You Work, You Swear?

Once in a while, there is an article that seems strangely satisfying at first (in a self-justifying sort of way), yet strangely unsettling. This is a rebuttal to one of the articles: "I Work, I Swear". You should read it first before continuing.

Read it? No? Alright, fine, here are two excerpts from it.

One day in a staff meeting in the Loudcloud/Opsware days, someone brought up an issue that had been bothering him for some time. “This place is entirely too profane. It’s making many of the employees uncomfortable.” Others chimed in: “It makes the environment unprofessional. We need to put a stop to it.” Although the complaints were abstract, they were clearly directed at me since I was the biggest abuser of profanity in the company and perhaps in the industry. In those days, I directed the team with such urgency that it was rare for me to say more than a few sentences without an expletive injected somewhere. 

... 

After much consideration, I realized that the best technology companies of the day, Intel and Microsoft, were known to be highly profane places, so we’d be off culture with them and the rest of the modern industry if we stopped profanity. Obviously, that didn’t mean that we had to encourage it, but prohibiting it seemed both unrealistic and counterproductive.

I was very uncomfortable with both the outcome and the attitude of the article. Don't get me wrong, I swear at work too from time to time (especially at Spark). There's a difference, though, between swearing and swearing so excessively that it makes people around you uncomfortable.

After some thought, I realize that there are two main reasons why this article was so cringe-worthy.

The lack of personal responsibility

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” -- Mahatma Gandhi

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." -- Leo Tolstoy 

The author admits that although seemingly abstract, he realizes that most of the complaints were really targeted at himself. Yet he does not use this insight to resolve the problem. He frames the problem as one about company policy, and argues,

As I see it, we have two choices: (a) we can ban profanity or (b) we can accept profanity. Anything in between is very unlikely to work.

On its own, this is both a false dichotomy and a straw man. It is a false dichotomy because there are middle grounds: even the author finds a third option. It is a straw man because the complaints were about excessive swearing, and (more importantly) they were not about company policy. There are ways to make employees more comfortable without making a grand announcement about a sweeping change across the entire organization.

Just look at how hard the author tries to re-frame the problem. First, it became an issue of company policy. Then, it became an issue of culture. And somehow, it ended up as an issue of how profanity is used, not the fact that it is used too much, too often. All these issues were dragged in just so that the author could avoid personal responsibility.

If, as he said, this complaint was about him as an individual, the solution was really simple -- he just needed to try to swear less.

The propagation of the status-quo 

The specific argument about culture was especially disconcerting, even on its own. Specifically, let's look at these statements carefully:

If we outlawed profanity, then some employees who used it would not come to work for us or quit once they got there because we would seem old-fashioned and prudish. 

If we kept profanity, some people might leave. 

After much consideration, I realized that the best technology companies of the day, Intel and Microsoft, were known to be highly profane places, so we’d be off culture with them and the rest of the modern industry if we stopped profanity. 

Attracting the very best engineers meant recruiting from highly profane environments. The choice was between optimizing for top talent or clean culture. Easy decision.

Let's assume, for the time being, that the dichotomy from above (no swearing vs. all the swearing) was true. What are some of the underlying assumptions here?

1. That top talent only come from other highly profane places
2. That people coming from these highly profane places liked it
3. That non-usage of profanity is a definitive signal of old-fashioned-ness and prudishness.
4. That people who leave because of excessive profanity are not top talent
5. That these hypothetical effects of banning profanity will outweigh the reality of employees already being uncomfortable enough to complain

You can begin to see why I have such problems with the analysis. Even if some of these assumptions turned out to be true for the company, one could be systemically "discriminating" against those who find excessive profanity unpleasant. Are those people automatically labelled as "non-top-talent" because their discomfort signals that they are old-fashioned and prudish?

More troubling is that in his argument, you can pretty much replace "swearing" with anything else that marginalizes a particular group. Replace "swearing" with "brogrammer culture", and see what happens:

If we outlawed "brogrammer culture", then some employees who used it would not come to work for us or quit once they got there because we would seem old-fashioned and prudish. 

If we kept the "brogrammer culture", some people might leave. 

After much consideration, I realized that the best technology companies of the day, Intel and Microsoft, were known to be highly "brogrammer" places, so we’d be off culture with them and the rest of the modern industry if we stopped "brogrammers". 

Attracting the very best engineers meant recruiting from highly "brogrammer" environments. The choice was between optimizing for top talent or clean culture. Easy decision.

