The details in a widely read New York Times article about a Silicon Valley startup Upload were frankly lurid. But in an era in which such scandals seem to be commonplace in the tech world, the root cause has never been clearer.

Put simply, too many young companies are built without a solid corporate culture at their base. And that, as executives at Upload and other companies would likely attest in a candid moment, is a recipe for disaster.

According to a lawsuit by a former Upload employee, executives at the virtual-reality firm acted just about exactly the way one might expect of 20-something males who've been given millions of dollars in venture capital and a mandate to grow and succeed—with no reference to how they should behave. They created an “unbearable environment,” the former employee said, where liquor and sexually charged talk flowed freely.