I resonated very strongly with this well written piece. The description of how early decisions become part of your company's "genome" is spot on. This comment in particular;
"When faced with making a product decision that is even mildly uncomfortable, employees often first look towards expressed company principles like “Always put the customer first”, but the next thing they look for is precedent."
It is reminiscent of the "two wolves" Cherokee story of two wolves inside a person one evil, one good. The one that wins out and determines your character is the one you feed. These sort of company decisions, individually small but repeated over time, are food for the ethical wolf and the unethical wolf that lives in the soul of a company. One way to know that you probably don't want to continue at a startup is when you notice they are feeding the unethical wolf more than the ethical one.
Though, honestly, I find the use of Johnson & Johnson in that article to be more problematic by the day considering they clearly have done a lot of evil at this point.
"When faced with making a product decision that is even mildly uncomfortable, employees often first look towards expressed company principles like “Always put the customer first”, but the next thing they look for is precedent."
It is reminiscent of the "two wolves" Cherokee story of two wolves inside a person one evil, one good. The one that wins out and determines your character is the one you feed. These sort of company decisions, individually small but repeated over time, are food for the ethical wolf and the unethical wolf that lives in the soul of a company. One way to know that you probably don't want to continue at a startup is when you notice they are feeding the unethical wolf more than the ethical one.