
Is ‘culture fit’ merely a code word for unethical discrimination? - noaccount1256
I have been researching hiring in the tech industry and this is the glaring elephant in the room. In the very least, the widespread acceptance of this abstract category opens up a convenient laundering term for abuse. And in reality, it’s glaringly exactly that.<p>The general HR rhetoric seems to only highlight the problem. If ‘culture fit’ is merely a matter of good&#x2F;bad attitude, why are we referring to it as “culture?” These are very clearly separate items. The way they are being treated as interchangeable is beyond suspicious to me. “Culture fit” is used in broad contexts while any query is answered with concerns amounting to attitude differences. In a time when “identity” also suffices for “culture”, how can this possibly be reconciled?<p>I argue it can’t be and this is another shameful chapter in the tech world’s going list of  hypocrisies. Prove me wrong.
======
jamestomasino
As a manager who does a lot of interviews and has run teams with a lot of
different working dynamics, culture fit is something I used to describe a
collection of social skills and dynamics at play in my team, with the company
as a whole, and with our clients. There are a large number of ways people can
interact well, and there are a number of specific things an employee might do
to make these dynamics strained. If, in the course of an interview, I can
identify a large number of these, then I have effectively identified someone
who will take up a large portion of my time in coaching & mentoring to smooth
out those habits, or who will take up my time in dealing with inter-office
conflict. If that's the case, I will turn that person down based on a culture
fit and choose another candidate that can present both the technical skills
required as well as the soft-skills that allow us all to work more
effectively.

This is my interpretation of those terms and how I use it personally. My basis
for behavioral traits is based on personal experience as well in working at a
large number of companies in various roles, industries, and positions. I don't
believe that it is at all discrimination because I'm using my best judgement
for who can work most effectively with my team. That's just smart business.

~~~
econochoice
What types of concrete traits/habits do you look for in a candidate? Do you
have any examples of traits/habits that wouldn't fit in the with your team,
company and clients?

~~~
fyfy18
To follow up from GPs point I’m in a similar situation and have been doing a
lot of interviews recently. We are a fast growing startup, with under 20
people, and tight deadlines (from investors).

A lot of the candidates we’ve interviewed just don’t have the experience
working in that sort of environment. We don’t have time to write code
perfectly at the moment with pairing, full test coverage, fully TDD, etc. Yes
people can learn this, but if you come across as someone who will just spend
all day conplaining about that I don’t want you on the team.

Another thing is simple skills like turning up on time. We recently had a
couple of on-site interviews (after phone calls) where the candidates turned
up more than 30 minutes late, with no good excuse.

~~~
noaccount1256
Do you consider tardiness or skill level ‘culture fit’? I don’t.

------
CM30
It certainly can be. At its core, the term basically means oen of three
things:

1\. We don't like you and we don't know why

Or

2\. We don't like you and don't want to tell you why because the reason is
against their law/might lead to a lawsuit.

Or finally:

3\. We don't like you but want to sugar coat it a bit because we don't want to
make you extremely annoyed/upset.

In some cases, that can really be a codeword for discrimination, since telling
someone they're not hired because of their
race/gender/age/nationality/whatever is against the law. But in other cases,
it can often just be that the company has one way of working/prefers one
environment and the candidate has another. If someone just doesn't get along
with the people already at the company, well that's not necessarily
discrimination if they don't get hired by that company.

So yeah, it depends really.

~~~
blackflame7000
I think most people would rather be told they're a jerk than be told they're
incompetent.

~~~
V-eHGsd_
In my experience, jerks don't like being told that they're jerks.

YMMV

~~~
nolemurs
Yeah... but they _really_ don't like being told they're incompetent.

~~~
eridius
"Culture fit" doesn't mean incompetent though.

~~~
blackflame7000
It could be, if you wanna let the person down in the least offensive way.
There's no easy way to tell someone they didn't get the job.

