7 ms·

Fuck You Startup World (2016)

130 points by personjerry 6y ago

greenyoda 6y ago
Originally from 2016. For those interested, these were the major discussions: 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12682944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12682944 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17002651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17002651
sgtnoodle 6y ago
Very sensational, but how is this much different than the humor in Silicon Valley the rant makes fun of? Maybe the irony is intentional. I personally sit on an exercise ball at work because I like to bounce up and down. I developed that preference while programming spaceships at SpaceX. The over the top parties there were a lot of fun. Low key responsible parties are fun too; I recall after a funding round at Zipline we took half an hour to eat an ice cream cake then went back to work. The comments about coworkers drinking soylent is spot on.
- randycupertino 6y ago
  I just ordered a mini trampoline to bounce up and down at my standing desk. Pretty excited, actually.
bradhe 6y ago
Interesting that in 2020 I’m not really sure how much of this applies? Trying to think of the major trends today, I don’t feel like they’re very well represented here. Or maybe I’m just a bit more disconnected from the modern startup world.
mastrsushi 6y ago
Tldr A crazed San Fran cuck complains of being overexposed to a consistent set of new-age, self contradictory lifestyle choices he himself chose to be apart of.
WWLink 6y ago
>Fuck you productivity freaks. You try to make me feel bad because I woke up “only” at 6AM. What's so terrible about getting up sometime between 8 and 9am? :o
- bserge 6y ago
  Why is he ignoring the time they go to sleep? 5am-10pm is the same as 7am-12am...
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  You obviously don't have kids :) I guess that many of those "productivity freaks" have toddlers, they tend to wake up at 6.30-7. So waking up at 6 is the one hour in your day that is yours and yours alone. So they wake up at 5-6am, to have a couple of "good hours". Because after the morning preparations and a 40min drive to get the kids to school, your mind is less 'fresh' than what it was at 6am. It's a practical thing (for those who find it to be). Not a panacea for all.
sgt101 6y ago
>design sprints Oh my goodness; let's take everything that anyone has learned about software development and gut it. I hate these people.
02020202 6y ago
"I’ll come work for you because you have the Glenlivet 17 and not the 15" ... obviously not a whisky drinker :D ... nothing against Glenlivet but come on :D
peteforde 6y ago
Does this really deserve a rehash? I hope this guy found his true passion as an alpaca rancher. All humour aside, it's clear that the feeling is probably mutual.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
haywirez 6y ago
In September 2020, somehow this all feels so dated and irrelevant, including talking about it here on Hacker News. The whole culture is past its zenith, ready to be processed and filed away.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  Turns out a disease was the cure.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
    Many people abuse the world 'literally' to mean 'metaphorically' but it really fits here.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Now you mention it, I haven't heard much (mind you I'm not in SF or anywhere near the startup world) about the startup frat culture in a while now. The investors have become less spendthrifty (?), some of the really big ones (wework?) have fallen from grace, and the older generation (e.g. Google) has really toned it down as well. I mean for a good while it was like, Google is the place to be because they only hire the smartest and they take really good care of their employees. But as time goes by, turns out what they do is just a job, their developers are all right, they've got tons of legacy code, etc. I was offered to apply to their "apps" department (think Docs and co) in Germany, but it just did not sound appealing.
- mercer 6y ago
  To some extent the 'culture' just moves on to different fields and/or subfields. For example, my experience has been that the cryptocurrency/blockchain 'culture' reached its zenith at a point later than the more general 'startup/app culture'. I suppose ML/AI stuff is still sort of on the way up, if not for the coronavirus putting everything on pause. I know a bunch of people in their early-to-mid-twenties who are perfect 'canaries' for whatever is the next 'startup culture' and it's both interesting and slightly annoying to talk to them about it. I feel to old to get caught up in all of it, but I admit that knowing what's hot can be helpful to find the type of work that I don't like but that pays the bills.
squibbles 6y ago
> I never had to shift a bit in a C array in my life! I have done (and continue to do) quite a bit of work involving bit shifting, along with various other bitwise operations. Is it really that unusual? Should I feel guilty? Humor aside, I am genuinely curious to what extent other people are familiar or experienced with low-level bitwise operations.
- kebos 6y ago
  Agreed - when I was working on gpu drivers bit shifting was a daily practice.
- lagadu 6y ago
  I imagine that very few people who work with higher abstraction level languages (java, c#, go, js) are experienced at all with that.
  - daerogami 6y ago
    C# developer here. Bit shifting is super useful for defining flags and flags are awesome. In the web app world, I don't really come across the need for bit shifting outside of flags. If I am building something in Unity or GodotSharp, there are far more opportunities where bit-shifting is useful. I generally agree with your statement when referring to code bootcamp graduates, but anyone with a CS degree should have learned bitshifting by their second programming course; YMMV.
lvturner 6y ago
This just came across as "I am 14 and this is deep" or perhaps a LiveJournal post. I know how to swear too!
Uhhrrr 6y ago
I notice he doesn't say, "Fuck you for solving your customers' problems and making them insanely happy." He's talking about the cargo cult parts.
- mkarliner 6y ago
  That's because solving customers problems is so rarely a goal.
