

Why Culture is Key - pascal-louis
http://eng.wealthfront.com/2011/02/culture-is-key.html
Ten core values of Wealthfront, our engineering manifesto and why culture is so strategic to our company.
======
unshift
i've noticed these "culture" posts tend to come from people trying to set it,
not people trying to live within it.

in my experience typical high-tech R&D department workplace culture is one of
nerds who are technically extremely competent, but communication issues are
very common and people tend to be passive-aggressive. one-upsmanship abounds.
the culture expects long hours for no overtime, the "i'm here for a paycheck"
attitude is frowned upon, and the work is not anywhere as cool as corporate
propaganda makes it out to be.

i may be jaded but i don't see how some higher-up preaching about "aligning
interests" and "being passionate" is actually affecting any real day-to-day
issues.

a more honest article might be about hiring people who are similar to existing
employees, in terms of personality and priorities. maybe you only want to hire
people who like to work 24/7, or maybe people who want to "change the world"
through gluing together webservice APIs, or maybe you just want warm bodies to
fill chairs.* but i guess there's no patting yourself on the back there and it
doesn't sound as cool as screening for "culture-fit".

* not a comment on wealthfront. I don't know what they do or how they operate. just a general observation.

~~~
mattbaker
I understand the sentiment. Speaking as a relatively new employee however (<
6mo) I can say Wealthfront practices what they preach. Communication here has
been really incredible, discussions are frank and I haven't seen a single
passive-aggressive act since joining. I do think the culture is important, it
changes the way we work as a team for the better. If that's a day-to-day issue
I don't know what is.

I understand this might just come off as another guy at Wealthfront drinking
the kool-aid but I mean it sincerely. The people here are as adept at teamwork
and communication as they are software. That's why I upvoted the post, not to
tow the company line but because I think Pascal's article is relevant and
legitimately devoid of bullshit. Of course, YMMV!

------
frossie
_If stranded in an airport for hours, would you be happy to be with this
person?_

I just want to say that some of the best people I have worked with would fail
this test.

Moreover, every time I hear one of those statements, I can't help thinking
(fairly or unfairly - you are entitled to your opinion): what white business a
few decades ago would have hired a black person with guidance like that? A
woman? A gay man?

Hire for ability. Hire for work ethic. Hire for ingenuity. Hire for passion.
Hire for cold analytical minds. Don't hire for someone to drink beer with.
Please.

------
tastybites
This may sound controversial, but I wish people who make these self-serving
recruiting posts would provide examples other than extremely large,
established, or well-funded companies. How about the small 3-person outfit
developing a produce/service paid for by hours and hours of grueling
consulting work?

As a startup founder that wasn't funded by top tier venture capitalists (just
customers) I have an extremely difficult time swallowing this narrative that
anything I do has any direct mapping to Zappo's, Netflix, Netscape, Google, or
(lol) Disney.

My day to day is concerned about finding customers, getting paid, managing
expenditures, creating value (also known as doing real work), _not_ worrying
about how to define some sort of 'culture'. My culture _is_ finding customers
and getting paid. It's a culture of hustling for sales and doing
professionally acceptable levels of work under enormous time and resource
constraints with clients that don't really care that I'm trying to develop
product.

Wealthfront raised $10.5M from investors including Marc Andreessen.

~~~
pascal-louis
Our goal is to create a large independent company, and are quite far from the
bootstrap startup you describe. What you are describing is
[http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/why-fighter-pilots-run-
star...](http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/why-fighter-pilots-run-
startups-4557023/10) and what I'm after is
[http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/why-fighter-pilots-run-
star...](http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/why-fighter-pilots-run-
startups-4557023/16)

Both models are valid, and both models require different approaches. Steve
Blank will be talking about this soon at Wealthfront and you should feel free
to join.

As for the self-serving recruiting post... we're not recruiting anyone this
year!

~~~
tastybites
Hmm, is that a small bit of condescension I detect in your response? Our goal
is also to create a large independent company, not build a $500k/year online
TODO list company or whatever it is you have in mind (our revenues surpassed
that in year 1).

I'm not really sure what you mean by 'independent', though, because all
companies depend on their customers.... (QED?)

Here are some large, independent companies in our space:

RAX, TMRK (well, not anymore I guess), peer1.com, he.net, IBM

From what I can tell your competitors are the large mutual funds, ETFs, and
retail wealth management, so I'm sure you will achieve success, as it's a
large and proven market.

And as far as not recruiting this year - web content doesn't disappear after a
year.

