It's not "sick". It's that it's rife with problems. I don't think companies should ban dating but I think it's very wise for them to be wary of it happening and educate their employees, before they start, to imagine what happens if that person becomes their boss or subordinate or breaks up with them and they have to see them everyday at work and work together. And/or starts dating someone else. Or is their superior and has the ability to influence their career with their decisions etc. Or how it feels to be on the same team as two lovebirds.
Does "life and humanity" include a bad breakup, tons of drama, and pulling the entire office/company into that drama? (not saying it's always the case, or even a lot, but it's very bad in the few cases when it does happen) If people could truly separate their personal lives from their professional ones, this wouldn't ever be an issue.
Of course it does. That's humanity. I understand entirely why a business would want to avoid this stuff, but I also understand why a business might want to not have to pay employees, or might want to work them 24 hours a day if it could. None of these things is healthy.
It's arguable. While it's completely unreasonable for a business to overwork its employees or not pay them, it seems reasonable to me to expect them to not bring their personal issues to the workplace. Also, I imagine their coworkers feel the same; if you're trying to get work done, and your coworkers are fighting because of their relationship, wouldn't you want them to stop/go away?
If your employees are fighting at work because of their relationship you have bad employees. Attempting to forbid all office relationships is not an appropriate response.
Come let me exploit you and convince the meaningless amount of equity I give you is worth working 80 hours a week.
And, even though you don't have time to meet anyone, you can't form a life bond with the designer that you work with everyday- despite you mutually digg each-other and are best friends.
Could not disagree more. It's none of the founder's business and the culture in the US that tries to forbid this is sick.