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If the Shoe Fits: Building a Bad Culture (a true story)

by Miki Saxon

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

5726760809_bf0bf0f558_m“Culture eats strategy for breakfast/lunch/dinner” has become the byword among the startup community and for good reason.

Culture is what attracts talent; it’s why they stay and when it changes it’s why they leave.

Of course, that refers to good culture.

Many founders buy into prevailing myths, such as programmers live to program and allow 80+ hour weeks to become the norm.

The founder who got trounced on Quora is a good example of problematic values.

  1. He calls himself a CEO, but “manages a startup” with one employee.
  2. His employee is a new dad and always leaves between 6-7pm, but he also indicates that the work is getting done.
  3. He says “it’s hard for a startup that the commitment lasts for work hours only,” but gives no indication that there is founder or any kind of equity on the table.
  4. He disregarded the negative feedback and defended his concerns, basically saying ‘you’re all wrong and the problem isn’t me’.

He ignored the research that shows productivity takes a nosedive after 40 hours.

 …employees simply become much less efficient: due to stress, fatigue, and other factors, their maximum efficiency during any given work day may become substantially less than what it was during normal working hours.

I’ve know thousands of programmers over the years and not one has ever claimed that the code written after 12+ hours was particularly usable and code done during all-nighters often wasn’t even salvageable.

Much worse, and predictive of serious problems to come, was his refusal to entertain the idea that he was wrong.  

I especially appreciated the response from Drew Austin, Co-Founder of Augmate, who took time to explain how he had been there/almost done that and thanked his lead engineer for helping him change.

**Special thanks to our lead engineer Alex. If it wasn’t for his patience and ability to communicate, I would have been the one writing this question, instead of responding to it.*

I hope you take time to read the whole thread; it’s a crash course in how to build a great culture.

Because great cultures pay off in real money.

Image credit: HikingArtist

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