Ask HN: What's up with “No *sshole” Policies? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's up with “No *sshole” Policies?

5 pointskennytilton4 comments

I have seen several HN job listings and one Fort Lauderdale beach bar declaring "No Asshole" policies. Being a long-time contract developer, I have observed many a shop and have never seen a situation that even came close to necessitating such a policy. But maybe I am out of touch. Is there an epidemic of bad behavior in tech? Back in my day it went without saying that one handled oneself in the workplace better even than in other social settings, because work was one's meal ticket. Not so any more? ps. I am not saying we did not have prima donnas back then, just that they were manageable.

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The challenge is that a high performing, badly behaving person can be both critical to the company and harmful to the others. Some people are so toxic they actually bring the aggregate performance down despite high individual performance. So that is short form for, you can't be toxic regardless of your performance. In practice, the true work psychopaths can work around a policy like that, and people with bad social skills tend to get punished unfairly by comparison.

Companies want to signal their unwillingness to tolerate bad behavior from even top employees. There is probably not an epidemic of bad behavior in tech. The number of “brilliant jerk” employees is probably the same as it has been for some time, but post #metoo, Susan Fowler and others, this issue is now more public.

The appearance of intolerance for brilliant jerks is an inexpensive way for companies to signal a type of culture that that is currently popular and desirable, which is why you see them doing it.

I think it comes from Netflix originally (https://crooksandliars.com/2015/02/netflix-shares-their-corp...) and is meant to indicate to applicants an engineering culture where high-performing yet horribly difficult people are counseled out. This seems like simple good management, but there have been enough companies that didn't follow it that it's worth pointing out.

Think of it not as a way to get assholes to go away, but a way to reassure potential patrons/employees who want to avoid assholes.

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