What are your values?

[viscousmemories]

I saw a LinkedIn profile the other day (and many before and since) in which the person said they were looking for a company whose values are aligned with their own. I'm sure most of us have thought that at one time or another, but that got me thinking "what are my values?"

I'm not sure these are even "values" per se, but when I think about what qualities I admire in other humans, I come up with this list:

1. Honesty
2. Empathy
3. Compassion
4. Generosity
5. Curiosity
6. Cooperation
7. Sincerity

This seems so trite, though. Like I can't imagine anyone saying they don't value those traits, or any company admitting they don't prioritize those things in their business practices or look for those qualities in potential hires. That makes me think maybe people mean something else when they say they are looking for a company where their values align.

Also, I know that the top priority for all businesses is making money, and that is not my top priority, so if by 'values' one means 'priorities', it's definitionally impossible for my values to align fully with any company.

[ChuckF]

The answer is that your values are those values listed in the values and culture section of the company's website. Those are what HR consultants are paid to write behavioral interviewing guides around. So, in each pre-employment interaction, bullshit simply needs to be reformatted to include those words.

[seebs]

So, there's actually a real question here!

Principles of Technology Leadership | Bryan...

Uber's values are "move fast and break things" and "always hustle" and things like that.

They are not "don't kill people".

So for instance, I have some friends at Anthropic, which is an AI company, and if you compare them and OpenAI, there are actually enormous differences in what they talk about as important things, goals, etcetera. I don't even think it's entirely obvious that Anthropic's primary goal is to make money, although they may pursue that as a strategy for obtaining funding to do things they care about.

When interviewing, if your goal is to get hired at this company no matter what, you want to chase their stated values and culture. If your goal is to find a job that you're happy at, where they're happy with you, you should stick to your values and maybe it matches up well and maybe it doesn't, and a definite "doesn't" answer is a really good thing for both parties.

EDIT: For more concrete examples, I simply would not under any plausible circumstances want to take a job working at Ubisoft, whose goal is to get customers used to the idea that they don't own their games, or at Activision, where "we sexually harassed an employee into suicide" isn't really seen as a failing. I've never even considered applying for work at Meta or Amazon, either. They're horrible and I would not be happy there.

[JoeP]

3.14159

[LarsMac]

1. Empathy
2. Compassion
3. Curiosity
4. Respect
5. Humor

These are the qualities I learned from my Grandparents and their siblings.
I believe that everything else branches from those.

[256 colors]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

Also, I know that the top priority for all businesses is making money, and that is not my top priority, so if by 'values' one means 'priorities', it's definitionally impossible for my values to align fully with any company.

Perfectly stated, vm.

[seebs]

Interestingly, one of the things in the Anthropic culture screen is just to straight up tell you that they are not primarily trying to make money, and they WILL do things that hurt their ability to make money, and that your stock options will not be worth what they would be if they were trying to make money.

Definitely a kind of a data point!

[viscousmemories]

I didn't google it last time you brought it up, but now that I have... Anthropic looks really interesting. I recently joined the "All Tech Is Human" Slack and I suspect there are Anthropic people there.

[Ari]

I generally see my values as the things I do when I don't have too and no one's looking.

As a fake veggie if I must eat meat I don't eat mammal, but no one's holding me to it, there's no gold star for half assed vegetarian, I'm not trying to convert others, I'm not single handedly saving cute piggies, I don't think myself better than mammal eaters, no one else cares, but I care.

[LarsMac]

I have learned to accept my place in the food chain.

I eat red meat because there are millions of mosquitoes out there who depend on me keeping my hemoglobin levels up.

[Ari]

So you're the one that's been keeping them breeding!

That's of course just a general example, over the last decade or so I've become really suspicous about people who shout their values instead of living them, but that's probably related to having multiple people I followed turn into literal Heil Hittler nazis because their true values were to gain praise and followers, the words they spewed were just whatever they needed to say to get them.

Like here's Russian propaganda spreading Glenn Greenwald interviewing now Russian citizen with a family Edward Snowden,

"But at the same time you have to make a determination about what it is that's important to you. And if living unfreely but comfortably is something you're willing to accept, and I think it many of us are it's the human nature; you can get up everyday, go to work, you can collect your large paycheck for relatively little work against the public interest, and go to sleep at night after watching your shows." -Edward Snowden 2013

Edward Snowden just told us who he was, but then claimed to have values of democracy and free press, and we/I believed him. What a fool I was.

