The next thing Silicon Valley needs to disrupt big time: its own culture – Quartz

We’re objective meritocratic folks and will violently reject any suggestion that we are not. We totally won’t “ding” you for not doing steps 1-6, we swear. But they help. Totally.

It’s astonishing how many of the people conducting interviews and passing judgement on the careers of candidates have had no training at all on how to do it well. Aside from their own interviews, they may not have ever seen one. I’m all for learning on your own, but at least when you write a program wrong, it breaks. Without a natural feedback loop, interviewing mostly runs on myth and survivor bias. “Empirically,” people who wear suits don’t do well; therefore anyone in a suit is judged before they open their mouths. “On my interview I remember we did thus and so, therefore I will always do thus and so. I’m awesome and I know X; therefore anyone who doesn’t know X is an idiot.” Exceptions, also known as opportunities for learning, are not allowed to occur. This completes the circle.

Ideally you should live in “The City,” which is on a peninsula, and not on “The Peninsula,” which is in a valley.

via The next thing Silicon Valley needs to disrupt big time: its own culture – Quartz.

Lots of connections between this article and the house project. We also don’t know what we’re doing, know only vaguely what we’re looking for, and we certainly don’t know how to interview people. But we’re exploring the search space together and gradually expanding it (hopefully). I’m trying to be careful not to directly import people/culture blindly, akin to this “mirror-tocracy.” Diversity is good. All the analogies to startups are startling realistic.

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