zlacker

>>zdw+(OP)
> The refrain of how a startup CEO is going to save humanity is so common that it’s actually uncommon for a CEO to not use saviour language when describing their startup. Cult leaders do the same thing: they create a unique philosophy, imbued with some sort of special message that they alone can see or hear, convince people that only they have the answers for what ails humanity, and use that influence to control the people around them.

I agree. I've been working in Silicon Valley for a few years now, and it honestly feels like a page out of Animal Farm. The Orwellian mismatch between rhetoric and action feels like cult-like propaganda to me.

I don't know how veterans of the Valley can keep this up.

>>Karrot+e1
I've been in SV for a decade now and I am not observing anything cult-like. I haven't worked for companies like Google or Facebook or any other giant behemoths, so no idea how things are there, but in other places it's pretty far from a cult where I am.

Of course, marketing sometimes goes a bit over the board, and each release of version 8.4 is the best thing that happened to humanity since v8.3 was released and before it's time to release v8.5. But that's kind of expected, nobody I know takes it as a literal truth.

And of course there are mission statements that talk about improving human condition and expanding horizons and saving the world. Sometimes it happens, at least to a measure, sometimes it doesn't, but that's not usually what you're thinking the whole day about, and even not something you think about every week or every month.

And of course (almost) each startup CEO thinks his (or her) startup is going to change the world, or at least some part of it. That's how you should think if you're getting into a startup, otherwise it's not worth the trouble, the stress and the extremely high chance of failure. Of course the CEO believes she (or he) found some special thing nobody thought of before and some unique vision nobody had before - otherwise how the startup could take off the ground at all?

And really, describing giving up free gym, yoga class and cafeteria as "something horrible happening to you"... I can't even find adequate words to describe how wrong this is.

>>smsm42+T4
Since we're going with anecdotal evidence here: My wife worked at a start up in SV that had a 'management' consultant agency come in and set up cult-like team building events, where employees would shame someone up on stage in front of each other. Predictably, people were brought to tears. My wife was threatened to be fired (and lose her work visa) when she walked out and refused to participate. She and a couple others were lucky to find new jobs quickly, but not everyone could. The startup has since stopped the events because they were sued.

Just because you don't personally experience it doesn't mean that it's not happening. If there is data to show that people are being marginalized in the bay area, then odds are it's happening even if you haven't seen it yourself.