Start-Up Culture is the Cringiest thing on Earth
The incessant use of emojis 🚀🚀🚀
The fake enthusiasm for every little "achievement"
Making the companies name a verb and claiming you're (example) a googler
The dumb as rocks HR that makes it HER personal mission to make the company as liberal and gay as possible
If anyone is thinking about exiting or starting off in a startup I would heavily suggest you think hard if you want to work at a place that's LinkedIn on steroids. Oh and get used to pronouns on every email signature
Comments (92)
+ a million SB's OPÂ
Having worked at/with startups in the past I agree, at times it can get pretty cringy and over the top. But flip side, you kind of have to be optimistic to keep yourself moving forward when there's a >90% chance you fail, whether to get off the ground in the first place, eventually running out of funding, or getting wiped out by some unforeseen business risk/market shift.Â
The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly - Robert A. Wilson
If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything - Winston Churchill
Yeah I agree with this. It's cringey for sure but you can understand why they do it. Optimism is a prerequisite when you are selling little more than a vision and the LinkedIn posts are effective marketing with good ROI. Even some VC partners are like this on linkedin.
Don't forget the foosball table and the conformity in non-conformist casual attire.
I dont fuck with pronouns
I've seen multiple resumes thrown away for including their pronouns as well as people who put them on their LinkedIn get dinged. It has no place in any office in my opinion and is nothing more than the ramblings of immature children or the mentally ill.
The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly - Robert A. Wilson
If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything - Winston Churchill
What happened to "I don't care about your race/gender/sexuality as long as you do good work!"?
I guess they do, and conservatives are just sensitive little bitches about it. Also, discriminating against LGBT in hiring is illegal. The Supreme Court ruled that they are protected by the 1964 Civil Rights Act in 2021.
I throw away resumes with pronouns. Also don't bother responding to people with pronouns on their LinkedIn looking to network, I don't want you in my companyÂ
Good god, I consider myself to be of liberal and progressive thought but this pronoun nonsense is so freaking cringey and full of virtue signaling assholery. The only people who indulge in this seem to be insufferably "woke" and lack any kind of social skills in a professional setting.
How about the pre-requisite adjective for a company name - maybe I should start a butchers and call it "Meatly.io" for that $30mil pre-revenue valuation.
Yes and make it a company that doesn't even sell meat but rather plans to sell an AI based application for processing meat more efficiently that is nothing more than a concept until said company receives seed money that they will use to pay themselves salaries until the company dies 2 years later
Every start up from the last 10 years adding a 'ly' to the end is pretty comical
Ex-Google, Ex-Facebook, Ex-Microsoft, Ex-Apple, Ex-Amazon… might as well just Ex-tech at this point…
Love it, so insecure in current role that lacks prestige in brand that need to indicate used to work at a prestigious company - true type a neuroticsÂ
Exactly
Bro are you actually a branch teller
Life is good at my startup.
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enjoy your 90k a year desk job for the rest of your life
Right, because every start up is the next Apple.
GMAFB.
.
Might be shocking to you - but that's a trade off most in the industry would take 100 times out of 100 if it meant their start up had a degree of success to it
Not all startups are quite like this. I work at one that heavily services a lot of financial institutions (actually most of the BBs). Everyone gets their work done and works hard, nothing really to complain about in terms of culture.
Also I like working in t shirt and jeans working from home, way more comfortable than dress shirts.
As opposed to how many all nighters you worked for a couple hundred K?
It's annoying, but nothing to get worked up about IMHO. Conservatives that act like snowflakes for complaining about snowflakes are nearly as annoying. It's ok to be annoyed by something and not make a big deal about it. It's called adulthood. I'm the father of a 7 year old. I'm constantly annoyed by things, but I don't let it get to me. Try listening to Baby Shark a few thousand times, like I did when my kid was a toddler, pronouns will seem like nothing.
I appreciate your point here. Taking it a half step further - If something has little to no negative impact on your life, and apparently is pretty important to someone else, let them have it. Exhibit A: Baby Shark. Exhibit B: Pronouns
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If you think startup culture is cringy...head over to some alt coin crypto discords...
totally agree about that!
the cringiest thing ever
100% against the pronouns nonsense. If someone wants to be called "they", whatever, doesn't mean the rest of us have to go around declaring it.
That being said, the misogyny in this forum (which is pretty reflective of the industry anyway) is so pervasive that this has to be linked to attacks on women again.