The point is, this entire argument about culture is flawed and only serves to propagate the status quo. Instead of mimicking the existing culture, perhaps it will make more sense to analyze the behaviours in question and do a real cost/benefit analysis. Then, you may even find top talent elsewhere, and your unique culture may actually prevent them from switching fields.

Conclusion

It is not so much the topic of the discourse that bothered me, nor even the conclusion. Rather, it is the process in which the author reached the conclusion, and what such self-serving thought processes can do to the world of tech.

In all fairness, complaints like this are difficult to deal with. Often the solution is simple, yet following through with the simple solution might be the hardest thing in the world.

I hesitated in writing this because the author is such a prominent figure in my world. He had obviously done so many things right. Perhaps there were other factors that he did not include in the discussion. Perhaps there are other thoughts that went into his decision.

It's not Technology's Fault

Suetonius tells how the emperor Vespasian, who ruled between AD 69 and 79, was approached by a man who had invented a device for transporting columns to the Capitol, the citadel of Rome, at a relatively small cost. Columns were large, heavy, and very difficult to transport. Moving them to Rome from the mines where they were made involved the labor of thousands of people, at great expense to the government. Vespasian … refused to use the innovation, declaring, “How will it be possible for me to feed the populace?”

In 1583, William Lee returned from his studies at the University of Cambridge … [he] became obsessed with making a machine that would free people from endless hand-knitting… Finally in 1589, his “stocking frame” knitting machine was ready. He … arranged for Queen Elizabeth to come see the machine, but her reaction was devastating. She refused to grant Lee a patent, instead observing, “Thou aimest high, Master Lee. Consider thou what the invention could do to my poor subjects. It would assuredly bring them ruin by depriving them of employment, thus making them beggars.” 

- Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Technological advancements are not always lauded, and can often be a two-sided coin. On one hand, technology increases efficiency, and should theoretically increase leisure time. On the other, that leisure time often manifests in the form of unemployment. One need not look beyond the city of San Francisco to see both effects of technological advancement: though it is a hub for new technology, its inequity levels are now on par with developing nations.

Startup companies are often credited with job creation, somewhat paradoxically. A successful startup could very well develop technologies that displace existing workers, therefore decreasing net jobs [1]. We could even judge new companies by how many jobs they displace, rather than create -- those that are more innovative would increase efficiency and reduce labour more than others.

But nobody wants to think of it that way. Efficiency is theoretically good, but can cause detrimental effects.

How do we reconcile that? Does that mean technology per se is bad for society as a whole?

The crux of the issue is that technological advancement not only increase production capability, it also concentrates it. That is, it transfers the ability to produce from a larger group of lower-skilled workers to an elite group of higher-skilled workers and entrepreneurs. It is this transfer that brings instability, disruption, and hardship. Thus it is not technology advancement per se that the emperor Vespasian and Queen Elizabeth was critical of: it was the transfer of power and the changes that it may cause.

Once we separate the two effects of technological advancement, we can focus on solving its problems without writing off new technologies altogether. The building of robots that can do most of our work for us is a good thing. The real issue is to figure out who should own those robots in the long term, and what happens to the people displaced.

This is a political problem, and not a new one. We even had a cold war that was nominally based on two answers to the question, "who should own the factory". It is exactly the same problem.

We've learned that it's a tricky problem, too. Don't reward the innovator, and you stifle innovation. Give exclusive rights to the innovator to own the robots, and inequity could breed instability and violence. I would argue that with the kinds of innovation that we have today (e.g. drones, self-driving cars, and 3D printers -- to name a few), the stakes are higher than it used to be.

We have also learned that there are middle grounds -- which is why along with democracy, we now also have social safety nets and universal health care (well, north of the border at least). Guaranteed minimum income is also being talked about again.

At the end of the day, technological advancement can in theory be beneficial to everyone. The trick is to set up the right social and political structure so that this can be the case. Vespasian and Queen Elizabeth could have found other ways of feeding the populace. Of course, it is easier said than done. Not only is a good implementation difficult to find, rulers and the existing elite may not want such change because it can undermine their power.

The point is though, that no matter how difficult the politics may be, it is not the fault of the innovation if people are hurt by it. It is the fault of the political system, and people who are unwilling or unable to change it.


Footnotes

[1] This doesn't work for all companies, especially the consumer focused, and especially "entertainment" sectors. I use that word in the widest sense possible, encompassing "things that we don't really need but that makes us feel happier". That is, companies that create a new product/service that we didn't realize we wanted or was possible. Those companies should add net positive number of jobs, and do not increase efficiency. (I've conveniently left those out of the analysis.)