People when discussing this, make the mistake of thinking there's one best culture and if we all just moved towards that superior culture, everything would be b

People when discussing this, make the mistake of thinking there's one best culture and if we all just moved towards that superior culture, everything would be better. Instead, I think there's such a thing as Product/Culture fit. Different cultures unavoidably product different products and some products fail in the market because the culture that produced it never achieve Product/Market fit. Take Lyft and Uber for example. Both are ostensibly doing very similar things yet I know people at both and I can confidently say very few people could work happily in both places. If you work at Uber, you have to be OK with stripping an entire research lab to build up your self driving car department. If you work at Lyft, you have to be OK that Lyft hasn't expanded internationally yet as they're cautiously focusing on the US. Even though Lyft and Uber are looking for the same skillset in their employees, the pools they're hiring from are almost completely distinct. People interpret "not a culture fit" as a negative thing, as if it's about that person not being good enough for the company's culture. Instead, when "not a culture fit" is said honestly, it simply means that, even though both of you want to accomplish the same things, you want to accomplish them in different ways and there's other, better places for your talents. Similarly, companies should look long and hard at their Product/Culture fit and, if they do indeed find it lacking on some ways, actively recruit people who have the force of will to alter their culture. This is much harder, however and has to come from the top.