[256 colors]

Originally Posted by Ari

... and we/I believed him. What a fool I was.

Oh, Ari, I feel exactly the same way about a lot of other my whole life.

[Pyrrho]

Values? I'm still trying to figure out my pronouns so that I am aligned with company values.

[256 colors]

Originally Posted by Pyrrho

Values? I'm still trying to figure out my pronouns so that I am aligned with company values.

Tell them that you don't yet have pronouns, just... amateur nouns.

The savvy boss or HR rep will reply to suggest that if you do not [identify], then, your pronouns will be was/were.

NOTE: in the event that this occurs in person, then, each of you are required to give the other person a high-five, and make plans for mocktails after work. Then, you must joke about this requirement by saying "The gay agenda? I don't even HAVE a genda!"

Continue riffing until one of you refers to "the rules," to which the other must reply, "You know the rules, and so do I."

A full commitment's what I'm thinking of. You wouldn't get this from any ... [continue joking about gender, labels, pronouns, employment, and memes].

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by Pyrrho

Values? I'm still trying to figure out my pronouns so that I am aligned with company values.

I'm pretty sure you know how you self-identify. I work for a company that has a diverse workforce. I can't always tell someone's preferred gender by their name, and they don't always have a picture to infer how they present. I have been opting to use "they" when I'm referring to someone whose gender I don't know, because I'm pretty sure I've accidentally misgendered non-Western people's names.

While I'm not excited about companies presenting as "woke," having an optional place to state your pronoun preferences is a courtesy I think more people should adopt. I suppose that's a value I can appreciate.

[seebs]

yeah i am just broadly in favor of pronouns being shown. i have a coworker named Andrea (he/him). A friend of mine has a father named Anne (he/him). One of my friends has a wife named Jordan (she/her). So far as I know, zero of these people are trans, but not everyone's culture uses names the same way my default sense of "western European" does. (And in fact, all of these people are from "western European" cultures!)

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

My friend Jan (he/him) in Norway.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

I'm pretty sure you know how you self-identify. I work for a company that has a diverse workforce. I can't always tell someone's preferred gender by their name, and they don't always have a picture to infer how they present. I have been opting to use "they" when I'm referring to someone whose gender I don't know, because I'm pretty sure I've accidentally misgendered non-Western people's names.

While I'm not excited about companies presenting as "woke," having an optional place to state your pronoun preferences is a courtesy I think more people should adopt. I suppose that's a value I can appreciate.

Chinese names are definitely not easily inferable, especially if you don't read Chinese characters.

In fact, a lot of Chinese names are unisex (by pronunciation). You might infer the gender if you know the characters they use (the same pronunciation may have more than one meaning, and they might use the more "feminine" meaning if it's a girl's name and the more "masculine" if it's a boy's name). But it's even worse in Latin characters because there are tones - so even names that are pronounced differently in Chinese and have clearly different gender connotations based on their meanings may be spelled the same in the West.

Aside from that, while there are some popular names, Chinese names are more varied than English names (especially male names in English, which are more likely to be drawn from a small set of names like John, James, Michael, Luke, David, Robert, etc.). They aren't conventionalized and you just come up with a meaning you like and that's the name. So even if you know Chinese the gender of a name is not fully predictable.

The one pattern is that names with the same syllable repeated are usually female (Yo-Yo Ma is a counterexample).

Which is all to say: not only are people from different cultures not necessarily aware of the gender of names from different languages (e.g. Andrea in Italian being a masculine name, or Aditya and Aditi being masculine and feminine respectively in Hindi) but how gendered names are in the first place can also vary.

So if you work with a lot of people, especially virtually, aside from any LGBT-related reasons to allow people to include their pronouns, it just makes things easier. Of course, there are also reasons to have that as an option for LGBT inclusiveness.

My name is very widely known as a masculine name (because of a certain Nintendo character) so I don't feel the need to tell people. Nobody has badgered me to list my pronouns at work or always include them when I introduce myself, it is definitely optional. Apparently it bothers some people if it's an option though.