
Justin Kan: Hack your culture - cwan
http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/01/hack-your-culture/
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wylie
This really hits home with me. The university where I go to school is very
bureaucratic, and I think it lacks a strong community. After a year of not
doing anything about it, I finally found people who feel the same way, and
after talking briefly we're actively trying to "hack" our culture into
something we want.

Even though we haven't changed anything at our school, we now have this tiny
community of people who want to build things. But the only way to start is to
figure out that there is a problem. I think that's the best message of this
article: Figure out what you want, and you're already most of the way there.

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patrickod
It's only in the last 3 months that I can really appreciate the argument that
Jason is putting forward. I left Ireland and its risk-averse conservative
culture behind and have tried to surround myself with entrepreneurial types
ever since. The change in attitude and the drive for greatness is infectious.
When you find yourself with people who are doing things that you thought out
of reach your previously "crazy" dreams become so much more achievable.

~~~
shorttime
Where did you move to?

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disgruntledphd2
Ok, I'm going to assume that this article draws from the work of Christakis
and Fowler on social networks and happiness, obesity and depression.
[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.165...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.165.3862&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

This is really interesting work (and i would love it if it were true) but
there are some concerns about the statistical methods used in these claims.
See Lyons - the spread of evidence poor medicine:
<http://arxiv.org/pdf/1007.2876>

To sum up, this idea that you can affect behaviour and outcomes based on your
friend group is very controversial.

There are two possible explanations: homophily - you surround yourself with
people similar to you, and contagion - your opinions affect your peer group.
The biggest problem is that these explanations cannot be distinguished on the
basis of the kind of studies (retrospective observational) reported by
Christakis and Fowler. To do this, you would need a prospective controlled
experiment tracking friendships and outcomes over a number of years.

That being said, I would like to believe it, but the evidence is not strong
enough for this to be accepted uncritically.

~~~
sskates
It's a difficult effect to do a controlled experiment for because of the way
homophily acts as a confounding variable. Anecdotal evidence suggests the
effect is real though- as Justin said in the article, he didn't actually start
riding a motorcycle until he met other people who did.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Its doable though. You recruit over a number of years at a college, get them
to indicate who their friends are and ask them to fill out some personality
questionnaires and demographics. Follow them for their college career,
repeating the measures and asking them for their closest friends at each time
point (say every month or semester). It would be expensive, but its very
achievable.

Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence is not particularly useful when dealing with
people, given that we tend to reinterpret our pasts based on our presents
among other memory biases.

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arvinjoar
Being conscious of biases is really important. I guess the most important
thing to know that you probably have a bias to be risk-adverse. As long as you
aware of your biases, you can work to counter them.

As an example, I know that most people are influenced by selection bias, so it
influences me less than the average person, just because I'm aware of it. I
think the same thing could apply to the culture bias that is presented in the
article.

~~~
idiot
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority>

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sayemm
"100% failure rate at trying to change a company's culture." - Buffett,
[http://billflagg.blogspot.com/2010/05/berkshire-
hathaway-201...](http://billflagg.blogspot.com/2010/05/berkshire-
hathaway-2010.html)

~~~
tomjen3
Yes, for the kind of companies which where part of the sample.

Which where no doubt the kind of companies that Buffett likes to invest in.

Which are not the tech start-ups that people who come here wants to start.

It is possible to change the culture for a small company especially if it is
you and your friends. It is properly not possible to deliberately change the
culture in MS.

~~~
sayemm
On the contrary, Buffett actually likes to invest in companies in which he can
stay hands-off and not have any influence on the culture at all. He just likes
to find real winners and help them keep winning.

That's the significance of that quote, and that's why the personalities of the
founders are so very important. You either have a great culture set from the
start which lasts, or you have a broken one, which is largely irreversible
later on.

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nsomaru
"Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are"

It's funny, ancient systems of metaphysics from the east have been saying this
for countless years.

But we all rush to the entrepreneur's words because he conforms to our idea(s)
of success.

In one word: 'satsang'

