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…
You must log in or register to comment.
Nothing happened. It was always like this. Geeks got unduly put on a pedestal. They got a reputation that was never earned. They’re not any different than your typical psychopath executive.
I grew up in a town where a lot of these types of guys have become multimillionaires since 2010s tech boom. One person manages some hundreds of millions of dollars AI investment portfolio. That was before the GPT explosion. I have no idea how big they are now but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s billions.
Growing up they were almost all psychopathic. Lying, cheating, backstabbing type of people. Nothing like the timid altruistic geek that pop culture proliferates. The more normal people did not go into tech. The actual timid types have had modest middle class careers in tech.
Success in business (profit) requires exploitation, which requires few or very select morals to reach the very top. Those people you describe sound a perfect fit!
Hint: it’s not just in tech…
lack of “social intelligence”. They mostly rose through the ranks because their technical (or business) skill. They never had to act for benefit of others to advanve
Capitalism is the death of society and aligns the interests of people and corporations alike towards a race to the bottom for maximum exploitation.
What economic concept are you proposing that’s better than the current systems in place?
At least government regulations can help keep capitalism in check, but taking that too far leads to monopolies and dictatorships.
A CEO can be good. But a CEO with public shareholders has no choice.
I’m not saying that most CEOs aren’t bastards but it’s not necessary to be in the position or compete. But when you have public shareholders they are going to demand that you take every dollar through whatever means possible.
My father was the CEO of his small business. At his funeral, everyone talked about how kind of a person he was. We were rich growing up, but we never lived like it because he was too busy helping people.
He didn’t have shareholders. Just coworkers.
I’ve had a couple of good CEOs. Any really good CEOs end up getting fired when they go public because they’re not willing to exploit the people for the product.
Because tech is capitalism, and it goes hand in hand with fascism
Oh summer child
you either die a hero or live long enough to see your self become a villain
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…
They weren’t that good, just charming.
And, well, they also at least knew where their power came from. Maybe Jobs was not some genius inventor normies consider him to be (those who remember him), maybe Bill was born to a rich family, but they still knew deeply enough what they were doing and they really had visions of future (they wanted, of course, to get all the dough from those being reached, but that’s a normal capitalist wish) towards which they were walking step by step for decades. They can be compared to WWI ace pilots in some sense (not about risking their lives).
Still they were doing things similar to what corps do now. Just a bit more subtly, because it required some subtlety back then.
Then their corporations overgrew them, and outlived some of them.
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
I have a suspicion he just secretly wants to help those big corps suicide themselves to free space for something new and good.
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…
Everything ages and rots. The secret to still having the world nice and fresh and optimistic is waste disposal. And also removing weeds from your garden. Like those corps and politicians.
They weren’t that good, just charming.
They weren’t even that charming. Just a little more able to keep their mouths shut while in front of mixed company.
Source: In the early 2000s, I worked in a position that was two degrees away from BillG. I put together presentations and demos that my boss delivered to the man.
Listen to how Melinda talks about her relationship with him for clues about how little actual charisma he has. She’s responsible for every bit of humanity he’s shown over the last three decades. There were interviews he gave prior to marrying her where he expressed open disdain toward humanitarian endeavors.
when I was growing up
This is really the key. We’re all stupid and unaware of how things work and the particular goings-ons when we’re kids. There were plenty of shitty people running the tech giant companies back then, but we just didn’t realize the extent of what was happening.
Yeah we’re baffled about how kids get sucked into worshipping Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, but I remember a brief time in my life when I thought Steve Jobs was the greatest and that he singlehandedly invented the iPhone with a rusty pair of pliers and gumption.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. - Lord Acton
And if not that, then the inverse applies: People who end up the wealthiest and most powerful do so by being the best at exploiting other people and systems.
There’s a reason there are more and more sociopaths and narcissists the higher you get in a corporate structure, and its because such people truly do not care about the harm they cause, unless they get caught.
Greed. A sane person will walk away from working once they have enough saved to comfortably retire.
$100 million can let you live comfortably forever, but there are plenty of people who want that much every year.
Those are the folks who become ‘leaders.’
And they should be eaten.
Capitalism. Specifically, the stock market. IPOs make good companies into bad companies.
Being owned by stockholders effectively removes any amount of “human” in the company’s choices and direction. There becomes a single goal, to which everything else is sacrificed: make stock prices go up in the short term. The C-suite execs will say all sorts of other shit, but any appearance of accountability or altruism is solely geared to making more money at any cost. Any leadership with a soul will be forced to either give up trying to be “good”, or they leave.
The link below isn’t the fundamental reason, but I think it helps to explain the shift in mindset. With the best of intentions and a desire to innovate and help people live better…the ersartz movement became corrupted by conspicuous consumption and a “disruptor” capitalist mindset:
“Leaders”
They were always bad people but media shilled them as good guys… Buffet is similar example. We all LARPed it. Now we are learning the hard truth.
These people a part of the owner class and control key portions of us and global economy.
They are not the same as the rest of us. They know it and they act upon it.
When you step on an ant do you even notice?
They don’t either peasant, now get back to fucking cucking and making daddy some mother fucking money, boy
