[elliotto]

The author seems like a nice guy, but perhaps a bit naive regarding the efforts big tech companies go to to crush employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...). They appear to be a staff level engineer at a big tech company - I don't know how much money they make, but I suspect it's an ungodly amount.

The organisation he works for is implicated in surveillance, monopoly exploitation, and current military action involving particularly unpopular wars. No one forced him into this role - he could have made less money elsewhere but decided not to. He has decided to be a cog in a larger, poorly functioning machine, and is handsomely rewarded for it. This sacrifice is, for many, a worthwhile trade.

If you don't want to engage with the moral ramifications of your profession, you are generally socially allowed to do so, provided the profession is above board. Unfortunately, you cannot then write a post trying to defend your position, saying that what I do is good, actually, meanwhile cashing your high 6-7 figure check. This is incoherent.

It is financially profitable to be a political actor within a decaying monopolist apparatus, but I don't need to accept that it's also a pathway to a well-lived life.

[therobots927]

I couldn’t agree more. I also work in tech but I’m incredibly cynical which makes it difficult to see the authors post as anything but a combination of self promotion / self soothing.

[stanfordkid]

The dude works for GitHub. I don’t doubt there is some rotten code on there, but what you’re saying seems like a stretch and exactly what he’s describing.

[makeitdouble]

It's been almost 8 years now since the Microsoft acquisition, should it still be seen as an independent culture ?

[stavros]

Jesus, what is up with time? I thought this was max two years ago, and the "8" was unpleasantly surprising to read.

[nrhrjrjrjtntbt]

I would have guessed covid was earlier, at least.

Getting older is worse than travelling near light speed dammmit.

[rrdharan]

GitHub is owned by Microsoft which covers most of what GP is alluding to…

[enraged_camel]

Yeah, that was bizarre to read. I thought “wait, Sean works for Palantir?!”

[rainonmoon]

Microsoft is currently a target of BDS, which calls it "perhaps the most complicit tech company in Israel’s illegal apartheid regime and ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza." This isn't about some hobbyist's wonky code. https://bdsmovement.net/microsoft

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I chose to spend most of my career at a company that did stuff I found morally acceptable (inspiring, even). I made probably half what I could have made at places that were more dodgy.

I have found that mentioning that, elicits scorn and derision from many in tech.

Eh. Whatevs. I'm OK with it (but it appears a lot of others aren't, which mystifies me).

[pear01]

I believe what you are running up against is a tendency to externalize shame as anger.

Part of the tradeoff the parent comment references is a lack of thinking about the moral ramifications. Thus, when you mention your position which is grounded in that tradeoff's opposite, the reaction is not surprising. They are largely incompatible. Because your position hinges on a moral component, you are thus passing a moral judgement on others. This is often met with scorn, most especially because people have an aversion to shame, and it doesn't help if it's on the behalf of someone essentially randomly declaring they are morally better than you anytime the topic of their employment comes up.

So really, I'm not sure why you would be surprised, though I sympathize with your general sentiments, in a way you should know better. Surely you are aware of the aversion to shame writ large. That seems a logical predicate of your own conceptualization of your position.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> I'm not sure why you would be surprised

Maybe because I'm not especially interested in passing moral judgment on others, for working at a company that isn't a "moral high ground" company, but isn't exactly NSO or Palantir (I used to work for a defense contractor). I feel profoundly lucky to have found a company that made me feel good about what I did. It was worth the low salary (and other annoyances). I understand that I'm fortunate, and I'm grateful (not snotty).

I find that people take the mere existence of others that have different morals to be a personal attack.

I know that it happens, but I'm not really sure why. It's not like I'm thinking about comparing to others, when I say that I worked for a company that inspired me. I was simply sharing what I did, and why.

I read comments about people that are excited about what they do, and even how much they make, all the time (I spend a lot of time on HN), and never feel as if they are somehow attacking me. They are enthusiastic, and maybe even proud of what they do, and want to show off. I often enjoy that.

[pear01]

To be candid, this is a common refrain that simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

> I'm not especially interested in passing moral judgment on others

Earlier:

> I chose to spend most of my career at a company that did stuff I found morally acceptable (inspiring, even). I made probably half what I could have made at places that were more dodgy.