------
tripletao
"Cultural fit" means something like "shares our values". That's something
like:

conservative compliance vs. going right to the edge of the law

meticulous design and testing vs. move fast and break things

command-and-control vs. self-organization

IM vs. voice calls

9-5 vs. flexible hours blurring work and non-work time

likes the same kind of music as me vs. doesn't

Some of those seem okay to me to consider, and others don't. I don't see a
bright line. I'd tend to agree that "cultural fit" with no further explanation
tends to mean something bad.

~~~
rossdavidh
I especially like that most of the things on your list are not ones where
there is a "right answer" for all organizations. Some organizations _should_
move fast and break things, others must not. Having worked at Fortune 500
companies running factories with many toxic chemicals that need to be tightly
controlled, and travel magazines, and university accounting IT, and startups,
and consultancies making websites for restaurant chains, I can tell you from
personal experience that the "right answer" for many of these things is
different. Most people can work well in some of them, and not in others.

------
tlb
Culture fit certainly isn't just good/bad attitude. It's whether the way
people do their jobs is compatible with the other people. Some companies
release early and often, while some test thoroughly before releasing. Some
have long meetings, some have short standups. Some start work early, some work
late into the evening. Any of those styles can work as long as people agree.
Considering culture fit means trying to hire people that share the same style
so they can work together effectively.

Culture fit is also a way of excluding jerks. You encounter some abrasive,
abusive, or misogynistic personalities in tech. People usually don't want to
say "this candidate is a jerk", so they use "bad culture fit" as a euphemism.
Once the answer is no-hire, the details don't matter anyway.

Building a team that works well together is extremely difficult. Unless you've
actually hired dozens of people and seen them either work well as a team or
kill productivity with interpersonal conflicts, better not to sit in judgement
of people who have.

------
rossdavidh
"Prove" is a high bar. But for example, I once worked in a factory where
everyone was cautious with what they said and how they said it (in a way which
your question is not, btw), so as not to hurt others' feelings. Another
factory, in the very same building, had a culture of saying everything as
bluntly as possible, often with profanity involved.

Same industry, same demographic mix, same company even. Very different
cultures (which, interestingly enough, both worked well). Then, they merged
the two factories into one organization, and you saw that "culture fit" was
not at all an abstraction; the first year was very rough for all concerned,
and a lot of people quit.

Also, in this case, because it was a bunch of engineers with a similar
demographic mix, not a code word for racism or any other unethical practice.
It was culture; I can think of no better word for it.

------
acjohnson55
No disagreement here.

"Culture fit" is a lazy term that, at best, means easy compatibility of work
style. Normally, though, it means "like me", and from there it's a pretty
short road to unethical forms of discrimination.

I would argue that most companies really want/need "culture add" and "values
fit". The stated values of the company tend to at least be aspirational and
exclusive of things you don't want at your company. But the culture is an
emergent aspect of the people who happen to be there, what they're into (good
or bad), and how they prefer to interact. If you only want people who fit into
that box, you may be numerically growing, but you're stagnant in perspective.

------
krapp
>Prove me wrong.

I can't, I agree with you.

Company "culture" is whatever management decides it is. Unlike real, organic
cultures, company cultures are engineered and dictated from the top, and
employees don't alter it (as members of organic cultures do) but are merely
expected to conform to it. Amazonians didn't create Amazon's culture,
collectively, it is literally the cult of Jeff Bezos, and is "peculiar" by
mandate.

So "culture fit" is just a meaningless box into which to throw the personal
prejudices of whomever is hiring you (or choosing not to hire you) and to
provide them with sufficient plausible deniability, because they can't just
_say_ they don't hire anyone over 30, or that they would rather not have women
or certain ethnicities around, because it makes them uncomfortable.

~~~
jrs95
As a side note related to Amazon's culture...of the people I've worked with
that had previously worked for Amazon, the only ones I (or most anyone, for
that matter) enjoyed working with were the ones who hated working for Amazon.

