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On that note, is anyone else getting a little tired of all the pretentiousness going about in tech? Suddenly, every tech company is claiming to "change the worl

On that note, is anyone else getting a little tired of all the pretentiousness going about in tech? Suddenly, every tech company is claiming to "change the world" and "not like the others". You know, hyping these adds, metrics, platforms, etc. up as if they're going to really change life in a noteworthy way for Average Joe. Whatever happened to just putting in a good day's effort and admitting we're doing it for the money so we can pay the bills and a nice dinner?

hotpotamus 5y ago
I think it taps into peoples' inherent religious desires and motivates them to put in more work and possibly do things they wouldn't otherwise. There's a reason it's called drinking the kool aid.
- BlargMcLarg 5y ago
  See I do agree on surface level it makes sense to decorate things. But I have yet to see any empirical evidence of this, let alone weighted against the long term costs of burnout, disillusion, embitterment, increasing costs using third parties to fix the problems, and more. Anecdotally, the far majority of "we really love to work here!" people I met seemed to either stop caring very soon, were clearly faking it or were barely distinguishable from their more skeptical co-workers performance-wise, bar a few individuals with a savior complex.
  - hotpotamus 5y ago
    That's a fair point - I've never really been in a position to measure the performance of such people. It's entirely possible that performance isn't actually all that relevant. It might just be that leaders prefer followers who "worship" them as leaders of the shared religion of work. I don't think this is all some sort of Machiavellian scheme either - I think a lot of it is unconscious on both ends of the deal.
  - drewcoo 5y ago
    I think everyone agrees that performance is difficult to define, let alone measure. Passion, though . . . aren't all startup founders issued a brand new Passionometer(TM)? I think that's in the rules or bylaws or somesuch.
Apocryphon 5y ago
"Suddenly"? It's been going on for at least a decade, decade and a half, nearly two decades now, whenever Web 2.0 was getting off the ground and startups started booming again post-Dot Com bubble.
- munificent 5y ago
  "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" came out in 1971. Corporate ego is ancient.
sanderjd 5y ago
This isn't sudden... It has ever been thus. For decades at least.

hotpotamus 5y ago

I think it taps into peoples' inherent religious desires and motivates them to put in more work and possibly do things they wouldn't otherwise. There's a reason it's called drinking the kool aid.

BlargMcLarg 5y ago
See I do agree on surface level it makes sense to decorate things. But I have yet to see any empirical evidence of this, let alone weighted against the long term costs of burnout, disillusion, embitterment, increasing costs using third parties to fix the problems, and more. Anecdotally, the far majority of "we really love to work here!" people I met seemed to either stop caring very soon, were clearly faking it or were barely distinguishable from their more skeptical co-workers performance-wise, bar a few individuals with a savior complex.
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  That's a fair point - I've never really been in a position to measure the performance of such people. It's entirely possible that performance isn't actually all that relevant. It might just be that leaders prefer followers who "worship" them as leaders of the shared religion of work. I don't think this is all some sort of Machiavellian scheme either - I think a lot of it is unconscious on both ends of the deal.
- drewcoo 5y ago
  I think everyone agrees that performance is difficult to define, let alone measure. Passion, though . . . aren't all startup founders issued a brand new Passionometer(TM)? I think that's in the rules or bylaws or somesuch.

Apocryphon 5y ago

"Suddenly"? It's been going on for at least a decade, decade and a half, nearly two decades now, whenever Web 2.0 was getting off the ground and startups started booming again post-Dot Com bubble.

munificent 5y ago
"I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" came out in 1971. Corporate ego is ancient.

sanderjd 5y ago

This isn't sudden... It has ever been thus. For decades at least.