Take a really close look at this thread. It's a master class in taking practices that are actively harmful to actual people and reframing them, so that the people sponsoring and building them can sleep at night.
Facebook created (and continues to create) features that are actively harmful to actual people, in the name of bullshit like "improving PYMK". The individuals here (probably) are not evil - they're just really, really stupid. They believe this reframing.
But it's 100% bullshit.
But it's 100% bullshit.
Every company has some of this bullshit, where they take a harmful practice and reframe to make it somehow positive. Your job as an employee - no matter your role - is to reframe it again, yourself, rather than uncritically accepting it.
That can be really hard if there are no other inputs on the practice besides your own company's spin. When you're alone in a sea of coworkers who all uncritically believe something, it's easy to think you're the one with wrong ideas.
And, if believing the company spin makes it easier to get a big bonus or help move your stock price up, then of course you'd believe it. All your incentives are aligned that way.
But in facebook's case, there's SO MUCH outside input countering the internal narrative that these people would have to be terribly stupid to not even _try on_ a reframing.
This is where Facebook's hiring polices ("hire smart people!") works against them. It's an entire company of people who've always felt superior to most other folks they encounter. That makes it incredibly easy (albeit intellectually lazy) to discount outside reframings.
Ironically, by filling their meeting rooms with 'very smart people,' facebook has created a very stupid company.
Remember how diverse teams make better decisions?
Q: Guess which group of people is one of the least diverse in the world?
A: People who exhibit classical markers for "smartness."
Q: Guess which group of people is one of the least diverse in the world?
A: People who exhibit classical markers for "smartness."
You might ask yourself: how could the emergent behavior of a group of smart people be SO incredibly stupid?
The answer is: easily.
The answer is: easily.
There's a classic essay called "Five Geek Social Fallacies" that could easily be "Five Classically-'Smart'-Person Social Fallacies." It describes the many various ways that smart people are stupid when in groups. plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.ht…
These are the people we're throwing into meeting rooms and asking to build the software that connects the world's people together.
This was a horrible, horrible idea.
This was a horrible, horrible idea.