So anecdotally, it seems like culture fit for Amazon is largely about what
you're willing to put up with. There might be a component of that at a lot of
places, but clearly different companies do have very distinct "cultural"
differences. Basecamp is certainly no Amazon. The diversity of different
criteria among businesses makes me feel like it's not a particularly unethical
practice (obviously it _can_ be, but I don't think it is typically), and
overall cultural fit would probably make you happier at whatever job you do
end up at.

------
kylnew
I used to think ‘culture fit’ as a reason not to hire someone was nonsense,
however, I left an employer not long ago after they refused to deal with
someone toxic that was hurting the team attitude. It led to some massive
attrition and made me realize there’s certainly something to idea of ‘culture
fit’, but I don’t know how it can be assessed so easily over an interview
process. This employee actually started off quite well and seemed like a fit
at the time but eventually it became clear they lacked the growth mindset we
needed. So culture matters, yes, and attitudes affect team balance but I’m not
sure that this is the same as a post-interview ‘culture fit’ rejection. In
fact, it may actually be a matter of hiring at the right level of seniority to
get the job done. That’s not a culture thing so much as knowing what you
really need in an employee. You could easily hire someone who just wasn’t what
you needed then blame ‘culture fit’ which seems like a bit of a cop out.

~~~
wwwater
I totally agree here, that 'culture fit' in team work is a real thing. Usually
a thing that you discover some month later, after the person feels they can be
"themselves" and don't need to pretend being nice. If the whole team finds a
person toxic, this is very real case of 'culture unfit' and it should be dealt
with.

However, I also once faced with a case, when manager didn't want to hire an
engineer, because she thought he wasn't 'culture fit', although he was a great
engineer. Technical members of hiring committee managed to convince her
otherwise and then this person became in a sense the heart of the team,
everybody liking him more than anybody else.

So, in my opinion 'culture fit' should always come from within the team a
person works in and it should be a collective opinion, not an opinion of a
single manager.

------
andrewstuart
I'm a recruiter and have heard this more times than I can remember as the
reason given for why a candidate is not suitable.

I think it is simply a convenient, sufficiently vague, unarguable reason to
say no.

It's important to understand that people feel very uncomfortable rejecting
another person, and in recruiting, companies really prefer not to give any
reason at all - this is because they don't want the candidate to come back
arguing with the reasons given for the rejection.

So "not a cultural fit" is just an easy way to say no thanks, whilst giving a
"reason" that can't be argued with.

It's not discriminatory.

~~~
dbjacobs
"Culture fit" is just too vague and only provides cover for discrimination.
Internal discussions/documents should give the detailed reasons (is a jerk,
not on time, not a rule follower, etc). If the people/company are
uncomfortable with sharing that outside the company, you don't need to say
anything more than we didn't choose you. The internal documents are your
protection in the case of a law suit.

------
bcassedy
It's definitely a mixed bag across the industry and even across individuals at
the same company.

To some people culture fit might mean "I'd hang out with this person on
Sundays." This of course is problematic and can let in all kinds of biases
leading to discrimination.

Ideally culture fit is about whether a person can fit in to the processes in
place. Do they value testing? Are they comfortable with the level of ambiguity
that will be found in their assignments? Etc.

I'm in favor of the latter, but it needs to be evaluated based on direct
questioning to limit the impact of biases i.e. "Would you be comfortable being
required to have 100% test coverage on the code you write?" I've certainly
seen folks come out of an interview confident that someone wouldn't be
comfortable with ambiguity just because they said that at their current job
they are given detailed specs to implement.

~~~
cimmanom
Given the way "culture fit" is commonly misunderstood, we probably need a
better term for the latter -- which I agree is important. "Process fit" or
something?

~~~
bcassedy
That terminology is so much better. I might start floating that around the
office.

