I remember when I was growing up, tech industry has so many people that were admirable, and you wanted to aspire to be in life. Bill Gates, founders of Google Larry Page, Sergey brin, Steve Jobs (wasn’t perfect but on a surface level, he was still at least a pretty decent guy), basically everyone involved in gaming from Xbox to PlayStation and so on, Tom from MySpace… So many admirable people who were actually really great…
Now, people are just trash. Look at Mark Zuckerberg who leads Facebook. Dude is a lizard man, anytime you think he has shown some character growth he does something truly horrible and illegal that he should be thrown in prison for. For example, he’s been buying up properties in Hawaii and basically stealing them from the locals. He’s basically committing human rights violations by violating the culture of Hawaiian natives and their land deeds that are passed down from generation to generation. He has been systematically stealing them and building a wall on Hawaii, basically a f*cking colonizer. That’s what the guy is. I thought he was a good upstanding person until I learned all these things about him
Current CEO of Google is peak dirtbag. Dude has no interest in the company or it’s success at all, his only concern is patting his pockets while he is there as CEO, and appeasing the shareholders. He has zero interest in helping or making anyone’s life pleasant at the company. Truly a dirtbag in every way.
Current CEO of Home Depot, which I now consider a tech company because they have moved out of retail and into the online space and they are rapidly restructuring their entire business around online sales, that dude is a total piece of work conservative racist. I remember working for this company, This dude’s entire focus is eliminating as many people as feasibly possible from working in the store, making their life living heck, does not see people as human beings at all. Just wants to eliminate anyone and everyone they possibly can, think they are a slave labor force
Elon musk, we all know about him, don’t need to really say much. Every time you think he’s doing something good for society, he proves you wrong And does the worst thing he can possibly do in that situation. It’s like he’s specifically trying to make the world the worst place possible everyday
Like, damn. What the heck happened to the world? You know? I thought the tech industry was supposed to be filled with these brilliant genius people who are really good for the world…
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Power corrupts people. On top of that, the capitalist machine isn’t satisfied with “just okay” performance. It’s infinite growth, or nothing. Once you hit the upper limit of what you can deliver, you start delivering the same, but with a lot of cut corners
Hint: it’s not just in tech…
They still exist and they’re just as unheard of as the unsung heroes who brought us the digital revolution of the 20th century.
Alan Turing, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Gary Kildall, the list goes on. At least Torvalds and Stallman got some recognition for what they did within there respective communities, even if the latter is a bit of a creep.
All of those people where far more important to computing, and far less famous. Just like how no one really thinks about the developers holding up the open source projects which function as the bedrock of our modern society. They’re more interested in company heads than actual technologists, or more accurate, that’s what the people in power are more interested in.
Actual engineers tend to have pesky things like morals and ethics.
You cant get that kind of money without being piece of shit humanbeing. You need to constantly look out for opportunities to exploit others and how could you even do that if you have any shred of empathy or decency. Not sure if they were like this from the beginning or if they became like this when they got enough money or if its influence from their family, but we will all suffer under their rule.
Because sociopathic tenancies are useful when on your way to the top. It lets you step on everyone else in your way and then do whatever you want without having to care about others.
Yep!
Tech is absolutely a space where people who break the rules get rewarded. Every tech company I’ve worked at has had a situation where they turned the other cheek on laws. And if they broke it, the fine was just the cost of doing business.
A example at my old job (with fake numbers), they broke laws in some EU countries. It took them like a decade to finally catch up with them. And the fine was like $8 million dollars. But during that law breaking, they made $100mil in sales, while also destroying the competition and solidifying they position in the marketplace, guaranteeing more profits for another decade.
If they followed the law, they wouldn’t be this major player in the industry.
And the job I worked at is one of thousands of companies that think like that.
Shit like this doesn’t deserve to remain anonymous. Just name the company.
You’re out of your mind if you thought bill gates was someone to look up to.