Put more succinctly:

"I work somewhere that is morally acceptable. I could have made double or more if I had worked at a 'more dodgy', less morally acceptable place. Like where you work. No judgement though."

Honestly, I would have more respect for your sentiments if you would just stick to the logical conclusion of your position. Perhaps the scorn you meet is simply a reaction to this inability to simply follow the logical course of your own viewpoint. It has nothing to do with the mere existence of your morals it has to do with the fact that they are incompatible.

You want to have it both ways - you want to make a moral judgement and yet not make a moral judgement. Or you want to bound your moral judgement simply to yourself as if it is at all logical to not extrapolate it to others. If others can work for wherever they please, then what do you even mean by "morally acceptable" or "dodgy"? Simply places you prefer? That's not what morally acceptable means.

For someone who speaks of moral judgements, you don't seem to grasp their implications. I would suggest reflecting on this if you actually care about the reactions you elicit in others. This brief back and forth with you is certainly suggestive of a picture far different from the one you originally painted.

[palata]

Genuinely interested: if you ask someone where they work, and they answer that they work in [place some TooBigTech here], do you consider that they judge you because you are not working for a TooBigTech? "I work for a TooBigTech so I'm probably better and richer than you. No judgement though"?

To me it's like with vegetarians. If someone tells you out of the blue "I am a vegetarian because I find it completely irresponsible to not be vegetarian. No judgement though", it's not the same as someone saying "I would like to inform you that I am a vegetarian, given that we are going to eat something and it is relevant for you to know it right now". Yet that latter situation will regularly offend non-vegetarians just the same.

[shwaj]

Very apt analogy.

[Folcon]

I personally think this is an uncharitable reading, you can have a different internal benchmark or standard you want for yourself vs others

From a purely consistency perspective I don't think you're incorrect, but humans aren't purely consistent

We are able to accept that our personal preferences aren't the same as others and still like, respect or love them anyway

I read the GP as stating:

- he wanted to work for a place that made him happy

- he voiced that pleasure to others, "I'm glad I work at a place I find inspiring"

- they took that as an implicit attack on them

There are at least two parties to a conversation, each of them gets their own opportunity to interpret what occurs

It sounds like in this instance they interpreted his position much more negatively than he intended

Now to answer why is in my opinion is much more complicated and I honestly wouldn't hazard a guess without either being there or knowing both parties very well

[Izkata]

> - he voiced that pleasure to others, "I'm glad I work at a place I find inspiring"

That's not what he said though. His version included a comparison to others:

> I made probably half what I could have made at places that were more dodgy.

That's where the offense comes from.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Have a great day!

[shikshake]

Your comment really resonates with me, I’m in a similar position though much more junior. My colleagues in tech can’t fathom that I actively choose to stay where I am and make 50% of their salary.

I’ve found talking about ethics and moral responsibility with people working in big tech is futile and frustrating. Almost everyone takes it as a personal attack though I never hold anyone else to my moral standards.

[strken]

Is that surprising? Big tech selects for people with few ties to a real life community (because they're willing to move to the Bay Area/NY/Seattle/etc.), no particular moral objections to the work, and enough brainpower to rationalise anything.

Also, religion and philosophy are alike in that some people have a rich inner life that they are not willing to share with most of the world. Your acquaintance who works for a defence contractor is not going to explain why he believes propping up the Pax Americana (or helping ICE deport migrants, or working for a social media company, or any other example of something you don't like) is morally right unless he feels safe in doing so.

[parpfish]

I think the heart of the problem is that we’ve somehow conflated the highest paying Eng jobs with being the most prestigious.

People feel like if they want to climb the prestige ladder, they need some way of justifying the business practices of the megacorps.

In contrast, I feel like it’s well established that gigs in big law or finance or medicine have found a way to decorrelate pay from social status. You can make a choice between chasing money OR prestige.

[nmfisher]

For what it's worth, I personally have a lot of respect for people who do this (or at the very least, people who forego higher salaries to avoid working for companies they find morally objectionable).

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> avoid working for companies they find morally objectionable

I don't really think of it that way.

I didn't work for "not-bad" companies. I worked for a good company.

The attitude makes a difference. If the only way I can feel good about myself, is to define myself by what I'm against, I find life is bleak.

I prefer to define myself by what I'm for.