alpha_squared 6y ago
This is probably going to earn me a mountain of downvotes and rebukes (all of which I welcome so that I can learn!), but here goes nothing... I'm fairly convinced that a lot of technical people are on the spectrum. I don't mean this as an insult in any way whatsoever, though I'm sure many will take it as such (sorry, in advance!). The raw, calculative persona of those described as "10x developers" and "optimize all minutiae" seems to line up with having difficulty empathizing with others and acknowledging emotions. In many ways, I really envy the ability to execute to that degree. Simultaneously, I think these are many of the same people who are taken advantage of by others (e.g. founders, managers, investors) to further deepen their pockets. They're often immensely talented in technical realms and excel in sciences, making computer science and software careers ideal places where they can thrive. Their relative over-performance creates a tension on the opposite end where others can't keep up to the same capacity. I think we've often chalked it up to people being "quirky" and I think we're all familiar with Hollywood's stereotypes about technical folk, but there is a lack of mental health discussion in the US (and perhaps other places in the west). Am I completely off-base in thinking this way? I'm certainly no psychologist, but I welcome other perspectives on this.
- mkarliner 6y ago
  You are spot on. I've said this for years. Which is why I always hire people not roles.
- bserge 6y ago
  I think this is a pretty popular opinion, tbh. Successful people tend to have some sort of mental disorder, or rather, advantage.
- onion2k 6y ago
  I'm fairly convinced that a lot of technical people are on the spectrum. It's a spectrum. Everyone is on it. The majority of people are at the end where it doesn't really manifest in any significant way, but no one can claim not to be on it.
- vmception 6y ago
  I think there is something to this. I score very high on emotional intelligence, am fashionable, do extroverted things. People like that I do these things and also have ideas that I can turn into money quickly by programming them. That I can communicate ideas to less technical people and gain supporters quickly. I pass. But I can detect the limits. Nobody considers me on the spectrum, nobody considers me the “asperger-y programmer” There is some overlap with what people associate as “on the spectrum” such as not relating to many people’s emotions or reactions to things. Blending in. But for me the real flag is my experience with various drugs, my experience is often different than others and forums full of anecdotal evidence has people with similar experiences who often report having diagnosed development disorders such as ADHD, autism etc. Anytime I bring this up “I think I’m on the spectrum”, people are quick to tell me “we’re all somewhere on the spectrum”, as if they want to make an excuse for me. At the same time, an ability to focus on a task is normal to me. To me, I procrastinate just like everyone else. But I also have results and turn ideas into money in weeks. I have no idea why other people deliberate for months and years on ideas and promises, why they even covet and get married to ideas. I surround myself with people that challenge me, I know there are plenty of people that do execute even faster than I without a better pedigree or network. It feels like success at this game is what people want, but then also is optimized for “high functioning autistic sociopaths“ and if you are winning at this game that so many people want to win, you’re also likely a high functioning version of someone with a developmental disorder? Its easy for it not to be mutually exclusive, but it makes me think.
dgellow 6y ago
There is a follow-up post where he explains what happened after publication: https://medium.com/@shemag8/when-your-story-go-viral-8a1c84ad0fdb https://medium.com/@shemag8/when-your-story-go-viral-8a1c84a...
Dansvidania 6y ago
quite the collection of first world problems... I only skimmed the article, but I am guessing "Fuck you for my 6 figures salary" is not there.
mkarliner 6y ago
I lived like this for decades. I think I'm beginning to recover now.
maitredusoi 6y ago
Hey boy, just followyour path. This is my 2cents, I am in the IT industry since 20+ years now, I have been in big state company as well as start up as small as 3 people. I'm disconnecting from the loud sound around, and I have made my own believes ... For me reading HN is a pleasure not a constrain and 28h (of work) a week show be the norm. Standup should be fun more than reporting and sometimes you neither need a trello nor a test chain CI in the first 6 months of the project.... So go in forest and take a big breath and CHOOSE your own path, not the way the billoins of dev are gently following each day.
JackPoach 6y ago
Hmm, I kind of disagree. I don't personally find listed startup 'traditions' necessarily bad. In fact, I love the fact that there are startups that are just like that (maybe because I like whiskey too). BUT I think it's a problem when startup culture is being copied. It's like saying 'the only cool music is rap, we won't listed to jazz or classical music or heavy metal'. So yeah, let there be more startups with their own authentic cultures (including totally opposing ones) because the culture described is a problem only when it's not your own, but you copy is because you want to be a cool kid too.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  I have a number of issues with all the gratuitous things; one, they compensate for the work itself and the stresses associated with it being shit. Two, and this goes back to Google offering three meals a day and the like, they encourage you to stay at work beyond normal hours. Home life? Screw that, stay single and think about work more. Three, instead of throwing away money they could pay employees better (like, pay them for the number of hours they're at the office) and improve working conditions (like proper desks in proper rooms instead of long coffee tables next to the bar).
- HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
  Hard to have authentic cultures when everyone is eating from the same VC plate and everything is located in the same few areas.