Well first of all, I don’t personally think evil even exists.
Secondly, I don’t think these people are any more or less “evil” than the rest of us. They just operate on a much larger scale that affects many more people. If any of us normal folk would be put under equivalent level of scrutiny as these guys with journalists combing thru our every social media post and paparazzis following us around combined with the intention to dig up dirt and contribute to the negative narrative that sells better than a positive one, we’d all look like them. Most people don’t like Gates, Musk or Zuck because that’s the conclusion they’ve independently arrived at. It’s how they’ve been told to think by the media.
I don’t know how someone could possibly say that evil doesn’t exist.
There are people out there that torture animals to death purely for fun, with no other purpose. There are people that wish genocide and debilitating diseases on a demographic they don’t like. There are people who abduct children, tie them down, rape them, then murder them.
The whole “there’s no good and bad, just what the media conditions you to believe” philosophy is bullshit, and screams of a 14 year old thinking they’re enlightened and philosophical, when in reality they’re just being a fuckwit.
I’d ask how you define evil in this case. To me, an act is evil when the net detriment to the planet and its contents (including humans) is greater than the net benefit it creates, and the actor pursues said act knowing this. I’d argue it scales with the nature and context of the act. It’s hard to say this isn’t real. But yes, we all have the capacity for evil, and also can be complicit in other evils by dint of normalized behaviours (without necessarily being ‘evil’ ourselves)
I do agree that an absolute Evil doesn’t exist, the same way an absolute Good doesn’t exist. But we’re a pile of writhing meat puppets on a moist, moldy rock - we don’t exist on that level in the first place.
They all have a story like this. They are all terrible.
I think Gareth Reynolds said it or was it Jordan from knowledge fight? But once you reach a billion you should get a medal saying you won capitalism then be 100% taxed the rest of your life.
Everything over a certain amount should be taxed 100%. Not everything. But also there should be a substantial house tax on mansions. And a higher house tax if you own more than one property.
Yeah, you don’t need to have a billion to exclude people from shelter and exceed complicity in their suffering or death. Anyways, yeah short of abolishing property and landlords a significant tax, property hoarding deterrance, and rent control would make so much sense. It would take an severe naivete or true sociopathy not to support it.
It would take an severe naivete or true sociopathy not to support it.
… or seeing how those things affected a few rent-strained places not in the USA where you are apparently from.
Property taxes are fine and all. But renting out has a place in economics. It should be profitable and encouraged, it does benefit people who can’t buy real estate.
Of course when huge realty companies rent out, and there’s not much other choice, you are going to have problems. But that’s work for anti-monopoly laws.
But where I live, for example, it’s usually individuals who rent out and they don’t own dozens of apartments.
Landlords do spend their money and time on maintaining their property, buying furniture, appliances, keeping it in good state, insured and all that, so that someone without time and energy to do a hundred things would be able to rent that property and live there without too much bother.
They provide a useful service. Hating them all is stupid.
Sitting in the “shelter is not a right” space:
They withold houses from the market, thereby driving cost up. In turn that drives mortgage down payments up. The credit system and bank hurdles to securing a mortgage are also a big part of that issue but another conversation.
The generalization that the individual landlord does the maintenance and tasks that the tenants don’t want to is hard bs. Considering that rent is based on a profit, and any landlord I’ve had has hired out labor, the tenants functionally already pay for all of that maintenance and upkeep. Many would love to DIY but others could afford to hire the labor and save money with a mortgage vs rent. That’s not to mention it’s basically 50/50 on whether the landlord actually maintains a property or sits in the area of, “tenants aren’t going to report me cause i have all the power and they need shelter”.
Now owning a home i can easily say, you don’t really have much to do for maintenance. I guess i mow the lawn every few weeks and otherwise do basic cleaning? Even my old car only takes a few hours of labor every few months and it has moving parts. I guess i also cleaned the gutters back in spring. Took an hour and a buddy to hold the ladder. Oh i also have savings put away for larger infrequent maintenance which i can just hire out(if i wanted) at a tiny fraction of what i used to pay in rent.
