The Obligatory WePay "Company Culture" Blog Post

http://blog.wepay.com/2010/09/the-obligatory-wepay-%E2%80%9Ccompany-culture%E2%80%9D-blog-post-part-1/

by sophmonroe • 16 years ago

57 28 16 years ago

blog.wepay.com

enjo• 16 years ago

8:30 AM - 9 PM ? Jesus.

adamhowell2• 16 years ago

Don't worry, the next bullet point clearly states they "separated work from personal life."

brown9-2• 16 years ago

...but only on the weekends.

kolektiv• 16 years ago

Yes, that's quite easy if the definition of personal life is "Sweet Jesus, sleep!"

More seriously, that's the kind of thing which does creep in to companies. They have a culture already. It's a long hours culture. You may or may not think that's a bad thing, but it's there. It's quite hard to lose as well. People come in, they can't work less than the people already there, so they jump in to it. Soon people that only work 11 hour days are regarded as slackers. Nip it in the bud. It can't work forever, and it'll get harder to change.

coffeemug• 16 years ago

Look, the post has eight hundred and nine words which break down to four thousand four hundred and seventy two letters (according to wc). It's pretty dense in content, there is no fluff - most of the words are important. The above comment addresses fourteen letters (or 0.3% of the post's content). This is now all we're discussing. The rest of the content is pretty much ignored.

As far as I can tell the hours are completely tangential to the main topic of the post. If that one line was removed, suddenly the main thrust of the comments here would have been totally different. Let's not turn into a community that focuses on soundbites, please. We can be better than that.

aberman5• 16 years ago

Fair enough, but just to be clear, these were the first five employees (including my cofounder and me).

Now, some of us still work those hours, and some don't. We don't "monitor" hours or tell people they can't take time off or leave early - and a lot of people take full liberty to do so (and they should).

Some of our employees have kids and leave earlier, put the kids to bed, and hop on IRC to help out if/when they can.

I am TOTALLY aware that as we hire more, the avg hours worked by the avg employee will decrease over time. I think that's normal. I imagine that the early employees will always tend to work a little longer - or at least they should.

loewenskind2• 16 years ago

You need to take some time off and go look at modern research on productivity. You're not gaining anything with these hours. You feel like you're getting more done, but the science simply doesn't support that this is what's happening.

Goosey• 16 years ago

"Some of our employees have kids and leave earlier, put the kids to bed, and hop on IRC to help out if/when they can."

"separated work from personal life."

Sorry, but this whole defense is just making me angry. The issue for me is less that the long hours are worked (everyone there is there voluntarily, etc), the issue is that posts defending it in such a way that glorifies it. When you are throwing out statements that imply if you love what you do you will work 12 hours and if you work 8 hours you are watch the clock.. That indicates you a building a company culture of heroics that looks down on lesser people who choose to work with a reasonable life/work balance.

You have to understand that people would not be so critical about this point if they didn't feel an emotional stake in it. Since they are (presumably) not employed and directly affected, my belief is this: the mentality is dangerous and it spreads. Your employees will one day spread out and take that culture with them.

I escaped from the digital games industry for this very reason. What might have started as a cultural thing for a few early core companies is now an INDUSTRY WIDE practice of overwork, mismanagement, and exploitation. The culture continues to be persisted through hero stories. I have many friends still in the industry who seem bipolar in their stance towards it: One day they are complaining how on the nicest weekend of the summer they were working towards TRC requirements due to an overly ambitious schedule, the next they are bragging about working that weekend as proof of how hardcore they are and how much they love their job.

It's psychotic.

klochner• 16 years ago

It's easier to maintain those hours if you have a significant equity stake.

The equation doesn't add up when your primary compensation is salary (later hires).

smeagol2• 16 years ago

it's easy to maintain these hours when you love your job and you believe in your company (and have great teammates). you can't let equity and/or salary be your sole motivation; you have to actually enjoy what you do.

ww520• 16 years ago

It reminds me of the Japanese salaryman's long hour at work. It's expected that he stays at work for long hour since it's part of the culture. The thing is those are unproductive hours in a lot of cases.

I wonder how much of these 12 hour days are truly productive.

pigbucket• 16 years ago

I don't quite know why, but I'm imagining that guy walking in one day and saying, "My name is Tran. Khang Tran. I get stuff done." He sounds like the kind of person I would like to have always behind me, kicking my butt. Also, this was a really well-written blogpost, like a little novel.

aberman5• 16 years ago

You nailed it. He has been an inspiration.

quanticle• 16 years ago

You alluded to one danger of ignoring culture: that your company will develop a culture that you don't like. However, there's a bigger concern when you ignore culture - the possibility that your corporation develops multiple cultures, which conflict with one another.

You're already starting to define responsibilities and divide the work accordingly. That's good. However, you need to make sure that there's still a lot of communication between the groups, and not just between the group leaders either. Otherwise what happens is that people get isolated in their own group and begin to think of other groups in the company as the "other". Things only go downhill from there, as these divisions slowly drive the groups into working at cross purposes.

The real job of company culture is to remind employees that they're all in business together; that its not their group against the other groups at the company. If your culture manages that, then it almost doesn't matter what sort of culture it is.

aberman5• 16 years ago

This is gold. It really struck a cord. Thank you.

forensic• 16 years ago

At the same time, organizational psychologists seem to recognize that subcultures actually play a vital part of corporations and that they should, generally, not be killed off. They are the watchdogs that keep the dominant culture reality-checked, and they are generally a source of important, but unexpected, new ideas.

A cultish hive-mind where everyone is a clone of the founder is no good either.

It's not an easy balance to strike.

zackattack• 16 years ago

i found tony hsieh's Delivering Happiness to be a very good read with respect to developing a culture you're proud of.. it's a nice look at what i like to call "tribal ethics." any other recommendations?

aberman5• 16 years ago

I just finished reading it, and that's partially what inspired this post (I talk about it in part 2).

This is going to sound ridiculous, but I would read "accidental billionaires" (the book that "the social network" is based on). I think it shows how another type of culture can develop on it's own.

spudlyo• 16 years ago

"When I hear the word 'culture', that's when I reach for my revolver."

onan_barbarian• 16 years ago

If I was this Khang guy, I'd be flattered but maybe a bit self-conscious at being so publicly fellated. I mean, really.

The Obligatory WePay "Company Culture" Blog Post

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