UweSchmidt 6y ago
Some "Fuck Everyone" vibes from Ed Norton in 25th Hour. Could use a little more than one line of self-reflection though at the end though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgL_5QcZCMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgL_5QcZCMo
donmb 6y ago
At least here in Germany, this culture seems to be over. It was declining and after Corona, it has changed completely. More and more smaller companies also value that you have family, friends and social life and home office becomes a normal thing, thanks god. But I agree with a lot of these points after working 5 years in a startup. The biggest problem is that you try to increase your runway even though the business model does not seem to work. Instead of making it profitable as soon as possible, you try to grow and grow and hire people you don't even need. This was the worst experience. And then letting those people go again is even worse. I hope that we get back to the ground and try to build solid and profitable business in the future instead of blown up air castles with no value at all.
peteretep 6y ago
This is amusing. However, there’s rejection of the baby with the bath water here: > reviewed your quarterly and yearly “goals” for another 30 minutes ... noise cancelling headphones and Pomodoro timers, your fucking to-do lists, apps You can have these when you pry these from my cold, dead hands. I vividly remember my life before I got organised, productive, and before noise cancelling headphones, and there’s absolutely no going back.
cryptica 6y ago
Let's not ignore the 'minor' detail that the entire space is a ponzi scheme to begin with (coming from Chamath Palihapitiya; a billionaire who was one of the first Facebook employees): https://youtu.be/NVVsdlHslfI?t=2 https://youtu.be/NVVsdlHslfI?t=2 And let's not ignore that the entire financial system within which this ponzi scheme operates is also a giant ponzi scheme: https://youtu.be/iFDe5kUUyT0?t=79 https://youtu.be/iFDe5kUUyT0?t=79 So the startup world is literally a ponzi scheme within a ponzi scheme.
nicbou 6y ago
It was an entertaining read. The mixture of valid criticism and bitterness was funny. Sure, there are some crazy people in the field, but in the end, most of my friends would kill for the conditions I had at tech companies. As long as you remind yourself that it's just a job, it's a pleasant experience.
pacomerh 6y ago
This felt good. I feel like I also wanted to say this
29athrowaway 6y ago
I watched the 2018 German film "The Wave" about some students that spend a week learning about fascism by gradually becoming fascists without knowing it. And it's similar to a startup: - One of the first stages in their indoctrination is wearing a uniform. In startups you get company t-shirts. - Then there's the autocracy... a central figure that has supreme power, the movement leader. In a startup, you have the founders. - And once startups become a cohesive group, they become a groupthink collective that thinks they're the invincible chosen few destined to rule the world.
gridlockd 6y ago
"I don’t fucking care about the complexity of this code block because I can afford another EC2 instance! So fuck you." You mean, you can afford another N^2 instances?
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
>Fuck reading a book a week. No one can read that fast. Let me repeat that -NO ONE CAN FUCKING READ THAT FAST. How about actually reading that god damn book?! I used to read a book a day (sometimes 2 days when books were really big or half a day when really small - like I could get through 2 Narnia books a day) - however that was in my teens when I didn't do my schoolwork and just read, or in my twenties when I was a committed non-productive member of society. Recently I read a lot of Mark Twain (Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Puddn'head Wilson, Life on the Mississippi) I think it took about 3-4 weeks, so yeah a book a week. Luckily I have an e-reader now so I could get it in otherwise yeah I wouldn't have managed it. In short - that got on my nerves and I think this person with their swearing judgements of other people should actually try reading a bit themselves.
- Jnr 6y ago
  Audio books is not technically reading yourself, but with those you can easily go through one book a week. They don't really work for me personally, but some of my friends listen to audio books all the time.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    since I can do a book a week (approximately) using an ereader and reading whenever I have a spare moment during the day that's not my point, my point is where does he get this nobody can read a book a week thing (since I could read a book a day when I did not have the troubling concerns of employment and family and still a book a week now that I do have these concerns.) The average reading speed is about 55 pages per hour, 8 hours a day or 8 hours a week - 440 pages. Pretty much anyone can read fast enough to read a book a week.
- TomSwirly 6y ago
  I agree completely. It depends on the book, of course. I have grammar books that I have worked on for years and never totally finished. On the other hand, I can read a couple of classic SF novels on a rainy day and still really savor them.
bcoughlan 6y ago
The Hustle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
When did computer geeks and programmers, professionals of one of the least physical occupations, become so aggressive, at least verbally? This article sounds rather like my 16 year old friends who had a punk band with song lyrics where they "fucked" the police, the politicians, the church and basically everybody else. So much pent-up anger, I expect from a teenage punk band, but an article on technology? I don't really get it. Not to say that, knowing we're all nerds here, this kind of tone sounds, frankly, a little ridiculous. I'm compelled to whisper "when you make a fist, you wanna keep your thumb on the outside".
master_yoda_1 6y ago
It get me off on this line " when I need a hash set in Java I just use HashSet- I don’t fucking care about the complexity of this code block because I can afford another EC2 instance! So fuck you." I have to deal with these incompetent idiots everyday. Software Engineering is not mindless copy paste.

