5 ms·

My Company is a Family

34 points by edawerd 12y ago

yongjik 12y ago
I assume he's probably second- or third-generation Korean-American, so maybe the word "family" doesn't invoke quite the same meaning to him as me, but I find it rather icky. In Korea there have been companies, small and big, saying they're like families. Usually, that's a code word for saying "We expect you to sacrifice your life, including your health, time, and relationship to your actual family, for the good of the company, and not want anything in return." I'm sure Edward Kim meant none of this, but still that's a metaphor I won't touch with a ten-foot pole in a corporate setting.
zenogais 12y ago
Knock it off. You run a business not a family. The divisiveness of using such a term is appalling.
aashishkoirala 12y ago
> "Firstly, it’s important to remember that when I use the word 'family,' I don’t mean the literal sense of the word. 'Family' is a metaphor" ... AND then I stopped reading.
ForHackernews 12y ago
Ick. I would hate to have a job dominate my life like this. To each their own, I guess.
mantraxC 12y ago
Your "normal day" photo shows people working on laptops in all sorts of uncomfortable positions. Does being like a family preclude you from using desks and chairs like normal people, or I'm missing something? Or maybe you work 10 minutes at a time and have a break. It's the only way I can imagine working in that space.
- normloman 12y ago
  I noticed this too. Seems distracting as hell to have everyone in the same tiny living room. It's fun for movie night, but not a place I'd wanna work.
- edawerd 12y ago
  For the record, people don't work here only on sofas and floors. Everyone has desks and most people work at them. But once in a while, I enjoy working on a couch.
normloman 12y ago
Yeah but there are downsides to that. 1. What if you already have a family? When it's 5'o clock, would you rather go home to your spouse and kids, or go on a company bar crawl? 2. I am friendly with people who I work with. But if we didn't work together, we'd have no reason to speak to each other. You're going to pass out on a lot of great workers if you insist everyone be your friend. Why can't a co-worker relationship suffice? 3. If you're company is too friendly, and begins to think alike, I'd be wary of groupthink. 4. That nickname thing seems like it'd get annoying fast.
- edawerd 12y ago
  1. That's perfectly fine! We have people who work until 5:30 3 days out of the week, and work 2 days from home. Nothing about the company being a family precludes you from having your own. 2. No one's forcing anyone to be friends with anyone. And truth be told, not everyone is best buddies with everyone at work. But given the option to choose, I'd rather work with friends than co-workers. I do realize that's not for everyone though.
  - greenyoda 12y ago
    "I'd rather work with friends than co-workers." You might come to regret this if you ever have to fire one of your friends. You're a manager/owner of the business, and you need to realize that the people who report to you have a very different relationship with you than they have with each other (even if it's not obvious to you) - you sign their paychecks, you can fire or promote them, etc. I speak from the experience of having been a manager whose friendship with his staff made it hard to make the most effective business decisions.
  - normloman 12y ago
    "Nothing about the company being a family precludes you from having your own." There is something: time. You only have time for one family. When the rest of the team is on a company bike ride and you're the odd one out, taking your kids to a birthday party, you're gonna be left out on the in jokes, the bonding, etc. Then you'll start being left out of the loop at work. Someone will forget to email you important project details (Oh don't you remember, we talked about this at the bike ride. Wait, I forgot, you weren't there. My bad!). Company productivity will suffer, and outcast employees will grow increasingly isolated. "No one's forcing anyone to be friends with anyone." Yes you are. That's what family is. A group of people you didn't chose to associate with, but still have to pretend to like. And after reading the article, that sounds exactly like what you're doing.
smoyer 12y ago
Wait until you hire someone who seems perfect and (a couple years later) turns out to be the family's "black sheep". And have you ever noticed how clique-filled large family reunions can seem? I predict your coziness will disappear gradually as you grow.
rubiquity 12y ago
> Firstly, it’s important to remember that when I use the word “family,” I don’t mean the literal sense of the word. Just don't use the word family then. Since you didn't stop there, though... Nah, your company isn't a family. Because when financial shit hits the fan everyone will split in every which direction and be very unlikely to ever interact with you again. Culture, and a good and fair culture at that, is what companies should be striving for. Pretending to be a family when that won't be reciprocated 100% of the time (or at least nine-nines of the time, because hey, no family is perfect) like a real family is manipulative. Scenario: I'm your VC and the latest numbers force me to tell you to lay off 75% of your employees. Go go gadget, deploy this "family" thing you speak of.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  "Culture persists, family is immutable."
