“Values are facts not descriptions.” (@matt_levine) is a succinct and fairly powerful observation about cultures:https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-10/uber-s-tender-and-ge-s-activist …
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I think most companies are unaware of their deepest and truest values because nobody bothers stating things that are boring or obvious.
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That’s true of most discourses on values; if you were to ask e.g. Catholics “Thumbnail sketch out your values” then there is a known list.
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I will bet you that your interlocutor doesn’t mention “Preservation of the human race is a biggie for us” even though it is and must be.
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For similar reasons companies don’t spend that much time on “Make money, seriously” or “Reproduce the internal logic of capitalism.”
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With specific reference to the second I think you could probably find more Values documents explicitly repudiating than supporting it.
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(This is another map-is-not-the-territory issue; maps have to look aesthetically pleasing/useful, geography knows no such restrictions.)
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(For that reason, the most useful part of Values documents is either where they talk tradeoffs or explicitly contradict widely held values.)
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That’s why “Move fast and break things” was once such useful signal, because “Things are generally better unbroken” is content-free default.
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Now, in startupdom at least, “prioritize execution speed” is boring enough to round to whitespace unless you’re very specific re: tradeoffs.
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A decent technique for identifying non-vacuous values, and for sales generally, is to allow people to genuinely disqualify themselves.
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"We don't work with assholes" is the "We don't use outdated technology" of values; it doesn't actually expect anyone to self-disqualify.
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There exist many non-vacuous statements one could make, though, where people of good will could reasonably select to either side of line.
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Here's a good one: "We are enthusiastically compliant with legitimate authority" is something that is legitimately controversial in startups
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You could find folks in the industry who'd say "Absolutely that describes my company" and other folks who'd say "Compliant? Is that ironic?"
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Sidenote: some of the issues tech, broadly construed, has with the wider world are caused by values that neither side acknowledges having.
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Here's a thing reasonable people can disagree on, and it underlies A LOT of discontent: "Technology is [more/less] important than politics."
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End of conversation
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