nymph

In fact, a certain company by the name of Pivotal Labs comes to mind.

So -- anyone from Pivotal reading this? You're more than welcome to share your true thoughts about your employer's urine fetish, here and now -- safely and anonymously! On the off chance that upper management might actually care what you think about the topic, and perchance, take you seriously.

But heavens, don't do this while your frontline manager is standing nearby! You might get... caught!

But they're there to serve a Higher Purpose: to engender classic, Stockholm Syndrome endearment -- and unquestioned obedience.

Here's what it all boils down to: aside the quants, the genuinely alpha traders, and few other wonky actuarial types, most of the grunts (you know: the "analysts"... and the vast majority of the IT types) don't seem to be there, or to have any other propelling motive in life, other than: (1) the above-average salary, and (2) once you're in, you're pretty much guaranteed to do alright -- as long as you're willing to fit in, never even think of rocking the boat, and be ready and willing to continually supplicate your superiors at all times.

Hence the ridiculously subdued style of dress (the dainty dress shoes, the blue and bland off-white shirts), and the curiously submissive demeanor of about 80% of the people you'll meet working there.

Oh, and that drug test, that everyone snickers about below their breath? Including your hiring manager? As everybody knows, it certainly isn't there out of any concern that you'd be abusing intoxicants (after all, you're more than welcome to get shitfaced on alcohol every night of the week -- which most nights you'll find yourself more or less needing to, to drown out the pain, and there sheer inanity of what you're asked to do).

It's there as a gesture of supplication and obedience -- nothing more. Getting you to drop your trousers, whip our your gear, and provide a "specimen" upon demand -- just because your superiors told you to! -- isn't an unfortunate side aspect of drug screening; it's the true purpose of the ritual -- the very end goal, in itself.

Another instance of the principle that money is, in many ways, like violence: you'd like to think that if it hasn't solved your problem already, if you just keep throwing more and more at it it, you'll solve it eventually -- but all to often, it just makes the problem worse.

And inasmuch as Zuck would like to believe that being young means you're smarter... whatever your baseline, oftentimes, having too much money -- in Zuck's case, literally more money than he knows what to do with -- just makes us stupider.

Between 2010 and 2012, The New Yorker reports that "more than twenty million dollars of Zuckerberg’s gift and matching donations went to consulting firms with various specialties: public relations, human resources, communications, data analysis, [and] teacher evaluation." Many of the consultants were being paid upwards of $1,000 a day.

“Everybody’s getting paid but Raheem still can’t read," Vivian Cox Fraser, president of the Urban League of Essex County, was quoted saying.

How, exactly?

Complex, yes, but not nearly as complex as junior founders tend to think they are.

Like as not their definition of a "complex" business ethical comes down to, more or less:

"Say WHA? They're actually reading the contract I downloaded from somewhere (or which some random mentor gave to me) -- and they actually think it means what it says? And they want to negotiate some aspect of it? OMG they're lawyering up on me! Worse, they seem to know more than I do! I'm scared!"

But to the friend of mine this happened to (at the hands of a 25 year-old first-time "founder"), it was anything but.

And when they gave their "explanation", it was pure deadpan -- without the slightest trace of irony or humility.

"We really appreciate your strong backend skills (especially being as we're still trying to figure out like, namespaces and stuff). But we just found this frontend guy who's really hawt! And we can't afford him unless we fire you."

"It's not a culture fit."

"It's just not working out."

etc.

It's amazing the extent to which (what should be) self-evident principles such as this whole "fairness and respect" thing, "honoring handshake deals", and "generally behaving in an upstanding way (even though it may be convenient or profitable for you not to)" seem to be beyond the cognitive grasp of certain "founders" I know.

(1) I'm just putting this up there for the picture feed; not because I support the viewpoint in the blogpost (which I declined to translate further, once I came across phrases like "Typical Hollywood (USA/Israeli) false flag operation.")

(2) It's a child link of the blog post discussed here yesterday:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7708342

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_May_2014_Odessa_clashes

I think what you meant to say was:

"The defendant's position is that California's right of access to the shoreline does not override the pre-existing property right."

As in: this "does not override" phrase you gingerly tucked is not only far from obvious (in this use case); it's highly, highly contentious -- and requires aggressive substantiation to be tenable. In fact, it's a lot like saying:

"The title for this Brooklyn brownstone I just bought ultimately traces back to the Dutch land grants (or Lenape tribe covenants, etc; take your pick); NYC's zoning restrictions do not override the existing property rights. So if you don't like this 40-story casino-hotel-brothel complex I'm building, well, you can just bugger off."