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
greenyoda 12y ago
How many of your employees would come to work if you didn't pay them? How many of your employees would continue to work for you if they were offered twice the salary elsewhere? My guess is that none of them would, and while they may genuinely enjoy working for your company, they're really working there only because it's the best deal they can currently get. From the other side: if your company's revenues suddenly plummeted, would you take on personal debt to pay your employees' salaries until sales improved, or would you lay off your employees? See, it's not a family, it's a business.
- edawerd 12y ago
  I disagree that people work at companies because it's the best "deal" they can get. True, we live in a capitalist society, but money is not the only variable in the equation. A good culture is not the only other variable either.
  - Mandatum 12y ago
    Culture is part of the deal. People will trade bad culture and more money for good culture and shit money. It's person dependant, but to deny that people do this is injudicious.
    - greenyoda 12y ago
      And there are all sorts of other non-monetary things that are part of the overall deal: commute time, what city the company is in, what industry the company is in, etc. (In economic terms, the employee is maximizing their complicated utility function over a large number of variables, one of which is money.)
  - Avshalom 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure that people work at companies because it was the first acceptable deal and a combination of momentum and fear of unemployment keeps them from leaving unless, or even when, they are aggressively miserable.
  - Spooky23 12y ago
zenbowman 12y ago
Sounds more like a team than a family. One of the primary distinguishing characteristics of a family is that members never exit the family once they are in. A second is that families are decidedly not meritocratic.
jaaron 12y ago
I prefer the "we're not a family, we're a sport team" analogy. You're (1) together to achieve a specific goal and (2) expect everyone to perform to accomplish that goal. There are similarities: you come together in times of difficulty. You have fun together. You support each other. There are difference too. In a family, roles are diffuse. In a team, they're specific and critical. You don't, and can't, fire your uncle for his bad, racist jokes. You do fire that asshole at your workplace. A good team will understand everyone has slumps and challenges, but at some point, if you can't perform, you don't play. A team comes together to play, to win. It's voluntary and it's goal driven. When I go to work, I want to be part of team. When I go home, I want to be part of a family. There's an important difference.
benihana 12y ago
This is so infantilizing. I'm your employee. I'm not your child. We have an agreement - I do work for you, you pay me. I like you, otherwise I wouldn't work for you. But I'm not your family member. I don't want to spend every waking moment with you. I don't want to see you after work very often. I have my own life, with my own opinions, and my own thoughts, i.e. my own identity that exist outside of work at your company. Your company may be your life, that's fine. It isn't mine.
- kelnos 12y ago
  It's completely fine that you feel that way, but many people (including the author and the other employees of ZenPayroll) feel differently. It's great that they can work for a company that fits their ideals, and that you can do the same. No need to vehemently argue for your way or dismiss theirs.
  - 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
    You're missing a few points: 1. Not everybody who works at these companies welcomes the blurring of their personal and professional lives equally. There are absolutely employees who want an employer to provide a social experience, but you shouldn't assume that there aren't others who merely tolerate it because they want the job. 2. These types of environments create a certain level of peer pressure among employees. Don't want to go on weekend bike rides with the folks you work with because you have a significant other, friends of your own, etc.? Want to lunch quietly by yourself and recharge for the afternoon? Prefer not to do your happy hour drinking with your coworkers? Be careful. If you too frequently refuse to engage with your "family" outside of regular work hours, it's likely to be noticed. That's problematic when your employment is contingent on "culture fit." 3. From what I can tell, more and more companies, especially younger startups in San Francisco, have this type of approach, so it's increasingly difficult to escape if you're dead set on working at a typical early-stage startup here.
    - dasil003 12y ago
      You make some good points, and I tend to personally agree because such work environments rub me the wrong way. It feels a little cultish and I like to have a little space between my personal and professional. But I also agree with the GP that we should leave room for different company cultures. The bottom line is all company cultures are dysfunctional in some way, and being a little co-dependent and insular is far from the worst crime. I'll take that any day over a place where good technical work is unrecognized or gets downright stifled because of politics.