Anyways, to the part where i can agree in some sense is short term housing. That’s a real need. That’s where rent really makes sense. Still, rent control based on simple percent profit and tax. Limits on unused properties. So on. Housing capacity should grow but housing cost should not drive cost of living nor exceed inflation.
They withold houses from the market, thereby driving cost up. In turn that drives mortgage down payments up. The credit system and bank hurdles to securing a mortgage are also a big part of that issue but another conversation.
Wouldn’t that stimulate more construction?
Now owning a home i can easily say, you don’t really have much to do for maintenance. I guess i mow the lawn every few weeks and otherwise do basic cleaning?
OK, where I live people usually don’t own houses, they own apartments, and maintenance minimally involves ensuring that your apartment is not a cockroach breeding ground and your piping doesn’t make your neighbors below feel too wet.
In a separate house yeah, you can more or less just shrug because liquids go into the ground anyway, and there are no central heating pipes that may rupture, and so on.
Limits on unused properties.
That’d be fine. Maybe if you own 5+ apartments, or by living space, because otherwise you’d, say, hurt people who have one apartment they are slowly restoring to livable condition to maybe rent out later and one they themselves live in.
Wouldn’t that stimulate more construction?
New construction isn’t always an option in dense urban areas. It’s also possible that new development is simply purchased by investors and put on the rental market (with or without tenants) and you’re back at square 1.
OK, where I live people usually don’t own houses, they own apartments, and maintenance minimally involves ensuring that your apartment is not a cockroach breeding ground and your piping doesn’t make your neighbors below feel too wet.
As much as I loathe HOA’s, and I’ve heard of bad condo association drama, multi-unit housing can be run under alternative, collective schemas. If you are renting there’s a lot of value in considering a renter’s union in such scenario. Tenants have banded together to buy out their own building collectively before. But also I’m talking outside my experience here and shouldn’t prescribe a solution for ultra-dense housing when I’ve only lived in a 30 unit building in a medium sized city and not new york or whatever.
That’d be fine. Maybe if you own 5+ apartments, or by living space, because otherwise you’d, say, hurt people who have one apartment they are slowly restoring to livable condition to maybe rent out later and one they themselves live in.
Look, no one is saying do this overnight. There is shitloads of nuance to it which needs to be addressed but it is east to get voiced down in. But people shouldn’t be on the street when they can’t afford rent. That’s the quickest way to losing your job, your belongings, a permanent address, and even your personal documentation. Without those you can’t get a job, or housing, or any public benefits. We have to stop putting people out for the mere act of attempting to survive and making one mistake or missing one bus.
We have to stop putting people out for the mere act of attempting to survive and making one mistake or missing one bus.
I’m actually fine with pretty communist futuristic solutions here, as long as they are very clearly defined to prevent slippery slopes.
As in - state-provided place to bunk for those who have problems.
Sort of a capsule, behind one sliding door there’s a toilet, behind another there’s a shower and a water tap and a mirror, behind the third one there’s a space to sleep horizontally, and a space to store your stuff under it. A retractable table and a seat. Obviously electricity. Something like that, taking minimal space, allowing modular maintenance and repair. One of the walls has a window, that can be opened. The space shouldn’t be too small either - if people get too claustrophobic, they might prefer grass or subway stations.
Of course, if we think about this seriously, multiple such capsules’ inhabitants can all queue for shower and even to use toilets and even to cook. A washing machine for laundry in every capsule seems inefficient, so common laundromats it is. A place to sleep and keep possessions is the most important thing.
Such apartment buildings should have sufficiently passable corridors and sufficiently spacious common areas.
With those requirements in mind - it takes a standard design and a program of construction of such housing. Apartments won’t be property of their inhabitants, just something provided by the state as long as it’s needed.
