An Experiment on Culture using GenAI

The Hypothesis

Can the culture of a real company that does not exist today be re-created? The 1993 movie Jurassic Park was about this fantasy - and, today, scientists are working on creating extinct species! Time will tell how this plays out.

Coming back to the story of this hypothesis and a real company. Once upon a time, in 1992, a company was born, called Hughes Software Systems. Through acquisitions and mergers, Hughes Software Systems became Flextronics Software Systems and then Aricent. Then Altran acquired it, which was later acquired by Capgemini.

But Hughes Software Systems (HSS) lives in the hearts and minds of people. There is a WhatsApp group of 725 alumni of HSS, the ones that joined during the first 10 years, i.e., 1992-2002. It is a thriving group which discusses many a topic including AI, GenAI, and the culture of the company.

Where Does the DNA Come From

Needed the right material for the experiment. Material equivalent to DNA.

One of the Alumni is Prashant Upadhyaya. In the last few months, he interviewed ~15 other alumni for his YouTube channel @praupadhyaya. The interviews are at least one-hour long – there are, obviously, questions about HSS, but a significant portion is about their life after HSS, etc. They had moved on from HSS 15 years ago, or more.

The ~DNA came from these interviews.

The Technology to Re-create the Culture

Using GenAI and the video interviews, I asked a few simple questions. One of the prompts was “What would be a summary of the culture at HSS?”

I was surprised by the speed of the output, and even more about the output itself. I worked at HSS for 16 years. The output looked quite accurate. Here it is:

• Employee-Centric Philosophy: HSS leadership, emphasized that employees come first, and customers second, believing that well-cared-for employees would, in turn, take care of customers. This philosophy permeated the organization from its early days.

• Strong Culture: The company had a reputation for having one of the finest cultures in India, comparable to the best technology companies today. This included an easy-going, egalitarian, and ethical environment. The company had a system of HSS Citizenship Awards ("popular awards") to recognize and motivate employees, fostering a culture of appreciation and role modelling.

• Exceptional Talent Pool: HSS was highly selective, hiring "really bright people" and attracting the top talent in the country, including many of the "brightest of the brightest" from institutions. Working with such accomplished individuals was seen as a significant learning experience.

• Opportunities for Growth and Empowerment: The company was known for providing numerous opportunities, encouraging employees to take risks, and entrusting young engineers with significant responsibilities. This led to faster promotions and a high degree of ownership.

• Collaborative and Supportive Environment: HSS fostered a collegial atmosphere where leaders treated employees with respect and there was strong teamwork and mutual support, even during intense professional disagreements. Many long-lasting friendships were forged.

• Focus on Quality: Quality was deeply embedded in the culture, with every manager held responsible for it, rather than it being solely a function's domain. The involvement and support from top management were crucial to achieving high standards.

• Openness to Innovation and Experimentation: HSS was open to new ideas and experiments, such as allowing managers to "refix" salaries based on market rates or crowdsourcing salary structures, demonstrating a flexible and trusting environment.

What was the Culture of HSS, then?

The culture of HSS was defined as HSS Mindsystem.

The output of GenAI looked quite like the HSS Mindsystem. The mantra for AI and GenAI is augmentation and not automation - and having a human judgment is important. So, I did the next part of the experiment manually😊 and mapped the output of GenAI to the description of HSS Mindsystem (see the table below).

Recreating the Equivalent of HSS Mindsystem

To do this, I went back to GenAI and prompted - "create a marketing type write-up that captures the culture (using the text generated from the interviews)". Had to refine with multiple prompts. And, then another prompt for a visual. See the output below.

Similar to the HSS Mindsystem in spirit. The presentation is different.

Is the experiment successful?

What are your thoughts?

Have you done any experiments that you would like to share?

My head brimming with more ideas and possibilities. So much can be done so easily, given us humans and chance to do more reimagining, strategy, and execution.

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