. It's all fake and you know it deep in your heart but given the 24/7 "availability" your work becomes part of who you are (become) and that is the trick; lifestyle. Make a better world, especially for the founders/shareholders - don't forget it is business after all.

ksec 7y ago

> super optimism I finally came to the conclusion ( for now ) that these sort of super optimism persist precisely and only because they are Startups. Optimism as a Culture only works when it happens from those who held power to all the way down. It doesn't really work bottom up. When the company Culture is toxic, or bureaucratic as in every large companies, no optimism is going to save you. In Startup, everyone is in it together, and it is mostly a flat or very thin structure. There is a huge transparency in vision and Goal. Everyone knew what their others are doing, and as long as everyone is fighting for it there will always be a fighting chance.