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Yeah, my take is that during the rise of the internet and mobile, tech earned a lot of social credit. But since then tech companies both large and small have be

Yeah, my take is that during the rise of the internet and mobile, tech earned a lot of social credit. But since then tech companies both large and small have been burning through that at a prodigious rate, especially social media, monopoly-seekers, and the trash fire that is crypto. If I had to sum up the new attitude of European regulators toward tech, it would be, "We're tired of your bullshit." I'm glad to see it. Maybe with some better policing, the tech sector will again turn into something I can be unambiguously proud about working in.

srackey 3y ago
Tech hasn’t “burned through social capital”. The media has shifted from being positive/neutral regarding tech to actively hostile, mainly because tech has been increasingly approaching their turf. Regulators follow public opinion, public opinion follows the media.
- wpietri 3y ago
  Sorry, if you want to claim that tech hasn't burned through social capital, you'll have to make that claim separately from anything about the media. But you'll have a hard time making the case. Look at how much HN commenters have to say about issues with privacy for example. Or we just had an energetic conversation about Google's stewardship of Chrome. I also think that tech is not "increasingly approaching [media's] turf". Tech absolutely destroyed the funding model for newspapers, but that started in the Craigslist era. The fraction of journalism that survived has successfully made the leap to an online era.
hinkley 3y ago
We are still going to have to work with people who had no qualms about working for five different breeds of charlatan. Some of them two or three breeds at once. I once was contract to hire at a place that was skeevy. The management team was horrible and abusive, the most senior developer was defensive and cagey. I said no because of the management situation, but I also wasn't happy that the putative lead had a side hustle that involved driving around the city looking for cell towers that would let him get away with sending spam SMS messages. My current job, he and another person from that company were working for someone in the same building as us. They didn't seem to recognize me, and I wasn't going to remind them who I was. What hurt the worst though was that I was replacing someone from the local community who I had a lot of respect for who recommended me for this role. He basically created a giant goodwill bonfire and lit up the night sky.
- wpietri 3y ago
  Yeah, to me that's one of the most poisonous things about bubbles and gold rushes. A bunch of people make good money doing things that are terrible, ridiculous, or both. They don't learn the lessons they would in a normal environment, and so they may be like that forever, and may continue to do terrible/ridiculous things as long as the money holds out.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    “Serial Entrepreneur”
    - hinkley 3y ago
      Serial as in killer.

srackey 3y ago

Tech hasn’t “burned through social capital”. The media has shifted from being positive/neutral regarding tech to actively hostile, mainly because tech has been increasingly approaching their turf. Regulators follow public opinion, public opinion follows the media.

wpietri 3y ago
Sorry, if you want to claim that tech hasn't burned through social capital, you'll have to make that claim separately from anything about the media. But you'll have a hard time making the case. Look at how much HN commenters have to say about issues with privacy for example. Or we just had an energetic conversation about Google's stewardship of Chrome. I also think that tech is not "increasingly approaching [media's] turf". Tech absolutely destroyed the funding model for newspapers, but that started in the Craigslist era. The fraction of journalism that survived has successfully made the leap to an online era.

hinkley 3y ago

We are still going to have to work with people who had no qualms about working for five different breeds of charlatan. Some of them two or three breeds at once. I once was contract to hire at a place that was skeevy. The management team was horrible and abusive, the most senior developer was defensive and cagey. I said no because of the management situation, but I also wasn't happy that the putative lead had a side hustle that involved driving around the city looking for cell towers that would let him get away with sending spam SMS messages. My current job, he and another person from that company were working for someone in the same building as us. They didn't seem to recognize me, and I wasn't going to remind them who I was. What hurt the worst though was that I was replacing someone from the local community who I had a lot of respect for who recommended me for this role. He basically created a giant goodwill bonfire and lit up the night sky.

wpietri 3y ago
Yeah, to me that's one of the most poisonous things about bubbles and gold rushes. A bunch of people make good money doing things that are terrible, ridiculous, or both. They don't learn the lessons they would in a normal environment, and so they may be like that forever, and may continue to do terrible/ridiculous things as long as the money holds out.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  “Serial Entrepreneur”
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Serial as in killer.