Rashomon is a relatively obscure Japanese movie released in 1950. The film’s plot revolves around the murder of a Samurai warrior. Four unrelated individuals, all eyewitnesses to the murder, claim to know what really happened. The film reel then cuts to each eyewitness’ version of events one-by-one. What follows is a series of four seemingly disconnected and contradictory narratives. Moreover, the accounts are relatively self-serving as they place the narrator at the center of events. By the end, the viewer is left in no better a position than at the start as to understanding what actually happened. While the movie was a box office dud, it gave birth to an interesting term: The Rashomon effect. The term refers to the idea that eyewitness accounts are terribly unreliable in describing actual events. Therefore, such accounts should be used with caution by researchers and scholars interested in establishing historical facts.
I was reminded of the Rashomon effect this week as tech twitter was buzzing with the hit-piece on travel startup, Away. For those who haven’t been following the story, the Verge basically wrote an article showing Away’s seemingly caustic culture and toxic work environment. The article is filled with interviews and Slack screenshots from current and former Away employees. Without getting into too much detail, the story doesn’t paint a good picture for ‘Away’. I imagine the past few days have been not fun for Away’s management as they’ve likely been on the receiving end of a lot of unhappy calls from their board, investors and customers. The CEO, Steph Korey, is already in damage limitation mode and recently released a statement via Twitter:
Anyways, I am not close to Away so I can’t comment on what the actual work culture at the company is like. But I am almost certain that many of the things mentioned in the article happen at an overwhelming majority of startups. Heck, many of them happen at most large corporates. Sure, some of the oddities (e.g. rude Slack etiquette) might be parochial and limited to a few teams within certain companies. But then those companies might have other annoying oddities that Away is currently immune from. But the idea that you can use stories from disgruntled employees as proof or evidence of malfeasence is ridiculous. Now, let me be clear - there are instances (e.g. sexual harassment), where what I am about to say doesn’t apply. But for most other types of behavior, taking minor infractions and using them to paint a wholly negative picture, is completely disingenuous. Away might not be a ‘fun’ company but let’s be real, high-growth startups rarely are. When you are growing at breakneck speed and have taken lots of private capital, there is naturally lots of pressure. This often means being in a state of permanent under-staffing coupled with long hours.
I am also reminded of a story of Looker, from its early days. (I read the story a while ago and can’t find the source so am partly gonna butcher it) But the story went something like this. It was post the company having raised its Series A. The company’s co-founder/CEO, Frank Bien, met an entrepreneur friend for a coffee. The entrepreneur asked him how Looker had been doing. Frank gave him an exceedingly positive report card - he spoke about how the cash balance was healthy, customer demos had been going well and how he really felt the company could scale in the coming years. The very same evening, the same entrepreneur met another individual who was coincidentally a senior executive at Looker. He also asked him how Looker had been doing. The executive painted an exceedingly negative picture - the cash balance was so low that the company would go bankrupt within a few months. The product had lots of bugs and there were lots of engineering challenges that remain unsolved and son. Later on, after Looker had gotten much more successful, the entrepreneur narrated the second conversation to Frank, the cofounder/CEO. Frank paused for a moment, laughed and said ‘Yes, and we were both probably telling the truth - I can totally see where he (his senior executive) was coming from’
So what do the stories of Looker, Away and Rashomon have in common? Human narrative and bias. You need not worry - I am not trying to throw cliches like ‘each story has two (or multiple) sides’.
What I want to emphasize is that human narratives by design are there to protect our ego. We live life forwards and construct meaning backwards. Ninety-nine percent of the times, folks aren’t lying when they tell a contradictory version of events. They really believe it. Just as much as the other person believes his/her version. It is pure human ego to place ourselves at the center of the universe. To echo David Foster Wallace, this is our default setting. But let’s be careful when using individual accounts to paint stories of company cultures or even individuals.
What journalists need to understand is that when right-wingers uses the trope ‘fake news’, it is obviously never about examples of literal fake stories. No, it is these kind of nuanced stories warped in long stories that get people really riled up. It is these hit pieces of journalists going to Middle America in order to ‘understand’ why seemingly ‘reasonable’ people voted for Trump. And it is those long-form pieces that then use such first-person interviews to tell a story that do the most damage. It isn’t enough that Person X voted for Y. It now needs to be placed back in the context of broader shifts that took places decades ago. It is then more neatly wrapped into a narrative of economic decline taking place since NAFTA became law. ‘But I am telling you ma’am, I don’t care about NAFTA. I don’t even know what that is..I just like this fella, Trump’ ‘No, no you just don’t understand it - when you are talking about your economic frustrations, your current situation is really caused by the passage of NAFTA and China becoming a part of WTO..’ ‘Look lady, I don’t know who you are but p*ss off, you’re fake news!’
I am rambling in the last part but I will leave it that way.
Not everything needs to have an ending.