130 points by personjerry 6y ago

Originally from 2016. For those interested, these were the major discussions: 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12682944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12682944 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17002651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17002651

sgtnoodle 6y ago

Very sensational, but how is this much different than the humor in Silicon Valley the rant makes fun of? Maybe the irony is intentional. I personally sit on an exercise ball at work because I like to bounce up and down. I developed that preference while programming spaceships at SpaceX. The over the top parties there were a lot of fun. Low key responsible parties are fun too; I recall after a funding round at Zipline we took half an hour to eat an ice cream cake then went back to work. The comments about coworkers drinking soylent is spot on.

randycupertino 6y ago
I just ordered a mini trampoline to bounce up and down at my standing desk. Pretty excited, actually.

bradhe 6y ago

Interesting that in 2020 I’m not really sure how much of this applies? Trying to think of the major trends today, I don’t feel like they’re very well represented here. Or maybe I’m just a bit more disconnected from the modern startup world.

mastrsushi 6y ago

Tldr A crazed San Fran cuck complains of being overexposed to a consistent set of new-age, self contradictory lifestyle choices he himself chose to be apart of.

WWLink 6y ago

>Fuck you productivity freaks. You try to make me feel bad because I woke up “only” at 6AM. What's so terrible about getting up sometime between 8 and 9am? :o

bserge 6y ago
Why is he ignoring the time they go to sleep? 5am-10pm is the same as 7am-12am...
HenryBemis 6y ago
You obviously don't have kids :) I guess that many of those "productivity freaks" have toddlers, they tend to wake up at 6.30-7. So waking up at 6 is the one hour in your day that is yours and yours alone. So they wake up at 5-6am, to have a couple of "good hours". Because after the morning preparations and a 40min drive to get the kids to school, your mind is less 'fresh' than what it was at 6am. It's a practical thing (for those who find it to be). Not a panacea for all.

sgt101 6y ago

>design sprints Oh my goodness; let's take everything that anyone has learned about software development and gut it. I hate these people.