------
bgribble
I’m in a fast-growing small startup. In my experience, there’s no such thing
as “culture fit” in a 10-person company, because every single hire is going to
change that culture.

To me, it doesn’t matter if the candidate “fits in” with today’s culture, it
only matters if I will still want to work at the company after the new person
is part of its culture.

If only you could actually predict this from interviews!

As is, all you can do is try to put the candidate in job-like scenarios and
evaluate specific “culture” attributes like “is open to criticism” or “listens
to collaborators” or “codes with a concern for future readers” or “has a
positive attitude toward code reviews”. It’s still much easier to disqualify
than to endorse on those criteria. Hiring is hard.

~~~
wink
Not only in a startup. I don't remember where I read it but it was "Every time
you add a single person to the team, it's not the same team anymore" and I
think it sums it up perfectly. Probably also true for people leaving, but
maybe a bit less

------
marsrover
I have definitely seen a co-worker at my current job use "culture fit" as a
way to discriminate.

I personally believe it is a way to discriminate. If you interview someone and
you can't give specifics as to why you don't like them other than culture fit,
it's something you are scared to say out loud.

------
openmosix
You might have read in HN, in many threads, comments from people saying "I
would NEVER work in a company that would do such things like X, Y, Z". The
other day, the comments were about a company tracking the activity of every
employee. Another day was about a company whose business model was invasive
ads. Another thread was about a company forbidding work-from-home and
expecting everyone to checkin at 8 am sharp. Another was about companies
forbidding engineers to work on opensource on their spare time. The list goes
on. These are all examples of "culture" in my mind. As one might say "I'll
never work there, ever" \- there are plenty of people that would and they do
indeed. The difference is the "I would fit there". If I know that the company
"requires" to work long hours, or doesn't want work from home, or expects you
to be on call at any given time, or expect people to be brutally honest with
each other - as interviewer, I would be mindful of someone who will not fit
these criterias. And many of these criterias are not good or bad - see the
being brutally honest vs we are respectful of everyone feeling: it's just that
the "wrong fit" would be run over by the organization within weeks and would
likely result in the employee to be dismissed. Everyone would lose.

------
madrox
If you're serious about this and this isn't some "change my mind" meme, I'd
recommend reading the culture documents of larger companies like Amazon. It's
an attempt at standardizing how soft skills are evaluated and hired for.
Basically, all interviews are an attempt to discern three things:

1\. Can they do the job 2\. Will they like the job 3\. Will I like working
with this person

The third is really where "culture fit" comes in. When you have multiple
candidates that qualify for a role, how do you choose between them? You will
naturally pick the person you hit it off with the most, which will more than
likely be someone like yourself. It is definitely unconscious bias, but I'm
not convinced it's unethical discrimination. This is the basis of all hiring
ever...not just tech.

People are going to prefer who they choose to prefer. You're not going to
build a better team or get better hires by consciously picking people you or
the team doesn't want to work with...at least in collaborative fields. To call
that unethical is disingenuous.

The way to minimize the influence of "culture fit" is doing more upfront
thinking in the "can they do the job" category so you aren't just choosing
between two people who both know javascript. Usually the only soft skill I see
on a job description is "effective communicator," which is fluff. Think
seriously about what it means to contribute to a team, how they contribute,
and how you want teams to reach consensus and work together.

------
diyseguy
I'd say yes. I'm an older engineer. I recently went for an all day onsite
interview. Everyone on the team were fresh out of college in their early 20s.
We all went out to lunch and everyone talked entirely about video games
throughout about which I have no knowledge really. Afterward they told me I
was technically solid but not a team fit.

Older engineers (50+) like me are supposed to have retired aleady.

------
trowawee
Yeah, it's mostly thinly veiled discrimination and/or "won't put up with a
wildly toxic culture".

------
abenedic
I've seen it both ways, I was on a hiring committee that interviewed a
candidate who was techinically a great hire, but he had a bad personality and
kept correcting one of the other interviewers. We didnt hire him because of a
culture fit.

I was on another committee one time where the candidate was muslim and had to
pray during the four hour onsite technical interview. My boss said we couldn't
hire him because he wouldn't be a good culture fit.

One of those teams I stayed on for 2 good years. The other I wish I had quit
earlier.

------
3sntjho3
Anecdotal data point: I'm working at a small startup right now, a bit over a
dozen people, which is looking at hiring some web developers. It's been an
interesting process. We have rejected a good chunk of applicants for culture
fit. (And a few for attitude. And very many for not reading the damn job
description.)

Here's why:

Most of us, to a T, are furry trash.

We want to hire someone who seems genuinely excited about the job, and kind of
excited about us by extension, so we are making a good chunk of our decision
based on culture fit.

Some of our interviews have fit right in. They seem ease. Planning some
cosplay or other. Others have reacted quite a bit cooler to the atmosphere.
(We're immersed pretty deeply in this weird pocket of the permissive
California culture, which I figure must be pretty intense to walk into for a
job interview if you're not used to it.)

The ethical bit: Both the primary groups we're hiring from, furry and nerdy,
are predominately very white and very male. We seem to have a sort of
multiplier effect going where both groups have some diversity but just through
probability we don't see any applicants who are not the traditional white male
programmer. We'd happily welcome anyone who did not match the visual template,
who wasn't weirded out by us, but no one really has yet. I'm guessing we're
running up against some sort of systemic discrimination, despite the fact that
no one involved in the interaction is intentionally discriminating.

Take that all for what you will, I guess.

\--Anonymouse

------
jrs95
I've worked at several companies and I've never really seen culture fit used
in the way that you're describing. In the case of smaller companies and
startups, it's generally just boiled down to "Can this person work directly
with stakeholders to provide value for the company, and will they take
initiative and ownership over their work?"

