On Dissent, Organizational Culture, and Why Taubes’ Article Felt Familiar

Gary Taubes’ description of the hierarchies formed in controversial science projects in this substack reminded me of what I’ve frequently seen happen in a radically different - yet extremely similar - space: startups.

In the article, Gary describes that in these types of projects, at the bottom of the hierarchy you can find challengers to the leader’s idea. They understand the limitations of what they have and are building and can see the weak points of the leader’s publicly stated idea. But due to their criticism, they are ostracized and end up self-censoring or leaving the project.

Over time this leads to a hierarchy of enablers and believers. Either people stay quiet in order to progress in their career and the bias for hiring is for people who already believe in the publicly stated goal and design who don’t have enough context to criticize it.

Even though Gary circumscribes this dynamic to projects that are in the forefront of science, I think it applies to a broader set of human enterprises as this is something that I have observed frequently happen in the software startup space, where I spent all my career. And for the same reasons.

It is fairly common to see how critical views to either the alleged potential or capabilities of the project are shut out using the same excuses as the ones exemplified in the article: “You are being overly negative” or “You need to believe in the project”. And this leads to the same dynamic of people leaving and the endeavor is filled with either individuals ignorant enough that lack the knowledge to question anything, true believers in the idealized version or cynical people that understand the limitations but don’t care and are just there for the paycheck.

In my experience the companies that have this dynamic don’t end up well; any mistake is left unaddressed until it is too late and the cost of fixing it is too high.

I am fortunate to have been able to find companies where dissent and challenges are not just tolerated, but fostered. They are considered and paid attention to no matter who they come from. At TRM Labs, my current workplace, it is even embedded in our leadership principles.