02020202 6y ago

"I’ll come work for you because you have the Glenlivet 17 and not the 15" ... obviously not a whisky drinker :D ... nothing against Glenlivet but come on :D

peteforde 6y ago

Does this really deserve a rehash? I hope this guy found his true passion as an alpaca rancher. All humour aside, it's clear that the feeling is probably mutual.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

haywirez 6y ago

In September 2020, somehow this all feels so dated and irrelevant, including talking about it here on Hacker News. The whole culture is past its zenith, ready to be processed and filed away.

Apocryphon 6y ago
Turns out a disease was the cure.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  Many people abuse the world 'literally' to mean 'metaphorically' but it really fits here.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Now you mention it, I haven't heard much (mind you I'm not in SF or anywhere near the startup world) about the startup frat culture in a while now. The investors have become less spendthrifty (?), some of the really big ones (wework?) have fallen from grace, and the older generation (e.g. Google) has really toned it down as well. I mean for a good while it was like, Google is the place to be because they only hire the smartest and they take really good care of their employees. But as time goes by, turns out what they do is just a job, their developers are all right, they've got tons of legacy code, etc. I was offered to apply to their "apps" department (think Docs and co) in Germany, but it just did not sound appealing.
mercer 6y ago
To some extent the 'culture' just moves on to different fields and/or subfields. For example, my experience has been that the cryptocurrency/blockchain 'culture' reached its zenith at a point later than the more general 'startup/app culture'. I suppose ML/AI stuff is still sort of on the way up, if not for the coronavirus putting everything on pause. I know a bunch of people in their early-to-mid-twenties who are perfect 'canaries' for whatever is the next 'startup culture' and it's both interesting and slightly annoying to talk to them about it. I feel to old to get caught up in all of it, but I admit that knowing what's hot can be helpful to find the type of work that I don't like but that pays the bills.

squibbles 6y ago

> I never had to shift a bit in a C array in my life! I have done (and continue to do) quite a bit of work involving bit shifting, along with various other bitwise operations. Is it really that unusual? Should I feel guilty? Humor aside, I am genuinely curious to what extent other people are familiar or experienced with low-level bitwise operations.

kebos 6y ago
Agreed - when I was working on gpu drivers bit shifting was a daily practice.
lagadu 6y ago
I imagine that very few people who work with higher abstraction level languages (java, c#, go, js) are experienced at all with that.
- daerogami 6y ago
  C# developer here. Bit shifting is super useful for defining flags and flags are awesome. In the web app world, I don't really come across the need for bit shifting outside of flags. If I am building something in Unity or GodotSharp, there are far more opportunities where bit-shifting is useful. I generally agree with your statement when referring to code bootcamp graduates, but anyone with a CS degree should have learned bitshifting by their second programming course; YMMV.

lvturner 6y ago

This just came across as "I am 14 and this is deep" or perhaps a LiveJournal post. I know how to swear too!

Uhhrrr 6y ago

I notice he doesn't say, "Fuck you for solving your customers' problems and making them insanely happy." He's talking about the cargo cult parts.

mkarliner 6y ago
That's because solving customers problems is so rarely a goal.

alpha_squared 6y ago

This is probably going to earn me a mountain of downvotes and rebukes (all of which I welcome so that I can learn!), but here goes nothing... I'm fairly convinced that a lot of technical people are on the spectrum. I don't mean this as an insult in any way whatsoever, though I'm sure many will take it as such (sorry, in advance!). The raw, calculative persona of those described as "10x developers" and "optimize all minutiae" seems to line up with having difficulty empathizing with others and acknowledging emotions. In many ways, I really envy the ability to execute to that degree. Simultaneously, I think these are many of the same people who are taken advantage of by others (e.g. founders, managers, investors) to further deepen their pockets. They're often immensely talented in technical realms and excel in sciences, making computer science and software careers ideal places where they can thrive. Their relative over-performance creates a tension on the opposite end where others can't keep up to the same capacity. I think we've often chalked it up to people being "quirky" and I think we're all familiar with Hollywood's stereotypes about technical folk, but there is a lack of mental health discussion in the US (and perhaps other places in the west). Am I completely off-base in thinking this way? I'm certainly no psychologist, but I welcome other perspectives on this.