[the_cat_kittles]

its because it hurts peoples feelings to confront the truth

[johnfn]

It seems a bit too much to assert that every developer should be fully responsible for every moral slight their company commits. It is entirely possible to make a positive impact on the world from a large organization - in fact for some people it may be the most direct way that they can make such an impact.

Saying that he is morally bankrupt is like saying that you are morally bankrupt for continuing to live in the US because the current administration is a dumpster fire. It is financially profitable to live in the US; you basically cash in a 6 figure check (perhaps translate the metaphor by taking the monetary value that a significantly increased quality of life is worth to you) by living here rather than some other, lesser developed country with more morally aligned politics. Why not leave? I submit that the calculus that goes through your head to justify staying is roughly equivalent to the one that goes through his when he thinks about continuing to work at big tech. I also don’t think that either of you are wrong for having some justification.

[elliotto]

I don't think he's morally bankrupt. I am disagreeing with his attempt to handwave away a moral analysis of these organizations as 'cynicism'. I think these analyses are really important.

I don't live in the US. But if I did, and I was capable enough to be a successful software engineer, I would try to work for an organisation that was not implicated in abhorrent behaviour. If I was to work for one, I would not attempt to dismiss criticisms of it as cynicism.

[johnfn]

I feel you missed the gist of my argument, which is that anyone who lives in the US in 2025 does a similar sort of "morality calculus" as someone who works for Big Tech. To be honest, I think living in the US is worse.

[elliotto]

I think there are reasonable things to expect from someone's morality calculus. Leaving the country you were born in for moral reasons is a complex and life changing undertaking and beyond reasonable expectation for anyone not extremely politically motivated, let alone resourced enough to do so. Not working for a company whose moral values you disagree with (when you have an extremely lucrative skillset) is a smaller and more reasonable ask.

I'm also not really asking that people leave these roles - everyone has their own path to take. Just that they don't make posts dismissing criticism of these structures as silly cynicism. Or else they will have to contend with me writing a comment disgreeing with them.

[surajrmal]

Big tech companies are large. It's very possible to be working on things that are generally great for society while others in the company are not. Fighting from the inside for the behavior you want to see gives you an outsized influence on the outcomes you want to see.

[swiftcoder]

> Fighting from the inside for the behavior you want to see gives you an outsized influence on the outcomes you want to see

A lot of people say this, while collecting 6-7 figure cheques. I've not seen that much evidence that it is correct - certainly, I might as well have been pissing into the wind, for all the effect my influence had on the direction of various FAANG

[underdeserver]

That's a straw man.

The cynicism the post is talking about is the argument that your chain of command doesn't want to make good software but you do, not anything related to the use of said software.

[andersonpico]

oh that's a pretty nice summary of the points in the article, and while it seems to have sprung a nice discussion about interesting topics, the whole thread seems to have not understood the author as clearly

[coryrc]

Were individual Germans responsible for the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime? If they weren't there because they were resisting, then I say yes. And if we go on living our lives without resisting the current government -- especially if you work at Google, with your leader bowing down to Trump and doing his bidding -- then, yes, you are morally culpable. Most people are shitty, so it's not surprising so many are still going along with it. The engines of commerce are still going. The ports are not blockaded and the government buildings are not being burned. We aren't marching on Washington and liberating the buildings. We are culpable.

Democratic voters are culpable; their politicians are all about keeping the system going but tweaking it. No, the system is bad. A system that results in trump being elected a second time is prima facie evil and must be torn down. If you have power and aren't working to treat down this system, you are culpable.

[johnfn]

Do you really think that the actions of GitHub are equivalent to that of the Nazi regime?

[andersonpico]

it's definitely not and would be absurd to suggest otherwise, but isn't it also a very common way of illustrating the dilution of responsibilities among a very large group of people?

[coryrc]

The actions of Microsoft leadership are not the same as the Nazi regime, but are similar to the industrialists that supported Adolf Hitler's rise. I ain't Godwinning this thread, we're well along the rise of the American Reich.

[hahahacorn]

Framing an agreement between companies to not poach each others top talent as a means to “crush their employees” is very discrediting.

I’m glad for the antitrust litigation. It’s very obvious that this was a collusion effort that was self serving to each party involved, as a means of overcoming a negative (for them) prisoners dilemma type situation.

