Silicon Valley startups function like cults and clans demanding total identification

Evidence

Another demonstration of how business ideals are integrated with social values is the extent to which one’s work for a particular company defines one’s self. English-Lueck describes work as “the lodestone of SV life,” an emphasis that has characterized Silicon Valley for decades. The anonymous executive elaborated, “The companies are almost like a cult, right?” He described a startup as a “clan” with t-shirts, membership in which requires workers to spend all of their time at “weird events like Hackathons” that isolate them from their families and discourage outside interests. Unlike in other parts of the world, he said, “here [work is] woven into people’s life more.” — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 183

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Cristina Morini’s ‘velvet totalitarianism’ and work-as-identity critiques in post-Fordist labor theory. — connects to: Silicon Valley’s self-image elevates entrepreneurship as society’s universal problem-solving model — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 713; Silicon Valley grants status through affiliation or self-proclaimed blogging legitimacy rather than credentials — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 480; Silicon Valley’s workplace utopia narrative concealed toxic corporate cultures — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 504 (+2 more)
• SHARE: The ‘startup as cult with hackathons as isolating rituals’ framing is a tight point for someone studying tech labor culture.

Broader Connections

• Silicon Valley grants status through affiliation or self-proclaimed blogging legitimacy rather than credentials #expands (0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 480
• Silicon Valley’s workplace utopia narrative concealed toxic corporate cultures #expands (0.80) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 504
• Silicon Valley’s self-image elevates entrepreneurship as society’s universal problem-solving model #expands (0.75) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 713
• Silicon Valley misappropriates Schumpeter’s creative destruction to justify permissionless innovation #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 154
• Silicon Valley escape fantasies abandon politics while hiding their own power. #expands (0.70) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 191