~~~
toomuchtodo
If you can answer that from a round of interviews, throw away whatever your
business is and pivot to that: you’ll print money. More likely, it’s a hunch
based on signals and cues.

~~~
jrs95
It’s a lot easier to be confident about a “no” to those questions than a
“yes”. Of course it’s subjective and there are probably false negatives, but
it’s really the best you can do imo

------
andreshb
Culture means something specific: Shared beliefs and behaviors within a social
group, but hiring managers or entrepreneurs use "culture" to make up something
vague about not liking the candidate. When in fact, saying a candidate is not
a culture fit, it should mean the candidate "does not share our social group's
beliefs and behaviors"

------
mceachen
When I was just beginning to interview, I was taught the "can do, will do,
will fit" criteria: does the candidate have the aptitude for the job, are they
willing to apply those skills, and can they do so in the context of the
current team.

Fast forward a couple years, and I saw "will fit" used sometimes as a blunt
instrument for like to hire like. I actually edited "will fit" when I was
training others how to effectively interview, as seen in
[https://t.co/bias](https://t.co/bias) . Like tends to hire like, and people
will tend to bias favorably towards other people with common backgrounds,
customs, and cultural norms. There has to be an active effort made through an
org to both be cognizant of this bias before it can be overcome. I haven't
seen many companies that we're successful in that effort, unfortunately.

------
Overtonwindow
I think so. I work in the government sector, and the culture fit is never more
abused than here. Everything is highly political and no matter the office,
political ideology, race, gender, etc. if you don’t fit the political culture,
you’re out.

------
HNthrow22
Disappointing to see this flagged/removed with no explanation.

~~~
diyseguy
too real perhaps

------
kwillets
It can be, although I think the root cause is simply the 6-round sudden-death
interviews. Social conformity is a major factor there no matter how you slice
it.

