Anyone in SV or a startup should 100% read Disrupted. The book is hilarious and does indeed show the complete and utter divergence between what Hubspot leadership et al.”say” what their culture is and how the culture is actually experienced.

Worth noting the book is from 2016. Some times it takes a punch in the gut to make a change, but that change is possible. See: Uber after they replaced their CEO.

I have no idea how things look at HS now, but I can't imagine it's exactly as bad as it was four years ago.

Quite a big difference between the two examples, wouldn't you say?

The worst thing said about Hubspot in the book is that it's a cold-calling meat grinder for new college grads, and that company basically embodied all the ridiculous rah-rah stereotype of startup culture. That's what I remember at least.

Uber OTOH had a culture of sexism and sexual harrassment that the CEO failed to address, while also flouting taxi laws in several countries and losing unimaginable amounts of money chasing pipe dreams like self-driving cars.

My point wasn't that they are equal, but that a company can change a lot (for the better) over four years.

This deck seems to explicitly confirm that HubSpot has not meaningfully changed in the last four years.

Im HubSpot certified. They state that culture exists in all companies, but not all companies make a record of it.

Of course no one can stick to it all of the time, but it sets a baseline expectation.

I believe it is important in the age of Slack and Email at the dinner table with family that expectations of team members are set upfront.

What's it called?

> FBI documents accessed by journalists via a freedom of information request revealed that HubSpot attempted "multiple failed attempts to manipulate and extort people” with the intention of stopping the book's publication.

Ouch.

One of my favourite books. So fun. I read it at the same time than a few other coworkers and, sadly, we found ourselves in a very similar environment. From that point on we were just laughing around at every situation that resembled situations from this book.

Then we all left for our own health's sake.