seanhandley 12y ago
"Family" is the wrong word. In the army, you get "brothers in arms". Maybe what you have is brothers in armchairs.
Cerium 12y ago
If it works for you and your fellow members then that's great. I enjoyed seeing a quick view of how your office runs. There are obvious downsides, but also obvious upsides. Sound's like a fun commune that actually makes some money!
cafard 12y ago
I wish you the best, but has it occurred to you that the inmates of a prison have meals around the same table, and if one can believe the movies they have nicknames, too?
davmar 12y ago
serious question: how many senior executives, long time employees, loved by their peers and core to the company culture, have you been forced to terminate? maybe you've done it and your team is still tight like family. if so, good on you. in my experience, when that happens people realize that work is business, not personal. in a family, you can't terminate someone.
polemic 12y ago
"...I only consider a couple of them close enough to call my brothers... ...My “brothers” know all about me and I them, just like my real sisters do..." Subtle sexism aside: hanging out, enjoying being together and having nicknames does NOT make you a family, and this is where OP misses the point. And you expose the naivety here: "As it turns out, making decisions to protect our family is often the best way for us to achieve our goals as a team." And when those goals are not aligned? When a member of your "family" isn't playing as part of the "team" do you stand by them, or do you do what's best for your company. Should you? What happens when they prioritise their real family over the company one? No, this is dangerous for your staff. You're selling something that you cannot deliver in the long run. When you're exposed you're going to really hurt people that I do think you care about.
- npizzolato 12y ago
  > Subtle sexism aside Uh, what? How did that sentence display any sexism?
  - polemic 12y ago
    The company is a family of "brothers", hundreds of friends but only a few "brothers". Consider how that sounds to a woman considering a position there. I'm not saying it's deliberate, but it's sending a message.
    - npizzolato 12y ago
      Sometimes I feel like people are trying to be offended... If you look at the full quote, he wasn't talking about his company. He was talking about his friends in his personal life. "Allow me to draw an example from my personal life. I have hundreds of friends, but I only consider a couple of them close enough to call my brothers. They call me the same. That doesn’t mean we have the same mother and came from the same womb. It’s simply a way to say that my relationship with them is more akin to the one I have with my two actual sisters than it is to most of my friendships. My “brothers” know all about me and I them, just like my real sisters do." Maybe the only close friends he has that are as close as family are male. Are you suggesting he's sexist for that?
jamra 12y ago
Get your laptops off of your crotches. Macbooks especially run hot and you are heating your sexual reproductive organs. That is not good for your ability to procreate particularly in males. It can even have long-term effects. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/17664.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/17664.php I'm not sure about the credibility of this link, but I would do the research myself.
ForHackernews 12y ago
"Area CEO Likes To Think Of Family As Small, Close-Knit Business": http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-ceo-likes-to-think-of-family-as-small-closekn,34852/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-ceo-likes-to-think-of-...
- zenogais 12y ago
  Hahaha first thing I thought of when I saw this article.
hawkice 12y ago
I'm confused by the notion that using nicknames mean you're substantially closer to someone than you would be as members of a team. This is, actually, extremely surprising to me, given my previous experience on sports teams! Sports, in particular, has it's fair share of intermittent shoelessness and chatting about other subjects as well.
Spooky23 12y ago
As someone who was close to a real family who happens to operate a company together, I'd say the only thing that kept them together was the fact that they took great pains to separate business from family life. The biggest challenge they had as a family was people taking the work roles home with them.
timdiggerm 12y ago
>We eat meals in the office around the dining table. Yes, teams never eat together >Most everyone has nicknames for each other. This is certainly a thing no athlete does. >We take our shoes off in the office You're right; athletes hate being comfortable >Not everything we do together is all about work. Again, you're so right. Sports teams do not ever hang out together outside of practice.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
alaskamiller 12y ago
Are you willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice for me? That's the only bar for this word. Other than that, you're just people linked together by checking accounts and employee contracts. The only other organization I've worked for that matches that standard was the US Marine Corps. It's a head trip to leave that community and reintegrate into society.

