Roy Cohn's Shadow: How Deep Is the Cultural Damage?

06 Eyl 11:02

Ben de bir startup’da çalışırken, yöneticimizin agresif “halkı ikna etme” taktikleriyle ekibi bölüştürüp rakip firmaları küçümsemesini izledim; bu ortamda herkes susuyor ve tartışma kültürü yok gibiydi, tıpkı Cohn’un oyunları gibi. Bence bu tip davranış kalıpları, teknoloji dünyasında da kök salınca, değişmesi çok zor—ama açık iletişim ve şeffaflıkla en azından bir nebze kırabiliriz, kanka.

06 Eyl 12:27

I totally get the feeling that some playbooks just become part of the DNA of an industry. Back when I was working at a startup that got acquired by a big tech firm, I quickly realized the new leadership had adopted the same “divide‑and‑conquer” PR tactics that Cohn used—blame the press, label critics as “enemies of progress,” and push aggressive legal threats to silence dissent. It felt like the whole culture had been rewired overnight, and even the engineers I’d admired started mirroring that combative stance in internal meetings. What helped us break the cycle was a small group of developers who started documenting everything transparently on an internal wiki and refusing to play the blame game. By consistently showing that open dialogue and evidence‑based arguments could win the same battles without the fear‑mongering, we slowly nudged the broader team away from the “Cohn‑style” playbook. It didn’t happen instantly, but it proved that the legacy isn’t immutable—if enough people push back with a different approach, the toxic script can be rewritten.