Tech has become a means to permit overreach into personal data and its a big problem since overreach is for wanting control. Anyway, it needs a major overhaul and maybe just outlaw it unless its used for the health and well being of the planet.
The tech world was insanity. The vaporware of middleware. The accounting tricks and investment schemes. I “did well” but I hated it. I also think we’d be better off without most of it.
I was a goddam English major who just wanted to teach and talk about literature and art and music and coffee and I stumbled into tech some forty… maybe thirty years ago and it sucked away my soul and now it shackles me and tech sucks can’t wait until it all implodes or I die … sweet release…
Tech shows you the worst of every villain you ever hated erected on your screen without you even owning a device to watch it. 2024 should have been the breaking point when mass layoffs, and the collapse of SF, were rewarded. But, sure… let’s just sit with this for another couple of years; it can’t be that bad.
I worked for a high tech startup, but it was 1990 and in Florida. It was incredible, we had a small engineering team and smaller management. It was pretty awesome, we had stock options, we had a keg in the kitchen, we had freedom to design and implement. It was great, we went public in 1995 and all people there for more than a year cashed in. But ... with being public everything changed, not overnight, but subtly. First, HR banned the keg, then we grew, we had 72 people at IPO, a few years later we had 1000s. It all became about the earnings and the next quarter. I pitty the startup experience now, you don't even get to have any fun. Greed kills all.
Finding it hard not to underwrite an escape for the kids to what remains of the messy yet exciting life we once lived. (And oddly enough it can easily be the heart of a city neighborhood as much as an oceanside town or a place in the mountains)
That sounds really nice. I've also never gotten in on the ground floor. I've usually been hired a few funding rounds in when shit gets serious and oh no, we need ROI now.
Tech has become a means to permit overreach into personal data and its a big problem since overreach is for wanting control. Anyway, it needs a major overhaul and maybe just outlaw it unless its used for the health and well being of the planet.
Okay, now we're talking real solutions.
The tech world was insanity. The vaporware of middleware. The accounting tricks and investment schemes. I “did well” but I hated it. I also think we’d be better off without most of it.
Could not agree more.
I was a goddam English major who just wanted to teach and talk about literature and art and music and coffee and I stumbled into tech some forty… maybe thirty years ago and it sucked away my soul and now it shackles me and tech sucks can’t wait until it all implodes or I die … sweet release…
I come from the same background, lol.
Tech shows you the worst of every villain you ever hated erected on your screen without you even owning a device to watch it. 2024 should have been the breaking point when mass layoffs, and the collapse of SF, were rewarded. But, sure… let’s just sit with this for another couple of years; it can’t be that bad.
How bad could it get? Oooo, real bad.
I worked for a high tech startup, but it was 1990 and in Florida. It was incredible, we had a small engineering team and smaller management. It was pretty awesome, we had stock options, we had a keg in the kitchen, we had freedom to design and implement. It was great, we went public in 1995 and all people there for more than a year cashed in. But ... with being public everything changed, not overnight, but subtly. First, HR banned the keg, then we grew, we had 72 people at IPO, a few years later we had 1000s. It all became about the earnings and the next quarter. I pitty the startup experience now, you don't even get to have any fun. Greed kills all.
Horrifyingly I understand this, Ken..
Finding it hard not to underwrite an escape for the kids to what remains of the messy yet exciting life we once lived. (And oddly enough it can easily be the heart of a city neighborhood as much as an oceanside town or a place in the mountains)
20 year (and counting) tech veteran here. This is truth.
Great article!
Thank you!
Never worked for a start up but, I can confirm the rest is true.
Hang in there, stay strong, choose your moment, and fuck ‘em.
I can't tell you how much this means. Thank you!
i definitely understand where your coming from. great read here. and i appreciate you end with a message about there still being hope :)
That sounds really nice. I've also never gotten in on the ground floor. I've usually been hired a few funding rounds in when shit gets serious and oh no, we need ROI now.