Reading posts like this always gives me this startling thought: there are way more companies than not where people don't work to work there, devoid of the "fun" you mostly read about on HN. How saddening...
i too believe company culture is extremely important.
after contemplation i've requested that the 'company' i'm starting a friend will be a vegetarian company, in a sense that the company will never pay for taking sentient beings.
i'm consciously extending personal culture (i'm veg), to company culture.
anyone who thinks this is a good/bad thing for a founder to do?
anyone who thinks this is a good/bad thing for a founder to do?
From what I know so far - by reading, including scientific works, and studying biochemistry, it appears that the humans evolved to obtain at least some of their diet from animal sources (Vitamin B12, Omega 3 fatty acids come to mind). So I would consider this sort of culture as destructive for my health, even if it is only mildly destructive and the results may not be obvious for years and sometimes decades ...
It is easy to find nations/tribes in history who enjoyed excellent health on a variety of diets, but not so easy to find ones who did that on a strictly vegetarian diet.
Who cares about 'tribes'? We understand nutrition, we have access to a complete and vast range of fruits, vegetables, grains and processed foods year long, unlike any other group of humans in history. Take a vitamin for b12 and there is NOTHING a vegan/vegetarian diet does not provide. It is vastly healthier than the average person's diet, really.
No, we can not say that. Nutritionists can not even decide on the reasons for the obesity - some say people just eat too much and exercise too little (aka "calories in, calories out"), others point to more complex reasons. Not to speak about more complex issues.
It is vastly healthier than the average person's diet, really
To that I agree. But "better than X" still does not mean optimal.
Of course, but we have a much clearer idea of what sustains health than ancient civilizations.
I'm not so sure about that. I usually offer two of my favourite links that describe well how the human health deteriorated when agriculture became widely adopted.
I think that paleolithic diet is more natural - one can eat pretty much all fruits and vegetable but does not have to avoid animal products. The idea is to avoid 'neolithic' foods - those that came into human diet less than 10-20K years ago: processed foods, sugars, grains etc.
it is an ethical consideration, not a dieatary one. im not trying to enforce a diet unto people --an employee is free to use his/her salary-- it is merely an ethical guideline for the company: abstain from killing sentient life.
> You are basically forcing your 'dietary' choices to everybody else in the company.
no im not. everyone earns wages they can spend the way they want. just the company will not spend money on dead animals.
my choice to be vegetarian is out of compassion not dietary considereations. if meat can come from a petridish or a lab i will buy and eat it -- but currently is it not, it comes from a sentient being.
> You are a business, not a cult.
i understand so much. but by taking company culture seriously (what the article is about) some companies are quite cult-like, and have (as the article shows) benefits of that.
If you are a vegetarian out of a sense of duty toward your own principles, that's a fine and respectable thing.
But culture is not a set of specific abstract principles. It's the set of mutual values, expectations, conventions, and methods of communication that define the way people within your organization interact with each other and work together to achieve the company's goals.
You guide the development of your culture not by fiat and ideology, but by carefully structuring the organization in a way conducive to healthy growth, by selecting the people with the right mindset to put in positions of responsibility, and most importantly, by setting the example in the way that you act and make decisions.
If you proclaim your company officially vegetarian, here are the effects I see to culture, as understood in this way:
* Alienate members on your staff who are not vegetarian.
* Blur the distinction between personal preferences and business strategy.
* Establish a precedent that the founders's personal opinions on issues wholly orthogonal to the business are still valid grounds for policy-making (imagine the consequences of future managers emulating this).
In the long term, you're probably moving toward a culture with an unhealthy amount of internal contention, and a staff that may not feel fully invested in the company's goals.
I think this is an excellent idea, and I comment you for standing up for what you know to be right!
It's pointless to debate vegetarianism with the average person - they get endlessly defensive and pull out discredited theories and personal attacks to insult you.
This IS a good thing to do. Maybe you'll attract more enlightened employees, which will benefit the company culture.
in a sense that the company will never pay for taking sentient beings.
I hope you'll hold that respect for life by having clear and strictly goal relevant work; as a hypohetical employee, I'd be way annoyed if you refused meat eating out of respect for all living creatures lives, then gave me some dead end low importance time wasting filler project of the kind which all too often appears on employee's proverbial plates.