34 points by edawerd 12y ago

I assume he's probably second- or third-generation Korean-American, so maybe the word "family" doesn't invoke quite the same meaning to him as me, but I find it rather icky. In Korea there have been companies, small and big, saying they're like families. Usually, that's a code word for saying "We expect you to sacrifice your life, including your health, time, and relationship to your actual family, for the good of the company, and not want anything in return." I'm sure Edward Kim meant none of this, but still that's a metaphor I won't touch with a ten-foot pole in a corporate setting.

zenogais 12y ago

Knock it off. You run a business not a family. The divisiveness of using such a term is appalling.

aashishkoirala 12y ago

> "Firstly, it’s important to remember that when I use the word 'family,' I don’t mean the literal sense of the word. 'Family' is a metaphor" ... AND then I stopped reading.

ForHackernews 12y ago

Ick. I would hate to have a job dominate my life like this. To each their own, I guess.

mantraxC 12y ago

Your "normal day" photo shows people working on laptops in all sorts of uncomfortable positions. Does being like a family preclude you from using desks and chairs like normal people, or I'm missing something? Or maybe you work 10 minutes at a time and have a break. It's the only way I can imagine working in that space.

normloman 12y ago
I noticed this too. Seems distracting as hell to have everyone in the same tiny living room. It's fun for movie night, but not a place I'd wanna work.
edawerd 12y ago
For the record, people don't work here only on sofas and floors. Everyone has desks and most people work at them. But once in a while, I enjoy working on a couch.

normloman 12y ago

Yeah but there are downsides to that. 1. What if you already have a family? When it's 5'o clock, would you rather go home to your spouse and kids, or go on a company bar crawl? 2. I am friendly with people who I work with. But if we didn't work together, we'd have no reason to speak to each other. You're going to pass out on a lot of great workers if you insist everyone be your friend. Why can't a co-worker relationship suffice? 3. If you're company is too friendly, and begins to think alike, I'd be wary of groupthink. 4. That nickname thing seems like it'd get annoying fast.

edawerd 12y ago
1. That's perfectly fine! We have people who work until 5:30 3 days out of the week, and work 2 days from home. Nothing about the company being a family precludes you from having your own. 2. No one's forcing anyone to be friends with anyone. And truth be told, not everyone is best buddies with everyone at work. But given the option to choose, I'd rather work with friends than co-workers. I do realize that's not for everyone though.
- greenyoda 12y ago
  "I'd rather work with friends than co-workers." You might come to regret this if you ever have to fire one of your friends. You're a manager/owner of the business, and you need to realize that the people who report to you have a very different relationship with you than they have with each other (even if it's not obvious to you) - you sign their paychecks, you can fire or promote them, etc. I speak from the experience of having been a manager whose friendship with his staff made it hard to make the most effective business decisions.
- normloman 12y ago
  "Nothing about the company being a family precludes you from having your own." There is something: time. You only have time for one family. When the rest of the team is on a company bike ride and you're the odd one out, taking your kids to a birthday party, you're gonna be left out on the in jokes, the bonding, etc. Then you'll start being left out of the loop at work. Someone will forget to email you important project details (Oh don't you remember, we talked about this at the bike ride. Wait, I forgot, you weren't there. My bad!). Company productivity will suffer, and outcast employees will grow increasingly isolated. "No one's forcing anyone to be friends with anyone." Yes you are. That's what family is. A group of people you didn't chose to associate with, but still have to pretend to like. And after reading the article, that sounds exactly like what you're doing.

smoyer 12y ago

Wait until you hire someone who seems perfect and (a couple years later) turns out to be the family's "black sheep". And have you ever noticed how clique-filled large family reunions can seem? I predict your coziness will disappear gradually as you grow.

