Startup Culture Explained
Mission-driven work promises purpose and impact. Fast-paced environment values speed over stability.
April 2025
Founder Mythology
Founders portrayed as visionary prophets with retrospective narrative bias. Success stories omit luck, timing, and privilege while emphasizing genius.
Examining the Reality of Failure Culture
Intended to remove stigma and encourage experimentation. Reality often romanticizes failure, wastes resources, and creates reckless risk-taking...
Disruption Rhetoric and Its Realities
Disruption rhetoric justifies rule-breaking and claims regulations stifle innovation. Attracts talent and investment but ignores legitimate...
Unicorn Obsession and Its Billion-Dollar Valuations
Unicorn obsession fixates on $1B+ valuations as success metrics. Driven by VC returns needing outliers, media narratives, and status signaling in...
Beta Culture Explained
Beta releases set expectations that bugs and incompleteness are acceptable. Users become unpaid testers.
Hacker Ethos: Values and Principles Explained
Hacker ethos values curiosity-driven exploration, free information access, distrust of authority, hands-on learning, and judging by merit not...
May 2023
Understanding Software Engineer Burnout
Burnout rates in tech, causes unique to software engineering, warning signs, how big tech handles it (spoiler: poorly), and evidence-based...