Yes, HR tends to be female. Whatever, it doesn't mean the rest of women in the working world agree with the pronouns bullshit.
Many women actually find it incredibly galling that after going through sexual harassment and discrimination because of our fucking gender, some pansies come along and want to call any "gendered pronouns" oppressive.
Any remotely attractive female colleague of yours has probably experienced sexual harassment and / or assault at some point, unless she's been working for a great boss (that she's probably following from place to place). Though obviously no one is going to tell their male colleagues about it.
Why not? Because of possible backlash?
As a man, I'd like to know who are the guys with that kind of past before I even meet them, and like most guys, I'm largely unaware of the extent and nature of that. But I get it's a Catch-22: if you don't tell anyone, no one will see it as a problem, but if you tell someone, they might tell someone else and it can hurt your career. It's disgusting how hard it is to break that cycle.
Because:
1. Trauma in the case of assault. Sometimes it takes years before the person is willing to talk about it. Talking about it to a guy, whom you don't even know if you can trust, and who might be perving on you, is even more out of the question.
2. Harassment is very difficult to prove and most of the time people excuse the behaviour
3. Men think assault is when like a total stranger jumps out of the bushes when alot of assault is date / drunk rape. If you've ever seen your buddy take home a drunk woman, there's a not insignificant chance it was rape. Date rape is also incredibly common and easy for the perp to say "she wanted it". If you were making out before or agreed to get frisky but not have sex, many times when the rapist crosses that line there isn't much physical proof. There's even a text trail where you agreed to meet!
4. ^ there's usually an age gap also so this tends to happen when women are younger and have just started working. This only gets worse over time as when you're ready to tell, the perp might be an ED / MD by then.
5. Even if against all odds people believe you, you're literally going to be known in the industry for your sexual assault / harassment. Not your work ethic, not your accomplishments. If you are attractive there are always a surprising amount of perverts who already talk about wanting to sleep with you and now want to know all the juicy details
6. Following up to #5, there's always going to be some horrible person saying that you ruined the rapist's career / life, even if you have all the evidence in the world
There's a lot of stuff that a male-dominated group will shake off as "normal" that really is harassment / pushing boundaries. It is then in the female's best interest not to say anything. I've seen at holiday parties for example, people are drinking having a good time, and a guy takes it way too far pushing himself on a female colleague (dancing too "closely"), touching, etc. The guys kind of whiff it off, people are drunk / having a good time, and the female's options are (i) to live with it or (ii) complain to HR or someone else and she'll have a much harder time getting folks to work with her
Fair enough, I understand your take. At the end of the day it's just about respect. Nobody on this thread has even mentioned actually using people's pronouns, yet people are feeling so attacked they lash out at the likes of women, too. All that has been asked for is the bare minimum. That is - don't prejudge and discriminate by throwing resumes away for the use of pronouns, interests related to women's rights, or involvement in conservative clubs etc. If your social / professional circle is wide enough, you know good and bad folks across all subgroups whose qualities aren't inherent to their stated interests
I came here to defend startup culture, but literally everything in OP's post is true and sucks.
It's more BigTech than pure startups, but it's still basically all true.
Except at the startup you get the bonus perk of nepotism
Anecdotally, I saw much more nepotism in Investment Banking than I have in startups - but no doubt it happens in both spots.
"Founders" who have no business or only the slightest bit of a business going. "Entrepreneurs" who are unemployed. "Creators" who post TIkToks and Instagram pictures. "Tech @ Company" on LinkedIn. "Stealth Start Up"Â
I could go onÂ
The Stealth startup trend has always been hilarious to me like what a pretentious way to announce that your "company" is still in the pipe dream stage
I happen to love start up culture as the people are welcoming and offer a helping hand. They make you feel included and tend to listen to other people's opinion
Op you forgot:
All the girls are asian/indianÂ
If any of them are even remotely attractive, they have an army of beta orbiters following them around the office, stopping by their desk to chat, and slacking them all day. they start to understand the power dynamic and use it to their advantage (asking for work favors when needed, or for someone to "cover" for them etc.)
caveat: except for HR which is all white girls
source: used to work at a startup
You see the new Uber doc yet? Super Pumped lol
Try joining a bootstrapped startup. You'll find the grittiest entrepreneurs and people there. Soft founders can survive on VC dollars but get wiped bootstrapping quickly.
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The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly - Robert A. Wilson
If you don't have any enemies in life you have never stood up for anything - Winston Churchill
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"Work ethic, work ethic" - Vince Vaughn