Is that always bad? People often advise to be around people with the same goals and ambitions as you to keep you motivated and on the right path.

It's that echo chamber of "you can do it" that often leads to people actually doing it.

The situation I see this happen the most is Company wants to encourage high morale with positive internal messaging, which gets the echo chamber treatment from management. This messaging minimizes self-critical/negative feedback, which results in problems going unhandled, which results in them developing into worse problems until Company becomes embarrassed into taking them seriously.

But I can see how a positive echo chamber could help get something off the ground.

It is once you are 'doing it' you shall get more of a diverse group. my guess once you are past 0->1 stage.

Generally if it's people that you find objectionable then spending time with them is only going to make your dislike for their views worse.

Besides, in a work context it's more likely to be people who want your time and effort for something that's not in your goals. Or simply bores. I used to work somewhere with a negative productivity manager: not only did he not do anything useful, he had a tendency to stand next to you and tell dull long stories of How It Was In The Old Days.

Only if you only like people who agree with you & dislike everyone that disagrees with you.