rubiquity 12y ago

> Firstly, it’s important to remember that when I use the word “family,” I don’t mean the literal sense of the word. Just don't use the word family then. Since you didn't stop there, though... Nah, your company isn't a family. Because when financial shit hits the fan everyone will split in every which direction and be very unlikely to ever interact with you again. Culture, and a good and fair culture at that, is what companies should be striving for. Pretending to be a family when that won't be reciprocated 100% of the time (or at least nine-nines of the time, because hey, no family is perfect) like a real family is manipulative. Scenario: I'm your VC and the latest numbers force me to tell you to lay off 75% of your employees. Go go gadget, deploy this "family" thing you speak of.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
"Culture persists, family is immutable."
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

greenyoda 12y ago

How many of your employees would come to work if you didn't pay them? How many of your employees would continue to work for you if they were offered twice the salary elsewhere? My guess is that none of them would, and while they may genuinely enjoy working for your company, they're really working there only because it's the best deal they can currently get. From the other side: if your company's revenues suddenly plummeted, would you take on personal debt to pay your employees' salaries until sales improved, or would you lay off your employees? See, it's not a family, it's a business.

edawerd 12y ago
I disagree that people work at companies because it's the best "deal" they can get. True, we live in a capitalist society, but money is not the only variable in the equation. A good culture is not the only other variable either.
- Mandatum 12y ago
  Culture is part of the deal. People will trade bad culture and more money for good culture and shit money. It's person dependant, but to deny that people do this is injudicious.
  - greenyoda 12y ago
    And there are all sorts of other non-monetary things that are part of the overall deal: commute time, what city the company is in, what industry the company is in, etc. (In economic terms, the employee is maximizing their complicated utility function over a large number of variables, one of which is money.)
- Avshalom 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure that people work at companies because it was the first acceptable deal and a combination of momentum and fear of unemployment keeps them from leaving unless, or even when, they are aggressively miserable.
- Spooky23 12y ago

zenbowman 12y ago

Sounds more like a team than a family. One of the primary distinguishing characteristics of a family is that members never exit the family once they are in. A second is that families are decidedly not meritocratic.

jaaron 12y ago

I prefer the "we're not a family, we're a sport team" analogy. You're (1) together to achieve a specific goal and (2) expect everyone to perform to accomplish that goal. There are similarities: you come together in times of difficulty. You have fun together. You support each other. There are difference too. In a family, roles are diffuse. In a team, they're specific and critical. You don't, and can't, fire your uncle for his bad, racist jokes. You do fire that asshole at your workplace. A good team will understand everyone has slumps and challenges, but at some point, if you can't perform, you don't play. A team comes together to play, to win. It's voluntary and it's goal driven. When I go to work, I want to be part of team. When I go home, I want to be part of a family. There's an important difference.

benihana 12y ago

This is so infantilizing. I'm your employee. I'm not your child. We have an agreement - I do work for you, you pay me. I like you, otherwise I wouldn't work for you. But I'm not your family member. I don't want to spend every waking moment with you. I don't want to see you after work very often. I have my own life, with my own opinions, and my own thoughts, i.e. my own identity that exist outside of work at your company. Your company may be your life, that's fine. It isn't mine.

kelnos 12y ago
It's completely fine that you feel that way, but many people (including the author and the other employees of ZenPayroll) feel differently. It's great that they can work for a company that fits their ideals, and that you can do the same. No need to vehemently argue for your way or dismiss theirs.
- 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
  You're missing a few points: 1. Not everybody who works at these companies welcomes the blurring of their personal and professional lives equally. There are absolutely employees who want an employer to provide a social experience, but you shouldn't assume that there aren't others who merely tolerate it because they want the job. 2. These types of environments create a certain level of peer pressure among employees. Don't want to go on weekend bike rides with the folks you work with because you have a significant other, friends of your own, etc.? Want to lunch quietly by yourself and recharge for the afternoon? Prefer not to do your happy hour drinking with your coworkers? Be careful. If you too frequently refuse to engage with your "family" outside of regular work hours, it's likely to be noticed. That's problematic when your employment is contingent on "culture fit." 3. From what I can tell, more and more companies, especially younger startups in San Francisco, have this type of approach, so it's increasingly difficult to escape if you're dead set on working at a typical early-stage startup here.
  - dasil003 12y ago
    You make some good points, and I tend to personally agree because such work environments rub me the wrong way. It feels a little cultish and I like to have a little space between my personal and professional. But I also agree with the GP that we should leave room for different company cultures. The bottom line is all company cultures are dysfunctional in some way, and being a little co-dependent and insular is far from the worst crime. I'll take that any day over a place where good technical work is unrecognized or gets downright stifled because of politics.

seanhandley 12y ago

"Family" is the wrong word. In the army, you get "brothers in arms". Maybe what you have is brothers in armchairs.

