> Americans tend to be enthusiastic about their company mission - in the extreme, believing that they’re saving the world
I would explain this as commitment signaling. I don’t know if they really believe it, but they want to show they are part of the team and the talking points.
Adults use language in a less literal way than introverted engineers may be comfortable with.
This also seems generational to me. I’m an American younger than 30 and the only people at my company who embody this are the senior people over the age of 40.
It's because us millennials came of age at a time when there was massive optimism that computers and the Internet would make the world a much better place. From equalizing education through online resources to bringing people around the world together through online discourse and intellectual discussion.
Most of that didn't happen of course (although Khan academy has helped tons of people), but we were raised to believe that the software we wrote was going to help people.
It is sad that Gen Z doesn't believe that, it signifies a large cultural shift in the computer geek culture.
Fwiw I have written software that saved lives, and I still believe software can do a lot of good in this world. We should aim to create things throughout our life, using the skills that we have, that make the world a better place.
There is no quicker way to get yourself put on the back burner than failing to pick up the pom poms. If you are valued by management you will get a few warnings but other than that you go one a silent list for the next restructuring or making an example of.
As a Gen Xer, I figured this was a millennial thing. Given the age ranges you cite that may still be the case. I don't work with enough Gen Zers to paint them with a broad brush.
But most of the people I've worked with who wanted feel "part of something" had been 10+ years younger than me.
So your sample size is 1 company? That's very anecdotal. And you're younger than 30, so you probably haven't worked at many companies. There are plenty of people in plenty of other companies that you've never met.
It sounded anecdotal because I shared an anecdote. I don’t have a research study on the topic. Still anecdotally, I’d say the same thing about my 3 internships, so I’ll say n = 4. Happy to hear your anecdotal experience or non anecdotal data.
My more qualified anecdote after 30 years in the industry is that you are wrong. I've worked with 20-somethings that have been all-in-drink-the-koolaid, as well as anyone of any age, as well as people of all ages that were there only there for the paycheck. It isn't "generational", it's a personality trait. You either have it or you don't.
I will say there are specifically some things my fellow Australians do have do in the USA that we would not in our home country.
To my fellow Australians; when you go for the big tech job interview you often have to memorize the company mission statement and values. Yes it's a complete wank. You'll never use it internally. But i have seriously been asked about the companies mission statement for Meta, Google, Amazon in those respective interviews.
Utterly insane from an Australian point of view - you'd get pass and a mark for directness for saying "i don't bloody well know".
I have heard of mission statements being asked by international companies operating in Australia but again you'd pass if the interviewer themselves was Australian since it's 100% seen as bullshit by every level of Australians from management to employees on the ground.
Reading this thread I’m realizing maybe Americans better understand organizational politics, and this social technology is an unappreciated contributor to productivity.
I agree this kind of thing is performative, but let’s steel man the other side. You are looking for a place to spend 8 hours a day doing your most skillful craft, and you don’t want to know what the organization is trying to achieve?
Yes I understand it’s performative, but why wouldn’t you take 10 minutes to indicate you are doing that kind of serious thinking?
It’s like asking a boss for guidance without doing groundwork to make a recommendation.
‘Adult’ and ‘serious thinking’ are not the words I’d use to describe this behaviour.
It’s extremely bizarre and cult-like when viewed from other cultures and comes across as insincere (which it is) and the very opposite of serious thinking - it is performative loyalty of the type that kings used to ask of their subjects.
American mission statements often have very little to do with what the company does, or even the values they actually hold (as opposed to profess to hold). They do not usually describe the work to be done.
That sounds like pretense. Are they paid the same? The question is meant as sarcasm.
I find this thread so ridiculous. I've traveled all over and lived all over. I rarely find that peoples' perceived cultural distinctions are in line with reality. I think instead it's often just lip service to their own sense of identity.
Above, someone mentioned that Americans have an idea that there is a master and servant relation with your boss. As an American I find that shocking. I have never felt that way about my bosses nor have I ever treated an employee that way. As a lowly sys admin many years ago, I went to bars and lunches with CEOs of companies of hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm still friends with them. I'm not worth millions but we still go out for drinks and enjoy dinners together. I'm not just talking about one person. This is not rare.
We respond to people the way we think they want us to respond. Your own stereotypes about another culture will be self fulfilling because of that.
Additionally any assumption you can make, about American culture specifically, would miss the fact of American culture. We have none because we have all cultures. My kid probably hears more Hindi than English in the classroom.
To make any statement about culture in America you'd need to specify. Americans from where have a master/slave mentality? Americans from Australia? India? Pakistan? China? Japan?
Which of those are the "Americans" you're referring to? Surely you wouldn't assume each of those groups have just one culture.
Strange journey you’ve gone on here in this thread from adults doing serious thinking about the company mission to admitting you see yourself as a sycophantic servant to your master.
Other non-feudal relationships are possible based on mutual respect and honesty.
You interact with executives as if they are your coworker?
> sycophantic servant
The misunderstanding is that you believe a servant is someone held in chains and beaten with a whip. A master is someone with power and authority, and servant is someone who works for them.
The Manhattan project, which by some accounts was a fairly large and complicated project, had no mission statement known to most people doing their daily work to who knows what end. Sure, you could go with "stick it to the nazis", and they did have some advertising spam to that effect, but that's down in the "like, duh?" (or less polite forms) as far as mission statements go.
