I'm a designer and developer with 15+ years of professional experience and I would absolutely agree culture is more important than code.

I won't go as far to say as coding is easy, because it isn't. The effort it takes to create a platform is considerable. It's why we don't have that many options when it comes to social media.

But culture? That's HARD. Fostering an environment that's open and inclusive and limits abuse? That's so much more difficult.

I'm a context guy, so in attempting to explain why it is so difficult, you have to look at the social context of tech, which isn't the most inviting place to begin with if you're not white, straight and a dude.

Combine this with economic inequality factors and it makes that much more difficult for non white people and women to even start building anything.

So you generally get white guys building platforms for ALL of us.

A culture that favors their perspectives.

@Are0h don't deny there are bigots in tech, but there are bigots everywhere, and my take is the majority of them came in with the #Web2.0 corporatization, beginning in the late 90s. I read a really good blog by an #OldSchool female coder, bemoaning the myth that #hacker culture was for white, middle class, cis dudes before the identitarian heroes showed up to make them be diverse. Sadly I can't find it right now, but this piece covers similar ground
https://status451.com/2016/11/06/exclusive-inclusivity/

@strypey No one is denying bigots are everywhere, so that point is irrelevant.

Second no one has said that hacker culture is for middle class white dudes. However, that is what it has become, and more importantly, people are fighting to keep it that way.

The culture in tech of white folks fighting to keep it a white male bastion is a microcosm of the overall culture in the States to the unearned advantage of whiteness in place.

Tech _should_ be more diverse. That's the issue.

@Are0h this seems to be a popular story. Again, I think problems endemic to *corporate* culture are being blamed on hacker culture. Some people are putting a lot of effort into trying to change corporate tech culture, and good on them. My solution is for hackers to take tech back from corporations. As the USAmerican exceptionalism *yawn*. Your country is not the world (thankfully). Love from China.