Cerium 12y ago

If it works for you and your fellow members then that's great. I enjoyed seeing a quick view of how your office runs. There are obvious downsides, but also obvious upsides. Sound's like a fun commune that actually makes some money!

cafard 12y ago

I wish you the best, but has it occurred to you that the inmates of a prison have meals around the same table, and if one can believe the movies they have nicknames, too?

davmar 12y ago

serious question: how many senior executives, long time employees, loved by their peers and core to the company culture, have you been forced to terminate? maybe you've done it and your team is still tight like family. if so, good on you. in my experience, when that happens people realize that work is business, not personal. in a family, you can't terminate someone.

polemic 12y ago

"...I only consider a couple of them close enough to call my brothers... ...My “brothers” know all about me and I them, just like my real sisters do..." Subtle sexism aside: hanging out, enjoying being together and having nicknames does NOT make you a family, and this is where OP misses the point. And you expose the naivety here: "As it turns out, making decisions to protect our family is often the best way for us to achieve our goals as a team." And when those goals are not aligned? When a member of your "family" isn't playing as part of the "team" do you stand by them, or do you do what's best for your company. Should you? What happens when they prioritise their real family over the company one? No, this is dangerous for your staff. You're selling something that you cannot deliver in the long run. When you're exposed you're going to really hurt people that I do think you care about.

npizzolato 12y ago
> Subtle sexism aside Uh, what? How did that sentence display any sexism?
- polemic 12y ago
  The company is a family of "brothers", hundreds of friends but only a few "brothers". Consider how that sounds to a woman considering a position there. I'm not saying it's deliberate, but it's sending a message.
  - npizzolato 12y ago
    Sometimes I feel like people are trying to be offended... If you look at the full quote, he wasn't talking about his company. He was talking about his friends in his personal life. "Allow me to draw an example from my personal life. I have hundreds of friends, but I only consider a couple of them close enough to call my brothers. They call me the same. That doesn’t mean we have the same mother and came from the same womb. It’s simply a way to say that my relationship with them is more akin to the one I have with my two actual sisters than it is to most of my friendships. My “brothers” know all about me and I them, just like my real sisters do." Maybe the only close friends he has that are as close as family are male. Are you suggesting he's sexist for that?

jamra 12y ago

Get your laptops off of your crotches. Macbooks especially run hot and you are heating your sexual reproductive organs. That is not good for your ability to procreate particularly in males. It can even have long-term effects. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/17664.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/17664.php I'm not sure about the credibility of this link, but I would do the research myself.

ForHackernews 12y ago

"Area CEO Likes To Think Of Family As Small, Close-Knit Business": http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-ceo-likes-to-think-of-family-as-small-closekn,34852/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-ceo-likes-to-think-of-...

zenogais 12y ago
Hahaha first thing I thought of when I saw this article.

hawkice 12y ago

I'm confused by the notion that using nicknames mean you're substantially closer to someone than you would be as members of a team. This is, actually, extremely surprising to me, given my previous experience on sports teams! Sports, in particular, has it's fair share of intermittent shoelessness and chatting about other subjects as well.

Spooky23 12y ago

As someone who was close to a real family who happens to operate a company together, I'd say the only thing that kept them together was the fact that they took great pains to separate business from family life. The biggest challenge they had as a family was people taking the work roles home with them.

timdiggerm 12y ago

>We eat meals in the office around the dining table. Yes, teams never eat together >Most everyone has nicknames for each other. This is certainly a thing no athlete does. >We take our shoes off in the office You're right; athletes hate being comfortable >Not everything we do together is all about work. Again, you're so right. Sports teams do not ever hang out together outside of practice.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

alaskamiller 12y ago

Are you willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice for me? That's the only bar for this word. Other than that, you're just people linked together by checking accounts and employee contracts. The only other organization I've worked for that matches that standard was the US Marine Corps. It's a head trip to leave that community and reintegrate into society.