I'm really conflicted by this article.
On the one hand, it's always a shame to read of cases where a company with a great culture which people clearly enjoyed and valued is changed for 'bad' reasons - takeover, or profit, or similar.
...but...
> “I really don’t think they would have been able to attract the talent they did without it because the product wasn’t there. They didn’t innovate. Meetup is not attractive except for their culture, except for their values”
If the product sucks, then a) you've got to ask why, and b) that probably needs to change, for the sake of the company (which actually offers a valuable product, IMO) and its employees.
And here's what seems to have been judged to be the issue: if your priority is to hire a diverse workforce that enables a gentle, happy, collaborative culture, then your priority isn't to hire the best possible workforce, to create the best possible product.
I don't want to come over as James Damore here (and I'm sure there are plenty of cases of a diverse workforce creating a great product) but this isn't fundamentally unreasonable. If your priority is cultural excellence, you're going to get cultural excellence, possibly to the exclusion of other factors: if your priority isn't product excellence, you're not going to get product excellence.
On the one hand, it's always a shame to read of cases where a company with a great culture which people clearly enjoyed and valued is changed for 'bad' reasons - takeover, or profit, or similar.
...but...
> “I really don’t think they would have been able to attract the talent they did without it because the product wasn’t there. They didn’t innovate. Meetup is not attractive except for their culture, except for their values”
If the product sucks, then a) you've got to ask why, and b) that probably needs to change, for the sake of the company (which actually offers a valuable product, IMO) and its employees.
And here's what seems to have been judged to be the issue: if your priority is to hire a diverse workforce that enables a gentle, happy, collaborative culture, then your priority isn't to hire the best possible workforce, to create the best possible product.
I don't want to come over as James Damore here (and I'm sure there are plenty of cases of a diverse workforce creating a great product) but this isn't fundamentally unreasonable. If your priority is cultural excellence, you're going to get cultural excellence, possibly to the exclusion of other factors: if your priority isn't product excellence, you're not going to get product excellence.