But a program of construction of such things, only with selling to end inhabitants by subsidized price, is too a possibility. Only I’d separate them - a building is either inhabited by owners\renters\guests, or by people needing temporary housing, not both at once.
What did I write …
I remember when I was growing up
You can basically stop right there. You were young and naive, viewing the world through the rose colored glasses of youth.
For real, all those guys were always cutthroats. How do you think they dominated the markets? It was not because they shared and encouraged competition. No, they stole, lied, and cheated their way to the top.
At its very core, capitalism breeds greed.
Their job is to maximize shareholder profit. That is their only and one true job as CEOs. If you want a CEO that is not evil, look for companies that are not public even though they could be.
Years ago, I was hanging out with a manager of finance and asking a few basic questions about finance. After a little while, i guess she got tired of the conversation because she handed me her old finance textbook.
Anyway, I was mostly interested in the foundational ideas of finance, not the details, so I went away and started reading the introduction. It turns out that the introduction was very short, no more than two pages. It was extremely well-written, simple, and to the point.
The foundational idea of modern finance, according to this standard textbook, is very simple and highly reductionist: the one and only goal of finance is to maximize shareholder value, and share prices are the ultimate way that goal is measured. I’ve never seen a whole discipline reduced to such stark and prosaic terms with absolutely no attempt to articulate ethics or justify it in relation to some wider public good.
“I thought the tech industry was supposed to be filled with these brilliant genius people who are really good for the world…”
They are but as usual it’s the WORKERS who are the good brilliant people, not the ownership class and 3 letter executive dirt bags. They’re the same in EVERY industry. Owner/CEO ONLY cares about profit profit profit, fuck everyone and everything else.
Workers, they’re a mixed bag as there are so many different people, but in the tech space they’re generally intelligent “good” people.
The workers also just care for profits. Nobody is working for free. Everyone needs to pay their bills. Companies will stop making profits when workers dispense with their wages, but I bet that’s not gonna happen.
Technically workers do not care about profits, they care about wages. The average worker doesn’t benefit from profit because they represent a fixed expense. The work they produce is worth more than their salary which is how a company produces profit. As long as a company breaks even and the salary is enough to meet one’s needs a worker does just fine. However a worker’s job could easily be axed in the name of profit because they are what is being profited off of, not the entitled beneficiary of the business as a whole.
Profit it just the take home winnings of the investors or owners of the business and the few jobs at the top where compensation is based off of profit percentage or lavish bonuses for making the targets.
So many people don’t understand that profit comes after all expenses which includes labor. :/
Wages are also subject to change based on performance or company profits.
But what I mean is that the company and the worker have the same interests in some way. Everyone wants to make money to pay the bills. Companies are no charities and your work isn’t either. If you dislike your relationship with the company, you can just resign that relationship any time. But one thing will never change: the worker will only do the work required from him and the company will only pay the wage required from them. There is nothing evil about that. It’s human nature for the past 20.000 years.
Idk, given how many evil mobile games and dark patterns there are, there are plenty of “bad” people, or at least people who won’t push back against bad decisions from management.
Nobody is going to “push back” very hard against the people who control their food, shelter, and other basic human needs. If they had that level of comfort, they wouldn’t be working there in the first place.
Yup, it’s very much like the prisoner’s dilemma. If everyone in tech refused to do this nonsense, we wouldn’t have dark patterns and whatnot and stakeholders would find another way. But if enough people are willing to do this nonsense, the “good” people end up worse off.
living heck
Bill Gates was an evil piece of shit, that did many illegal things to secure Microsoft’s software empire.
It was much easier to “hide” sit back then unless you were in the know in the industry.
That said I think because tech was such a young industry and innovating so quickly. Many geeks got a chance to run companies that took off. Nowadays it’s Like every other industry with sociopaths in charge.
