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I have really mixed feelings about this. First of all, the "victims" were probably Google peons, not the insufferable royalty. The vast majority of Googlers are
by michaelochurch 13y ago
I have really mixed feelings about this. First of all, the "victims" were probably Google peons, not the insufferable royalty. The vast majority of Googlers are people I like (I worked there) and they aren't responsible for the problem. Like I said in another post here, the engineers doing all the work will soon be priced out to make room for product narcissists and those horrible executives that VCs implant to grant a favor to a friend, making twice as much money as engineers while working 11-to-3. It has already happened in New York, except it's bankers and traders. At least traders are respectable (it's pretty meritocratic) and the bankers actually work. Startup executives tend to be the people who failed in New York and in finance, so they seek them some VC coattails to ride on into someone else's company.
In 2008 when Wall Street tanked the economy, people were saying, "I wish all that talent were somewhere useful like Silicon Valley." This seems laughable now. Silicon Valley? Useful? Anyway, "tech" had the good faith of the nation for a long time, we were the "good rich" as opposed to the people on Wall Street-- and, in the next 5 years, fucking blew it thanks to debacles like FWD.us, Sean Parker's wedding, and all the bad behavior that Valleywag so excellently chronicles.
We were the good guys. We still should be. Most of us, by population, are. The fuckers at the top, who don't even code and 90% of whom are MBA/private-equity types, have ruined not just our industry but our reputation. Now, people associate "techie" with spoiled brats, misogynists, and entitled, crypto-right-wing fuckheads (like the character played by the union organizer when impersonating a Google engineer).
Engineers and technologists and real visionaries (not executive bikeshed painters) need to take technology back. Now. No fucking excuses. We are the good guys-- the bad guys are private equity douches with no business in our world-- but if we don't take back our industry, it and our work will be used for bad (as we see in the Bay Area) and we will be the ones to get the blame.
- visakanv 13y agoLove your passion. I see nothing mixed about your feelings. :p
- michaelochurch 13y agoI have mixed feelings, specifically, about the bus blockade. It hurts the wrong people. I love technology and there are a lot of wonderful people in this world, but I hate what has been done to it, mostly by MBA-culture outsiders who'd be better for the world (and make more money) as passive backers, but their ego gets in the way and they have to act as an executive caste. "Business" should be about creating value for all (including oneself) and not about wielding and accumulating power.
- visakanv 13y agoOh, right. I see where you're coming from. I think the "executive caste" problem you describe is almost universal. It's a tragedy. =\
- michaelochurch 13y agoAny aggregation (market, election) has the Cheap Votes Problem. People who don't really care will, if they can, sell their votes (often through passivity) and this makes people who purchase and can control the cheapest of the cheap votes very powerful. That's why vote-buying is illegal; because, otherwise, it will happen all over the place. VC is a Cheap Votes Problem over what a certain set of highly intelligent people, when given capital from a certain pool, will work on. Passive investors don't care (as long as they get decent returns) and trust the VCs, who use the investors' cheap votes to pursue their career goals and those of their friends.