> But can we rename it to non-gender-specific "old children's club" or "the cool kids"? :)

I don't really see a need to share that to non-boys; it seems to usually be boysclubs. Never seen that happen with non-boys, at least.

> I think probably I need to be technical co-founder, or a trusted first/veryearly hire.

No, that's not about that. I have been that multiple times, still ended up with a boysclub. You have to be a "cool kid". Like in schools, there is no one rule for that. Sometimes you'll have to be good at sport, sometimes look badass, ...

And then again, if you end up being the leader of the group... maybe you are the one doing to the others what you were trying to avoid. In my experience, those people always genuinely believe they are loved and admired, even if the first thing employees do when they have beers "privately" is complain about how much they hate those leaders.

I guess that's the problem in being in the dominant position: you are biased, because you are in the dominant position.

> And then again, if you end up being the leader of the group... maybe you are the one doing to the others what you were trying to avoid. In my experience, those people always genuinely believe they are loved and admired, even if the first thing employees do when they have beers "privately" is complain about how much they hate those leaders.

I don't have enough data points, but I suspect that trying to nurture honest communication and trust can help you avoid this outcome. (I've been blessed to have had a few managers who I'd still trust to be honest and smart, and to look out for me as an employee/person.)

Though, I suppose you can still do months/years of trust-building and working together well, and then one day you invoke your authority, to make a call that people really don't understand/agree with. Maybe you spoiled the trust so much, that, in one minute, people revert to the default dynamic that they learned all through schooling and at other jobs: tiptoeing around someone who is in authority. Then they stop giving you candid feedback, so you diverge more, and then their outlet is to complain about you.

I see it the other way round: the company culture is strongly related to the CEO. It's not that the employees spontaneously tend to behave like at school, but rather that the CEO (and his boysgroup) create this atmosphere.

Those in power define the culture. But those in power are also very biased: employees are naturally careful towards those in power (obviously). Those in power like to say "please feel free to speak up" and "I listen to you" (they all say that, even (especially?) the toxic ones). But it doesn't change the fact that they are highly biased.

The likelihood to have a bad CEO in a startup is a lot higher than in a bigger company, because startup CEOs are usually inexperienced founders who had a big-enough ego to try to create a startup. The risk of them abusing their dominant position is, IMO, very high. Whether they want it or not.

I like to compare it to the #metoo movement. There are people (mostly men, to be honest) in power who have abused subordinates without even realising it. And then they genuinely don't understand that a subordinate may sue them because they haven't even realised that they were abusing them! When you are in power, you have a responsibility to be more careful, because your subordinates may not be in a position to contradict you. "She was consenting" has a very different meaning when "she" was in a position to be scared to say no.

All that to say, it's extremely easy to become toxic when you are in a dominant position. And startup founders usually have no experience, which makes it even more likely.