
Cat Lee AMA on Leap: Angel Investor and Former Head of Culture Pinterest - cbcowans
https://leap.ycombinator.com/all/posts/wtg6779y/hi-i-m-cat-i-m-an-angel-investor-former-head-of-culture-at-pinterest-ask-me-anything
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cbcowans
Hi everyone I'm Cadran! I'm the creator of Leap, a private online network for
women in tech. I shared a bit about it earlier this year on HN.

This is our first conversation that is available for everyone to read, not
just members. We hope you enjoy it and would love to hear what you think.

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50
Hey, Cadran. Thank you for creating Leap - it's important work.

On the other hand, initially, I thought this was about
[https://leap.ai](https://leap.ai).

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elvislivs
Hi Cat, thanks for doing this!

Sometimes, in a more cynical mood, I find myself thinking that the role of
culture in many startups is as a social engineering tool by which employers
are able to reduce churn in an underpaid environment. If I don't know my
coworkers intimately, it's very easy for me to pragmatically leave my employer
for better compensation as I don't feel I'm violating some sort of unspoken
social contract or friendship that we have through a shared participation in
the company's culture. In that way, a 'culture' role feels sometimes like an
allegory for an employee retention department in HR. Could you comment on the
degree to which you find this true in general or during your tenure at
Pinterest? Where do you think that this perspective falls on a spectrum from
cynical to accurate?

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sctb
This is a great question! I'm afraid the original title may have been
misleading, as this was an AMA that has already taken place on Leap (a private
forum) but is now publicly viewable. We've updated the headline to hopefully
be clearer.

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elvislivs
Rats! Thanks for the clarity update...maybe I'll tweet the question at her.