Put another way, how does reciting the mission statement differ from a loyalty dance for chairman Mao? I get that many have an economic (or life) imperative to go along with what the clownsuite orders, but these same people make fun of island savages in the Pacific for "cargo culting".
Company level mission statements tend to be too vague to be relevant or helpful and they really don't actually apply anyway. They may as well all say "we do good things" when the actual underlying goal is "make money".
I do believe in the "When in Rome do as the Romans do" mindset though so i'll happily memorize it 2 mins before the interview. It's just that i 100% openly refuse to accept they are anything other than virtue signalling.
This very reason is why US company culture is mocked in all those US shows, yet ironically (and often not ironically) US workers still take offense and defend it. Because if memorizing the company's... uh, what was that text called... thing, is what makes you useful in a company, sorry I cannot continue without laughing so I'll stop here.
I can guarantee you nobody knows it around here, managers or employees, and we work for an US company (in Europe though). We also don't ask it in interviews yet we all are successful at what we do. That's one data point.
> you don’t want to know what the organization is trying to achieve?
You <------> The point
A 'mission statement' is a load of wank. They have nothing whatsoever to do with what a company is trying to achieve. Indeed, they were satirised as such in the USA by Dilbert cartoons 30 years ago!
In Australia and Blighty (and no doubt many other places with a similar culture) "I haven't memorised the mission statement, because it is wank" will get you points for being honest and direct...... We don't like to play at fakery.
Must be an SV thing? I've never been asked to recite a mission statement for a company where I was interviewing (or even working at, for that matter). Most assume I don't know much about the company and a good part of the introductory chit-chat in an interview is them telling me about their history and what it is that they do.
I live in the bay area and have worked for several of the big tech companies and startups. The only time I can remember anyone discussing mission statements was when I interviewed at AirBnB. They had a full interview (30 mins IIRC) just about the company mission. The explained that it was very important to the CEO. I apparently failed that interview and they made me do another with a different person about the same topic. It was very awkward.
Meta, Google, and Amazon are outliers, though. Part of their schtick originally was that they're trying to build a cult, although my sense is that may have relaxed a bit as they've grown. IBM used to do a similar thing back in the day.
I've worked in tech in the US as an immigrant for over 40 years, and never been quizzed on a mission statement.
The concept of a mission / vision statement is an artifact of 1980's "Management Consulting" culture in the US, which had ties to the various "Human Potential" groups like est, Landmark Forum, etc.
Other things like 360 degree feedback are also borrowed from that culture.
There was a very old article in Fortune about this, it's preserved but there is no formatting.
In the 90s Microsoft's mission statement was to get a PC in every house.
To accomplish this, and Microsoft did pull it off, they worked to commoditize every aspect of PCs, and they slowly drove the profits of PC OEMs down to almost zero. To ensure software existed on those PCs, Microsoft ran a massive training and certification program for engineers and IT.
Google used to live by its mission statement to organize all the world's information. They started up a program to scan almost every book in the world! There wasn't even a profit motive for it, it was something they did because it aligned with their mission statement.
Software company mission statements used to mean something.
One of the US company’s I work for asks the questions about 'our' mission statement. It's used as a way to see if someone has checked out the website, page 1, bold, and in capitals.
> Adults use language in a less literal way than introverted engineers may be comfortable with.
How condescending. "Adults" in other regions often do not have the facade of overenthusiasm that America/SV specifically has. It is a cultural quirk, not something specific to if someone's an introverted engineer or not.
I've worked for SV companies as an outsider as well, and it was immediately noticeable. It was like everyone had a gun to their back and were being asked to say "I love the company!". It reminded me of a Japanese company, except without the deeper authenticity granted by older social protocols.
> Americans tend to be enthusiastic about their company mission - in the extreme, believing that they’re saving the world
As a european working in a US company, my experience is a lot of this is just hypocritical corporate bullshit.
The difference can be incredible between the public communication which usually sounds like a huge parody and the opinion people really share behind the curtain in more private meetings.
Also being european you are usually used to be able to swear quite easily at work. What we perceive from the US culture that comes to us through movies/series would make us think it would be the same in the USA. However it is the opposite. People swear a lot less at work in the USA in my experience. At least online.
> Also being european you are usually used to be able to swear quite easily at work. What we perceive from the US culture that comes to us through movies/series would make us think it would be the same in the USA. However it is the opposite. People swear a lot less at work in the USA in my experience. At least online.
In the US it's generally considered rude or "uncouth" to swear in the workplace, unless it's in a private conversation with another coworker who's okay with it.
> Americans tend to be enthusiastic about their company mission - in the extreme, believing that they’re saving the world
This is more of a Silicon Valley thing, isn't it? I've worked for or interacted with plenty of non-tech large enterprises where that's certainly not true.
It's certainly more of a thing in SV, but it's not just a SV thing. The US in general is about as far removed from the rest of the world on this axis as SV is from the rest of the US. Experiences vary, of course.
I would explain this as commitment signaling. I don’t know if they really believe it, but they want to show they are part of the team and the talking points.
Adults use language in a less literal way than introverted engineers may be comfortable with.