mkarliner 6y ago
You are spot on. I've said this for years. Which is why I always hire people not roles.
bserge 6y ago
I think this is a pretty popular opinion, tbh. Successful people tend to have some sort of mental disorder, or rather, advantage.
onion2k 6y ago
I'm fairly convinced that a lot of technical people are on the spectrum. It's a spectrum. Everyone is on it. The majority of people are at the end where it doesn't really manifest in any significant way, but no one can claim not to be on it.
vmception 6y ago
I think there is something to this. I score very high on emotional intelligence, am fashionable, do extroverted things. People like that I do these things and also have ideas that I can turn into money quickly by programming them. That I can communicate ideas to less technical people and gain supporters quickly. I pass. But I can detect the limits. Nobody considers me on the spectrum, nobody considers me the “asperger-y programmer” There is some overlap with what people associate as “on the spectrum” such as not relating to many people’s emotions or reactions to things. Blending in. But for me the real flag is my experience with various drugs, my experience is often different than others and forums full of anecdotal evidence has people with similar experiences who often report having diagnosed development disorders such as ADHD, autism etc. Anytime I bring this up “I think I’m on the spectrum”, people are quick to tell me “we’re all somewhere on the spectrum”, as if they want to make an excuse for me. At the same time, an ability to focus on a task is normal to me. To me, I procrastinate just like everyone else. But I also have results and turn ideas into money in weeks. I have no idea why other people deliberate for months and years on ideas and promises, why they even covet and get married to ideas. I surround myself with people that challenge me, I know there are plenty of people that do execute even faster than I without a better pedigree or network. It feels like success at this game is what people want, but then also is optimized for “high functioning autistic sociopaths“ and if you are winning at this game that so many people want to win, you’re also likely a high functioning version of someone with a developmental disorder? Its easy for it not to be mutually exclusive, but it makes me think.

dgellow 6y ago

There is a follow-up post where he explains what happened after publication: https://medium.com/@shemag8/when-your-story-go-viral-8a1c84ad0fdb https://medium.com/@shemag8/when-your-story-go-viral-8a1c84a...

Dansvidania 6y ago

quite the collection of first world problems... I only skimmed the article, but I am guessing "Fuck you for my 6 figures salary" is not there.

mkarliner 6y ago

I lived like this for decades. I think I'm beginning to recover now.

maitredusoi 6y ago

Hey boy, just followyour path. This is my 2cents, I am in the IT industry since 20+ years now, I have been in big state company as well as start up as small as 3 people. I'm disconnecting from the loud sound around, and I have made my own believes ... For me reading HN is a pleasure not a constrain and 28h (of work) a week show be the norm. Standup should be fun more than reporting and sometimes you neither need a trello nor a test chain CI in the first 6 months of the project.... So go in forest and take a big breath and CHOOSE your own path, not the way the billoins of dev are gently following each day.

JackPoach 6y ago

Hmm, I kind of disagree. I don't personally find listed startup 'traditions' necessarily bad. In fact, I love the fact that there are startups that are just like that (maybe because I like whiskey too). BUT I think it's a problem when startup culture is being copied. It's like saying 'the only cool music is rap, we won't listed to jazz or classical music or heavy metal'. So yeah, let there be more startups with their own authentic cultures (including totally opposing ones) because the culture described is a problem only when it's not your own, but you copy is because you want to be a cool kid too.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
I have a number of issues with all the gratuitous things; one, they compensate for the work itself and the stresses associated with it being shit. Two, and this goes back to Google offering three meals a day and the like, they encourage you to stay at work beyond normal hours. Home life? Screw that, stay single and think about work more. Three, instead of throwing away money they could pay employees better (like, pay them for the number of hours they're at the office) and improve working conditions (like proper desks in proper rooms instead of long coffee tables next to the bar).
HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
Hard to have authentic cultures when everyone is eating from the same VC plate and everything is located in the same few areas.

UweSchmidt 6y ago

Some "Fuck Everyone" vibes from Ed Norton in 25th Hour. Could use a little more than one line of self-reflection though at the end though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgL_5QcZCMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgL_5QcZCMo

donmb 6y ago

At least here in Germany, this culture seems to be over. It was declining and after Corona, it has changed completely. More and more smaller companies also value that you have family, friends and social life and home office becomes a normal thing, thanks god. But I agree with a lot of these points after working 5 years in a startup. The biggest problem is that you try to increase your runway even though the business model does not seem to work. Instead of making it profitable as soon as possible, you try to grow and grow and hire people you don't even need. This was the worst experience. And then letting those people go again is even worse. I hope that we get back to the ground and try to build solid and profitable business in the future instead of blown up air castles with no value at all.

