What are the coolest startup culture hacks you've heard of?

Culture hacks are the clever, quirky little things companies do that makes them who they are.

 

I firmly believe culture is defined by the type of people the company hires and the environment that those people create and the type of things they value. Different companies value different things.

You can't "hack" culture by providing free beer, making desks out of doors, or any of that kind of stuff. Sure, they certainly help set the tone, but ultimately the overarching culture is set by the people at the company and their mindset in the way they approach their work.

But I realize this doesn't answer your question. So here are couples that I know of, some of which aren't "hacks" as much as they are a byproduct of the kind of people that work there:

• Facebook's Hack Month

After working on a particular team for a while (typically 1 year), FB tells you to pick any other team at the company and for 1 month, you'd have a project on that team. If at the end of the month you liked the team and the type of work, then you can stay on that team. If you didn't then you can go back to your old team or maybe even pick a new team to try out. I think this allows engineers to gain knowledge and experience with all of the different parts of Facebook. Also it ensures that your job isn't soloed to one particular team and task like at many large companies.

• Dropbox's Hack Week:

At Dropbox, there is a week where everyone drops what they are doing and they work on cool hacks to show off at the end of the week. It allows people to be creative without any restrictions and who knows, they might even come up with something cool that can be launched as a feature or product. It's essentially a weeklong unrestricted hackathon.

 

The CEO of a company called Gravity Payments decided to pay all employees at the organisation over $70k a year, from the entry-lvel employees up to the C-Suite. It was lauded as a fantastic idea and seemed to inspire other startups to follow suit. Unfortunately, it did not work out for this particular company - I believe the guy in charge went bankrupt and the startup lost a lot of veteran directors as a result of the decision, but I think the idea of trying to make pay more equitable across a company is a great idea, making workers feel more valued and removing the kind of weird class divide that grows in a workplace.

What does everyone else think about this idea?

By the way, here is an article about the story of this company and its attempt to give everyone the same pay, and how it went so wrong: http://www.inc.com/magazine/201511/paul-keegan/does-more-pay-mean-more-growth.html