I'm deeply concerned about the direction that the tech world is going. I had hoped that early successes like eBay and PayPal would lead to democratization and egalitarianism, but sadly that's not the case. Where I had hoped to see something like a gig economy where anyone could jump in and out of work when they needed money, and multiple sources of ~$100,000 funding for startups, today I see a doubling down on race-to-the-bottom competition and austerity.
There is less money available now for independent work than there was in the 80s and 90s because we have to work so hard at consulting just to survive. There have been few raises in any industry (the starting wage for an engineer in 2000 was $60,000 per year) but housing and medical costs are many times higher than they were. Millions (yes millions) of the brightest minds of a generation are underemployed in sweatshops, call centers and IT. Even working full time, it can take several years to even save $10,000. Much less reach a level of spirituality that allows one to rise above the waste of life that is the working world today, and build inventions that could substantially raise the quality of life for everyone. Work is now the opposite of progress, not its source.
Meanwhile banks give millions or even billions of dollars to corporations making nebulous claims about how to turn the most promising technologies into profitable returns. When a couple of people in a garage somewhere could do the same thing for 1/1,000 or 1/1,000,000 of the money. Imagining what tens of thousands of those teams with $100,000 could do in medicine, alternative energy, sustainability.. the list goes on and on.
Concerns like this are beginning to dominate my psyche to the point where I'm not sure I want to be in tech anymore. I have serious doubts about where all of this is going. Where are the examples of cooperation? Of steadily increasing personal wealth with simultaneous reduction in work (also known as real technology)? Where are the examples of tech billionaires making it and working to make that possible for all the rest who failed?
My greatest concern today is that speaking the truth is now viewed as being negative.
So just be mindful in these times and don't dwell too much on the truth. I think it's more useful to imagine a new truth that transcends the boundaries placed in front of us. That's how technology began.
> Where are the examples of tech billionaires making it and working to make that possible for all the rest who failed?
> Concerns like this are beginning to dominate my psyche to the point where I'm not sure I want to be in tech anymore.
That’s a part of the problem. People, like you, that consider these questions and would like to make positive a difference, give up.
Because the proposition is an ambiguous long-term play where you could spend a lifetime trying to solve it with little to no results at the end. If these issues are important to you, then wouldn’t it be worth it though?
You’ll have no better opportunity to fix this than by being in the position you’re in now. Which is, an “insider”, that can easily command $100-300K salary+stock that can readily be invested in many of your own ideas and businesses in a bid to ratchet your liquid capital up to >$10M. This capital can then be used to propel you on to >$100M or >$1B or wherever you think is the best point to make a difference in the problems you’re seeing.
You’re only two hops away from making a difference. As opposed to people that are scraping by on $20-60K a year with little to no savings and thus no resources or time to dedicate to more self-actualized pursuits. They’re four to five hops away.
Each hop probably carries 5-7 years worth of effort plus potential risk of ruin.
Point being: don’t give up. Go make a difference in the problems you’re seeing.
This is my favorite comment in this thread. We keep pouring billions into ride sharing, scooters, co-working to prop up crap business models that have no path to profitability to benefit a few.
This is absolutely, unquestionably, spot on. It's a societal level change that's required to unpick what we have right now. It's incredibly complicated and there's issues everywhere.. but I think we can (mostly) agree that our current system doesn't benefit the many. And that can't be the way we want to be forever.
I feel you, but bankers do not owe lone developers anything. If you want to see something exist in this world, you need to figure a way to make it happen. There have been many new technologies that have been brought into this world by people with close to nothing. In fact, not having the funding (initially) may be a good first test. If you really think it should exist, then it is on you to find the time to make it happen.
This sounds mildly interesting, but you make a lot of grand claims and support none of them. I would love to read about your concerns more deeply in a longform, where all these ideas can actually be related to one another, and with support for your claims based in data and real world examples. I would suggest you do this for your own mental health, because it's not at all clear to me why the world of (let's call it) 'socialized investing' is a better world than our current one. And I think you should at least have a well research model to base your concerns in before they "dominate your psyche."
Well then maybe you should do the same thing first to set an example? Because what the OP describes is actually pretty much real. I would suggest you to check out Guy Standing and his research first.
OP is very specific behavior by one bank. What about Softbank marking up its own assets has anything to do with the idea that an investment philosophy spread out among thousands of times more people but with less money is even remotely covered in the article?
It's more that the ideas seem pretty far fetched. And if you're about to quit your job over these ideas, my bet is that your family would prefer you to do the research instead of eating thanksgiving dinner.
There is less money available now for independent work than there was in the 80s and 90s because we have to work so hard at consulting just to survive. There have been few raises in any industry (the starting wage for an engineer in 2000 was $60,000 per year) but housing and medical costs are many times higher than they were. Millions (yes millions) of the brightest minds of a generation are underemployed in sweatshops, call centers and IT. Even working full time, it can take several years to even save $10,000. Much less reach a level of spirituality that allows one to rise above the waste of life that is the working world today, and build inventions that could substantially raise the quality of life for everyone. Work is now the opposite of progress, not its source.
Meanwhile banks give millions or even billions of dollars to corporations making nebulous claims about how to turn the most promising technologies into profitable returns. When a couple of people in a garage somewhere could do the same thing for 1/1,000 or 1/1,000,000 of the money. Imagining what tens of thousands of those teams with $100,000 could do in medicine, alternative energy, sustainability.. the list goes on and on.
Concerns like this are beginning to dominate my psyche to the point where I'm not sure I want to be in tech anymore. I have serious doubts about where all of this is going. Where are the examples of cooperation? Of steadily increasing personal wealth with simultaneous reduction in work (also known as real technology)? Where are the examples of tech billionaires making it and working to make that possible for all the rest who failed?
My greatest concern today is that speaking the truth is now viewed as being negative.
So just be mindful in these times and don't dwell too much on the truth. I think it's more useful to imagine a new truth that transcends the boundaries placed in front of us. That's how technology began.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!