I read a job posting from one startup that read something like “We’re a real company, doing real work, not a summer camp for 20-somethings”. Indeed!

The start-ups with beer on tap and foosball tables often practice gender and age discrimination. They blather at length about their “culture”, but what underlies that “culture” is a bunch of inexperienced people who have no idea what they’re doing, either on an organizational level or an engineering level.

Some will read this and respond with “well, Facebook”. I’ll note that Mark Zuckerberg is a genius of social media. The people who are using Zuckerberg as an example are probably not geniuses. Nor are they Steve Jobs, although they may be jerks.

What matters much more than beer and foosball is treating people well and building a good product. Ideally a product that people want (which is easier said than done). Treating people well means working to avoid bias and discrimination. That’s both moral and practical. Diverse companies build better products.