Does anyone think that the bay area starups that go nuts on culture truly follow it or is it just marketing gimmick?
Total gimmick. Most startups are toxic.
Agree. Don't fall into the trap of startups. read a lots of reviews on Glassdoor , research your teammates on LinkedIn , research the founders and leadership and business model before taking the leap. Not everything can and will become Facebook or Google
100% gimmick. the harder they push it the more dubious you should be. i just left a startup that heavily pushed core values - except ignored them whenever it was convenient
Fair weather culture adherence seem to be the norm I guess. Thats the likely reason why most of such companies mess up.
Try to find former employees on LinkedIn and ask them for the straight dope. My experience doing startups was that most of them were full of shit and not run intelligently enough to justify the disgusting amounts of money thrown at them.
If you are in the in-crowd, the clique, the bro-club, the founding member at a Bay startup - you've got preferred stocks, freedom to do whatever and get whatever position you want. If you're post-funding lateral hire - you're a worker bee, second class citizen
Most startups are toxic depending on their stage of funding. They think they own you and will try to get the most they can out of you.
Gimmick. Our company laid off 8% the day after "winning" best place to work from some obscure publication...
For the remaining 92% is it a good place to work?
Layoffs alone may not be a good indicator of culture if there is a logical reason behind it. The answer to the question from cG6dL3 should be a more accurate indicator.