peteretep 6y ago

This is amusing. However, there’s rejection of the baby with the bath water here: > reviewed your quarterly and yearly “goals” for another 30 minutes ... noise cancelling headphones and Pomodoro timers, your fucking to-do lists, apps You can have these when you pry these from my cold, dead hands. I vividly remember my life before I got organised, productive, and before noise cancelling headphones, and there’s absolutely no going back.

cryptica 6y ago

Let's not ignore the 'minor' detail that the entire space is a ponzi scheme to begin with (coming from Chamath Palihapitiya; a billionaire who was one of the first Facebook employees): https://youtu.be/NVVsdlHslfI?t=2 https://youtu.be/NVVsdlHslfI?t=2 And let's not ignore that the entire financial system within which this ponzi scheme operates is also a giant ponzi scheme: https://youtu.be/iFDe5kUUyT0?t=79 https://youtu.be/iFDe5kUUyT0?t=79 So the startup world is literally a ponzi scheme within a ponzi scheme.

nicbou 6y ago

It was an entertaining read. The mixture of valid criticism and bitterness was funny. Sure, there are some crazy people in the field, but in the end, most of my friends would kill for the conditions I had at tech companies. As long as you remind yourself that it's just a job, it's a pleasant experience.

pacomerh 6y ago

This felt good. I feel like I also wanted to say this

29athrowaway 6y ago

I watched the 2018 German film "The Wave" about some students that spend a week learning about fascism by gradually becoming fascists without knowing it. And it's similar to a startup: - One of the first stages in their indoctrination is wearing a uniform. In startups you get company t-shirts. - Then there's the autocracy... a central figure that has supreme power, the movement leader. In a startup, you have the founders. - And once startups become a cohesive group, they become a groupthink collective that thinks they're the invincible chosen few destined to rule the world.

gridlockd 6y ago

"I don’t fucking care about the complexity of this code block because I can afford another EC2 instance! So fuck you." You mean, you can afford another N^2 instances?

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

>Fuck reading a book a week. No one can read that fast. Let me repeat that -NO ONE CAN FUCKING READ THAT FAST. How about actually reading that god damn book?! I used to read a book a day (sometimes 2 days when books were really big or half a day when really small - like I could get through 2 Narnia books a day) - however that was in my teens when I didn't do my schoolwork and just read, or in my twenties when I was a committed non-productive member of society. Recently I read a lot of Mark Twain (Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Puddn'head Wilson, Life on the Mississippi) I think it took about 3-4 weeks, so yeah a book a week. Luckily I have an e-reader now so I could get it in otherwise yeah I wouldn't have managed it. In short - that got on my nerves and I think this person with their swearing judgements of other people should actually try reading a bit themselves.

Jnr 6y ago
Audio books is not technically reading yourself, but with those you can easily go through one book a week. They don't really work for me personally, but some of my friends listen to audio books all the time.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  since I can do a book a week (approximately) using an ereader and reading whenever I have a spare moment during the day that's not my point, my point is where does he get this nobody can read a book a week thing (since I could read a book a day when I did not have the troubling concerns of employment and family and still a book a week now that I do have these concerns.) The average reading speed is about 55 pages per hour, 8 hours a day or 8 hours a week - 440 pages. Pretty much anyone can read fast enough to read a book a week.
TomSwirly 6y ago
I agree completely. It depends on the book, of course. I have grammar books that I have worked on for years and never totally finished. On the other hand, I can read a couple of classic SF novels on a rainy day and still really savor them.

bcoughlan 6y ago

The Hustle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

When did computer geeks and programmers, professionals of one of the least physical occupations, become so aggressive, at least verbally? This article sounds rather like my 16 year old friends who had a punk band with song lyrics where they "fucked" the police, the politicians, the church and basically everybody else. So much pent-up anger, I expect from a teenage punk band, but an article on technology? I don't really get it. Not to say that, knowing we're all nerds here, this kind of tone sounds, frankly, a little ridiculous. I'm compelled to whisper "when you make a fist, you wanna keep your thumb on the outside".

master_yoda_1 6y ago

It get me off on this line " when I need a hash set in Java I just use HashSet- I don’t fucking care about the complexity of this code block because I can afford another EC2 instance! So fuck you." I have to deal with these incompetent idiots everyday. Software Engineering is not mindless copy paste.