As someone with a hefty amount of anxiety and depression weighing down on me most of the time, I often feel like I'm the only person in the room who can't get excited about things, but I don't want to be the weight bringing everyone else down. Is there not a danger of this value becoming a proxy for "people with depression and similar mental health problems aren't welcome at Stripe"?
Edit: I know that this is largely the role of therapists and mentors, but I think there's a tendency in startups to expect people to teach themselves the skills they need to do their jobs, rather than provide training and guidance. So i'm wondering if this is the kind of thing that could be trained.
That an interesting question. Would you like to work in a tandem with a person with mental health problems? Is it the same as asking "people with chronic fatigue and similar health issues are not welcome at company specialized at manual labor" ?
As for whether it's the same question as the chronic fatigue thing, i'm not sure. I think largely it comes down to how negative their perceived impact on their colleagues is?
The goal of a business is profit, because without it, it dies.
Are you able to bring profit, moreso than other candidates? You're hired.
That's it, nobody gives a shit about depression and if some company decides on arbitrary qualities that are unrelated to profit in regards to hiring, it'll be beaten by a company that focuses on profits.
Depression, feelings and values are great topics to be discussed in romance novels, tv shows, dinner parties and other leisurely activities that you may engage in, after you bring value to society you're a part of, or else society will cease to exist.
Values-based hiring isn't a magic bullet, it can lead to problems such as having a monoculture. And as I alluded to before, it's possible for hiring too rigidly against a value to unintentionally become a proxy for exclusionary bias.