> But not all mission statements are meaningless, and not all attempts by executives to create a family-like culture come from a bad place.

Executives that make promises to their employees they can't deliver on should know better. You can't create a "family" out of your company because the realities of running a business make that impossible. It's fine to encourage mutual respect, etc as cultural values but it's important to make clear where the boundaries are or people will be hurt (either financially or emotionally) when you can't deliver. Saying the company is "like a family" is blurring these lines, not making them clear.

Edit: That's not even mentioning how "we're like a family" usually means "we're like a TV family". Many real families sometimes fight, swear at each other, say fucked up, sometimes racist/sexist/etc, things, talk about politics and religion, etc. Most larger companies would not tolerate any of this.

The reason I consider an employer saying "we are a family here" problematic is because it's obviously untrue.

My family will support me no matter what. My family will never fire me. My family actually loves me.

None of those things are true with an employer.

In my experience the focus is on human connection and that why this criticism is here - this is a business which necessarily can't prioritize human connection over profit trying to motivate people to work more. I think it's all about the outcomes - if you say "we're a family - we give plenty of second chances and then help people find a new job" is very different from "we're a family, so you need to work late tonight to get this project done"

HN is also violently against social events at a company and the idea of social interaction.

Hate to break it to HN, but the most successful engineers I've met in the biz are also very empathetic and enjoyable to be around. This HN stereotype that you have to be an low-EQ, frustrated incel to work on software is incorrect in my reality. Just look at the top coders who are living (Linus, Guido, Hashimoto) and you will notice that they are very teamwork oriented people.