
How to design your startup culture, according to HubSpot - williswee
https://www.techinasia.com/talk/design-startup-culture-hubspot
======
ethiclub
This piece appears to be biased (and presumably was paid for by Hubspot). As a
contrasting opinion, here is a personal perception of Hubspot (having worked
with them as a client employee and a consumer of their output). As usual, this
is opinion/perception from the writer only (not the opinion of an
organization, and not making any claims).

"HubSpot’s HEART values: humility, empathy, adaptability, remarkability, and
transparency."

\- Hubspot arguably engage in (and recommend) dark UX patterns. Hubspot
arguably encourages SPAM, misleading wording and coercion. This is in relation
to current industry opinion on ethical UX, let alone future opinion.

\- Much of their blog content promotes manipulative marketing and sales, with
little consideration of the consumer's actual needs (see
[https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/emotions-in-
advertising-e...](https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/emotions-in-advertising-
examples) for an article on consumer emotions that ironically concentrates on
conversion & manipulation of said emotion).

\- Hubspot arguably sells to anyone - The culture appears to be 'traditional
aggressive salesmanship'. I.e. they do not consider whether the client can
afford or gain value from the product, they just push through the sale. This
opinion contrasts with their ethics code
([https://s2.q4cdn.com/235752014/files/doc_governance/Code-
of-...](https://s2.q4cdn.com/235752014/files/doc_governance/Code-of-Use-Good-
Judgment.pdf)).

\- While Hubspot arguably may not have a moral obligation to prevent it: They
appear to be encouraging (or at least facilitating) low-quality content being
churned out in the interests of clicks. The platform and mentality does not
appear to be conducive to the creation of actual valuable content, nor the
maturation of marketing/sales in an ethical direction.

\- Hubspot arguably uses the word 'ethics' as a marketing tool, and there is
little to show that real ethical considerations have been regularly employed.
This is analogous to greenwashing and could be seen as detrimental to real
ethical-capitalism.

Personal opinion: Hubspot's existence is detrimental to society.

In the interests of fairness and general industry progression, Hubspot's
opinion/response to this is extremely welcome, and further discussion
involving them could be very beneficial to many stakeholders.

Here is another angle (which none of the above opinion was influenced by) -
[http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-
lyo...](http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-lyons/)

