I would like to find (or create) a service where we can talk about the real dirt at companies. Encouraging honest accounts without disparagment is a hard balance. Building an identity and reputation system where reviews are trustworthy is hard, especially if you also want anonymity.
Like many people, I've worked at places with big problems. In cases where friends apply, I strive to give an honest account of my experience. Different people can tolerate different levels and kinds of crazy. In most cases, I still know people at such companies. I want to offer constructive criticism in a public setting, because I think this could help companies and people can change for the better. I want them to find a way to succeed.
Actually wikileaks was an unthought player. More likely (if at all) someone who sells data or just likes to watch things burn. It was a bit knee jerk on my part, as I've become much more reluctant to spread my data footprint. If the data isn't there, it can't be stolen.
Mm how about a polite, forgiving person who is decently well off?
I would say that it pays to be forthright, but understanding. Granted there are exceptions.
Bear in mind that one person's "unvarnished truth" might come from a lack of experience or high expectations that are difficult to meet at scale and in a commercial environment.
There are generally a lot of tradeoffs being made in companies. A "tire fire" of php might be compensated for by testing and deployment practices or hell it might just be a fun place to work if you can live with the mess.
On the other hand, you might have "architect driven design" where everything is a diamond on paper but the implementation is 8 kinds of design pattern wrong.
Or you might have a great technical team and codebase but no actual value proposition (the funny part is that success itself invites people and pressures that unsuccessful products don't have - some of the best places I've worked had unsuccessful products but great management and teams... once success and revenue kick in, suddenly there are a lot more suits and stakeholders)...
Or you could have some kind of situation where not only is the work pointless, the organisation is so utterly dysfunctional that... you'd definitely leave if it didn't pay so damn well.
One person's "super messed up" is another person's "this is exactly where I want to work". Some people function well in less structured environments and some in more... so what is truth versus just a perspective?
(agree there are exceptions where the truth must be told. I draw the line at not getting paid...)
Epistemologically, I agree with you. What I was getting at is that if your employer is knowingly doing something unethical (again, relative, but let's hand waive that for a moment), I feel like it is your duty to report it and publicize it.
To the point of winning a lawsuit but losing everything else?
It doesn't matter in the sense that most of these disrupters are just going to disappear from lack of need anyway. They're so much spaghetti, thrown on the wall by VC to see what sticks. The lie is that most of it matters.