------
drivingmenuts
I have a suspicion that I got passed over about six months ago for a job as a
case of "culture fit" discrimination. It also could have been age, or possibly
handicap, I'm not sure. But the strongest takeaway was because of the
following:

The first person I met was the company recruiter who handed me a neatly
printed brochure about the company culture, which detailed about some of the
organizations the employees were involved in and how the company contributed
toward their volunteering, etc., all very important. It talked about how they
gathered after work and generally socialized outside the company. I was
surprised that the emphasis was so big that they burned a lot of money having
an expensive brochure professionally printed (which I didn't say).

I read over it, was OK with the idea in general, but kinda didn't get it - I
volunteer for my church and otherwise, my time is my own. I haven't worked for
a company that made that big of a deal out of it and I said so. I asked if she
had anything that talked about the technologies they worked with, stack,
tools, etc., since there was nothing on the website. I had a good half-hour to
wait for the next interviewer, since they had gone into a meeting.

She promptly gave me a lecture about how I shouldn't dismiss the culture just
because I don't agree with it and I tried to explain that I just wasn't
familiar with such a strong emphasis.

Generally, I feel like I'm pretty flexible - I'll go along with the crowd for
a lot of things and if it's too much, I'll gracefully bow out, citing either
other commitments or needs. I am occasionally cynical about such things, but I
won't say a word unless I know the person I am speaking to well.

Nothing stands out about the rest of the interview other than it was a good
opportunity and I felt like I did pretty well, except on the company culture
bit.

I can't help but feel they didn't want someone who didn't wholly buy into what
they were doing in their off time.

\--

I did have an interview with another entity where the interviewers (there were
three) all talked about how passionate (actual word used) about the social
causes (all of which I thought were fine and was generally OK with, even
though I didn't have much in-depth knowledge of). I refrained from stating
that I was passionate (not exactly the right word) about being a good
programmer and solving technical issues, but it really is the main thing I
worry about.

They gave me 24 hours to think it over and see if I was interested. I passed
on that one.

\--

I may be old-school, or just old, but to me the thing about work is that you
get The Work done. If The Work is social causes, volunteering, beer-thirty on
Friday, whatever, you do The Work first. I'm doing the job to solve technical
problems, get paid and learn new things.

Not joining a cult.

My two cents. I'll go get my safety helmet now.

------
fian
I previously worked for a company that spent $5-10k psychometrically testing
each potential hire in 1 on 1 sessions with a psychologist after they had
passed an initial interview. The tests were a mix of general IQ (to ensure
people actually had suitable mathematic and literary skills needed the role)
but also quite a bit of personality testing. The company founders recognised
the huge detrimental impact certain personality types could inflict on an
organisation. So they spent considerable money and effort to try to detect and
reject candidates that were likely to be passive aggressive, too dominating,
inflexible etc. They actively favoured candidates that were able to
demonstrate aptitude and personality traits aligned with being a team player,
even if the candidate was less experienced for role (ie find quality people
first, train them if necessary).

This was the best place I have ever worked. Problems (and successes) were
shared. Internal conflict was very rare. If one person was overloaded, the
team would work out who might be light on work at the moment and could assist.
Work hours were very flexible - outputs not inputs were what mattered. We had
a lot of autonomy and were encouraged to be creative and take some risks in
developing new tools and services.

The employees were from a diverse range of ethnic and religious backgrounds.
The male/female ratio was probably around 60/40 for a company of mostly
engineers. Age of employee was mixed but favoured younger engineers. The
company was a consultancy so it was a place people would work at to gain
diverse experience then move on to specialist positions elsewhere. It was rare
for older engineers to be looking to gain diversity of experience.

Given the personality types - this meant we had lots of really interesting
discussions about different countries and cultures and life experiences. So
"culture fit" at this company did not mean "the same as me" other that with
respect to: will work hard, is intelligent enough, will be a team player.

