Technically adept people aren't the target market for their advertising platforms but yet they are staffed by ... technically adept people. It confounds me how anyone would want to work there. The money must be really good.
> It confounds me how anyone would want to work there. The money must be really good.
Why does HN always do this, comment up from their moral high horse? Someone works in big tech then they must be a sell out doing it for the money. Also, if big tech is off limits then by that logic I assume so are big banks, big pharma, big oil etc etc. Almost feels like only start ups qualify as employment opportunities then perhaps, but even they most likely are using frameworks/tech by big tech (is that ok or is that selling out too). Where does one work then? Is it that hard to fathom that people have different moral codes and care about different stuff. Such comments almost feel like sour-grapes.
> Why does HN always do this, comment up from their moral high horse?
i think a lot of us were introduced to tech as an extremely liberating thing. the dreams were obvious if you spent time building things as a kid: complete creative direction over your built environment, digital _and_ physical.
and then you reach working age and realize that very, very few people _employed_ in tech share those dreams. the people working to actually make tech liberating are largely the people _not_ being paid to do it (maybe a carveout for grant work there), and a large part of paid tech work is explicitly counter to those liberating ideas: taking a general purpose technology and restricting what the user can do with it (Apple), surveilling the user everywhere (Google, Facebook).
> Where does one work then? Is it that hard to fathom that people have different moral codes and care about different stuff.
not hard to fathom. at the same time, if i told you "my moral code leads me to discredit the idea that anyone can have a private property right to unused shelter" and lived out of your garage while you're out of town, would you really not take issue with that? is "we have different moral codes" really a get-out-of-jail free card? i see the future you're manifesting (via the work your comment suggests that you do) as one which makes my own future more difficult to realize. that puts us in conflict. my future would apparently be better without you in it, but maybe you're offsetting things elsewhere, and i'm not _that_ self-centered anyway. so what would you have me do? i think the most reasonable thing to do is to let it be known to you that this is the case.
We as a society have defined a legal framework and within the confines of it we are free to live as we please. Working for big tech is legal but choosing not to is one's choice. Judging others for not making the same choice as you is what I was talking about.
Your example of "my moral code leads me to discredit the idea that anyone can have a private property right to unused shelter" is not a moral code, its trespassing and illegal. However, you could always do as you please with your own property and personally, I won't judge you and imply that I am better than you for disagreeing with me.
not everything within the law is equally good, and certainly you yourself could think of some things you’d judge as bad even that fall within its boundary, if you try. i think you’re misguided to equate the law with any moral code.
I feel like you are deliberately or inadvertently missing the point. Its simple, The claim was that working for some of the biggest companies in the world that employ hundreds of thousands of people is wrong and called all of them a sellout and I disagree. Feel free to disagree with me, and don't worry I wont judge you for it.
if i'm missing your point, that's an honest miscommunication. i read the conversation like this:
matt_s: devs working for Meta must be sacrificing their values in exchange for money.
eilnvlrn: why do HNers always speak from a moral high horse, rather than accept that others operate with other moral codes?
colinsane: our different moral codes here do put us in conflict: vocalizing our values is the least destructive way for us to come to terms.
eilnvlrn: so long as i act within the law then you're wrong to consider us in conflict.
> don't worry I wont judge you for it.
i don't care if you judge me. if i speak from a "moral high-horse" i don't do it to rub it in your face, or to self-aggrandize, or anything like that. i would do it to make known that your actions are an impediment to the aims i have for my own life -- and hope that you might be compassionate enough to consider such things.
literally just erase every occurrence of "moral" from this thread if it makes it easier to see through to the content. i'm trying to build my own future: it's made difficult by every variant of anti-competitive "moat building", "vendor lockin", "embrace extend extinguish", dragnet surveillance, and so on which is core to the business model of the company (companies) in question.
_forget about morals_: i call that thing out because when you work for this kind of company you are an aggressor to me. if i camped out on the sidewalk in front of your house and watched every action you made, you would find it hard to live a peaceful life. you would call me a stalker and see me as an adversary. yet when i instead design and sell Ring cameras to all your neighbors to achieve that exact same end without a physical human on your sidewalk, suddenly you wouldn't see me as an adversary? that's nonsense. for real though, because some are quick to dismiss it: do you understand how nonsense that type of thinking is?
and yes, i get the nuance about distance. that going way upstream and working for TSMC doesn't erase the link between your work and the harmful end result. but that doesn't mean proximity is irrelevant. a lateral move from Amazon's Ring team to a GoPro team would surely put us in less conflict. an upstream move to some vendor which supplies both Amazon and GoPro puts you closer to the midpoint. just about _any_ move away from the companies in question puts us in less conflict, hence why the heat is focused more specifically on them.
Set aside the moral stuff about bad societal impacts Meta's products have on humans. Am I off in thinking that tech people aren't the target market for Meta's companies? My usual assumption is tech people are keen to run ad and privacy blockers which counter most of the social+ads biz models there. It would be like an ASE certified mechanic that doesn't use a car and rides a bicycle to work. Its kinda odd. Then throw in the moral stuff and I just assume it must be money as a motivator.
There are industries out there other than ad-tech that have a better mission.
Good, let them be frustrated. These are the same people that will make their employees work nights and weekends for a median salary and equity that isn’t worth the paper it’s written on for years only to go under or cash out in an event that only benefits the founders and VCs.
Big tech is a blessing in a market that would further take advantage of tech talent if they could.
Not always. IC7-9 can make ~$800k-$1.2m TC solving tough, uninteresting problems with massive impact. Most ~IC8's come across as total assholes, which might be a requirement in some tech cultures.
I have heard Facebook can differ pretty wildly depending on team. 2/3 of the people I know who have worked there hated it and consider it a toxic company, but one had a pretty good time.
All 3 of them would have been ok with a place/team that some people might describe as "tech bro" though--we are talking much worse than whatever you mean by that lol
Technical teams: There are some pressure-cooker teams where there are micromangers obsessed with counting diff revisions and maximum project impact, a smattering of individuals who are overconfident big fish in small ponds. Most technical teams are normal and helpful. Some are even loosey-goosey and casual. There are a few teams who have no customer service skills or professionalism at all, but those aren't many.
Nontechnical teams: I've observed multiple IRL collections of people who literally go to work to socialize... and do so loudly and not in a conference room. Maybe they do work, but I didn't see any sign of it. Slacking-tolerant areas must have a reporting structure that doesn't have a lot of hard accountability, may not have to produce quantitive impact, and are able to hide in a megacorp when there is sufficient complexity and opacity.
One other thing that ticked me off about IRL Metamates: most volunteers for a home building nonprofit left without coordinating with the site manager, leaving them understaffed for the work and cleanup tasks. It really shows the personal ethics of people who pose for photos for their personal brand but then don't care enough to actually do the work.