It was much easier to “hide” sit back then unless you were in the know in the industry.
It wasn’t hidden. Everybody knew back in the day what an evil piece of shit he was.
It has just been forgotten about and many current adults weren’t old enough, or even around, in the heyday of his evil empire, so he has been able to whitewash his image. My 50 year old ass remembers though. Fuck Bill Gates.
Bill Gates was an evil piece of shit, that did many illegal things to secure Microsoft’s software empire.
Yup. And his wife left him because of his association with Epstein.
Melinda Gates Says Bill Gates’s Work with “Abhorrent” Jeffrey Epstein Led to Divorce
Nah, she knew about his husband and Epstein ( and his at least strange occupation ) far lower than she’s wiling to admit.
Capitalism rewards psychopathy
I’m not sure about that. Nobody wants to work with psychos. Work is too much of your short life.
You don’t work with them, you work for them. The only capitalists in capitalism is the ownership class, the rest are just slaves to the system under which they are born.
But you don’t stay working for them. You move on. Then they find no one wants to work for them and they spend their whole time complaining they can’t get the staff. Psychos are bad news for a company long run.
There is a book about it, “Snakes in Suits”.
Psychos aren’t the ‘scream in your face and belittle you’ type of people, it’s the silver-tongued devils that talk about family values and the environment and how their thing helps people, all while making backroom deals and lobbying governments to pass laws in their favour or any other number of shit. Psychos will appear on the surface as the nicest goddamn person you ever met, and you won’t think otherwise until you find the knife in your back.
I think they are more like Musk. It’s obvious if you look he’s a wrong’un. It’s not possible to stay lying about yourself, especially when the ego get boosted so much. The mask slips.
Right, but even taking Musk the mask has only slipped over the last five or so years. Before that he was often treated as a darling for pushing EVs to help fight climate change and SpaceX for reigniting people’s fascination with space. It’s only after he’s got huge amounts of wealth and exposure that its become clear to people what an awful person he is.
Not sure about that. I thought he was a nob before it was cool. He was claiming too much engineer credit for himself since forever. No humility or crediting others.
Then they find no one wants to work for them
At which point the board fires them, they add another golden parachute to their collection, and they get hired to be CEO at another company for a few years until the cycle repeats.
Precisely. Maybe small companies have decent owners, but anything with a value of over a few million is likely to be run by one of these types.
I’m sure that happens. But this why you look how long people have worked at places and get a reference.
Psychopath is being used in a colloquial way here and not an exact diagnosis. Even if they are actual psychopaths they are known for being very charismatic and there are a lot of sadomasochistic people in the world who are motivated by punishment.
Further the people who work directly for these people want to be them, so they see it as just part of the process.
Another factor is money, it’s a motivator. Those who work lower down the org chart can often be desperate, struggling to get by and get used to the punishment, convincing themselves that it would be worse elsewhere.
The Idea that life is short and work just isn’t worth it comes from a place of privilege and the luxury of time for self reflection. Something not everyone can afford when one lives in survival mode.
This is tech workers. They won’t be in survival mode. They are highly employable and always have options. I think most people outside tech will have other employment options. Though if you don’t, your screwed in multiple other ways on top of has bosses.
Tech companies are operated like any other company and have a wide range of employees. Also not every tech position is highly employable. I know from personal experience in tech middle management that many employees are very easy to replace and have very common skill sets that are oversaturated in the market. Many many tech workers are absolutely operating in survival mode in 2024.
I’ve been in tech for over twenty years. About half of it in games (first half) and half Linux embedded stuff. What I’ve seen is it’s hard to recruit good people. The first job to get is the hardest as you have no experience or references. I know I’ve been lucky, falling in my feet multiple times, but so has everyone I entered industry with. A few now have their own companies. I’ve had to let a few people go myself and I hate it, but I knew they’d be fine, and they have been.
Complete explanation in three words. Well done.
Concision!