Sadly, after a few years of awesome work life, some of the owners wanted to
cash out and the company was acquired by a multi-national. The culture of the
original company was quickly destroyed. No autonomy, ridiculous levels of
authorisation (4-5 just to purchase $500 of IT equipment for example),
competition from internal groups stealing clients, very few team players,
inputs favoured over outputs (lots of "make work" going on). The transition
experience really rammed home how real the Peter Principle is and the
drawbacks of tall hierarchical management structures.

"Culture fit" to me means rejecting people that won't work within the
organisational structure you are trying to build. Note that it doesn't mean
non-team players should always be rejected. If you have a team of individuals
that largely work in isolation and prefer to reduce communication to a
minimum, hiring a team-oriented person could be detrimental.

As for "culture fit" being used as a cover for discrimination, I'm sure it
happens. If someone is discriminating then they will want to cover their arse
somehow and "culture fit" is vague enough that it can easily be used for that
purpose.

Perhaps "personality fit" would be a better term for what I describe above?
Though I have never heard it being used and I suspect a lot of-people in tech
like to think that merit matters more and could find "personality fit" to be
offensive.

------
draw_down
Yes, that, but also just not liking someone. I feel that the sexism and racism
in our industry are important parts of a larger pattern, which is simply that
if someone doesn’t express ideas the same way you do, or look/act how you
think a “nerd” or “hacker” should, then they’re not one. Women and non-white
people are likely to get caught in that, but so might a white man who just
doesn’t talk in a way that codes as “nerdy”. God forbid if they could be
considered a “bro”, the nerd’s mortal enemy.

And so you say they’re not a good fit, and that’s that. It can’t be proven
incorrect because culture fit is a nebulous idea to begin with. It’s a catch-
all for whatever you don’t like, basically.

------
badrabbit
It can be. Some companies (famous example:google) use "culture fit" and "share
our values" to discriminate based on political views or other criteria which
if they were to be specific about it,then they would break multiple employment
laws.

But some have that for a good reason. I applied at a tech company recently
whose product I am a fan of. Did well on the phone and in person technical
interview. But after that, they kept asking how I like to work and how I felt
about open office spaces(told them I can deal with it so long as I can put
headphones on while doing technical work that needs concentration and that I
felt some tasks are best dealt as a team while some should be developed and
matured before involving others). Needless to say, I haven't heard back from
them. But my point is that even I felt a bit of a cultural incompatibility( I
was willing to make it work but they saw it as unworkable I guess).

Frankly, I don't see how a 50 year old person (not myself,I'm in my 20s) can
be culturally compatible with people young enough to be his/her grand child.
Or how a coder from asia can have the same work culture as west cost
americans.

There is this view that the culture and values made all these tech unicorns
what they are. Maybe that's true but I keep wondering whether or not the same
group of smart people but culturally diverse could have acheived the same goal
so long as they all agree to use rationality,communicate openly(in an
inclusive way) and agree on what the goal and their role in the organization
is.

I like to think silicon valley startups to be more or less as culturally
exclusive as 80s era IBM,bell labs or Xerox. Which is why I keep doubting the
culture narrative. Smart people make smart companies and smart enough people
should be smart enough to make cultural diversity work (my humble opinion).

~~~
masonic
"I don't see how a 50 year old person (not myself,I'm in my 20s) can be
culturally compatible with people young enough to be his/her grand child."

30 years is generally _one_ generation, not two.

And "culturally compatible" enough to _work together_ is way different from
being culturally compatible enough to date, or whatever.

~~~
badrabbit
When did I mention dating? I was clearly talking about work culture. 30 years
from now you will most likely find that the trendy work culture of the present
would be a dated old way of doing things. Change is inevitable. My whole point
was to promote cultural diversity, so that if someone shows up in a black
suite and ties and prefers a cubicle over an open office space then the people
who entered the work force wearing sandals and shorts to work should be
accomodating as he should accomodate their views -- so long as none of this
gets in the way.

Aegism in silicon valley is a chronic problem, are you saying it doesn't exist
or are you claiming "culture fit" isn't used to push out older workers at some
companies?