The fact that it depressed wage growth was a welcomed side effect. But framing that as the intended outcome as a way of discrediting original author is telling. I don’t know if you’ve understood corporations to be rather simple profit seeking entities, whose behavior can be modeled and regulated to ideal societal outcomes accordingly.

What military action is GitHub involved with.

[swiftcoder]

> Framing an agreement between companies to not poach each others top talent as a means to “crush their employees” is very discrediting.

How exactly would you frame major corporations colluding to suppress wages?

> What military action is GitHub involved with.

GitHub has been part of Microsoft for the better part of a decade now, and Microsoft is pretty broadly involved with the military (across a wide swathe of countries)

[voxl]

Perceiving corpos as "simple profit seeking entities" is some of the most naive Milton Friedman crap. Corporations operate as an amalgamation of the desires of a group of powerful enough influencers, of which your rank and file investor is NOT making a meaningful contribution. Milton Friedman has done more harm to capitalism than Marx has done to socialism.

[hahahacorn]

Friedman abstracted away feedback loops between corpos and the social/regulatory environment they operate in. We agree that that is beyond fucking useless.

I didn’t make that same naive assumption when describing corpos as simple profit seeking entities, you just misunderstood what I was saying.

[conception]

Evergreen: It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

[bdangubic]

except they do understand it of course but choose not to accept it :)

[asadotzler]

I spent 25 years in Silicon Valley, 100% of it working on making OSS happen, and 90% of it for a non-profit, while my peers from the early days almost all moved on to Big Tech by 2005-2010, most for 2x+ what I was making and a few for outrageously more than that. But I couldn't do it. The lure was attractive and I spent uncountable hours over about a decade debating whether to bite, but in the end I knew I couldn't feel good about myself if I was working for the absolute worst companies in the world.

I will leave this world with no meaningful legacy, but that's preferable to exiting knowing that I'd directly helped Big Tech get bigger and even more evil.

If I'd had kids, maybe my calculus would have been different. Maybe I'd have been motivated enough for their futures to sacrifice my conscience for them, but I did not, and so all I had to consider was whether or not I'd be able to live with myself, and the answer for me was no.

There have always been enough decent, even well paying jobs in software outside of the Big Tech companies, even in Silicon Valley, and so paying my bills and saving for a good retirement didn't require the soul sacrifice.

I don't begrudge anyone who bit that lure but I am entirely content to have said no myself.

[koverstreet]

OSS is your legacy!

If you write proprietary code, everything you do dies with that company. I certainly don't want my life's work locked away like that. Working on OSS means a better chance to put the engineering first and do something that will last.

I did my few years and Silicon Valley too, and when it came to decide between money and code, I chose the code. Haven't regretted a thing.

[asadotzler]

I hear ya. Thanks for the reply. I'm glad you chose OSS and I fully share your views as expressed here.

I think helping make OSS a thing at all, especially in the very early days when my employer was seen as the poster child for its failure, will be the closest thing I have to a legacy. And I got to travel the world teaching about and evangelizing the open source process, tooling, and ethos which was great fun. I even got to play in the big leagues for a while, at the height of our consumer successes, and those years helped solidify some important industry standards that will certainly live on for a while.

I'm happy with my contributions, and happy with the comfortable life I achieved all while having a good time doing it. I'm also very happy that I got out a couple years ago before this latest wave of destruction.

[koverstreet]

OSS is even more important today. The days of the Unix vendors, early Google, when we had tech companies that were engineer focused - those days are gone. It's MBAs running the show, and that's how we get enshittification.

There is no set future to what kind of technology we will build and end up with. We can build something where everything is locked away, and poor stewardship and maintenance means everything gets jankier or less reliable - or we can build something like the Culture novels, with technology that effectively never fails - with generations of advancement building off the previous, ever improving debugability, redundancy, failsafes, and hardening, making things more modular and cleaner along the way.

I know which world I'd rather live in, and big tech ain't gonna make it happen. I've seen the way they write code.

So if some people see my career as giving a middle finger to those guys, I'm cool with that :)

[qnleigh]

Let's not make everything political.

Not to take a stance on the issue either way, but I think the author is only referring to the politics involved in building products, not the broader political/moral issue of what the company does with all of the money it earns from those products. I don't see their post as defending or even referring to the latter.

[afavour]

> Let's not make everything political.

Everything is political, though. Establishing a barrier for cynicism so it doesn’t have to tackle the tough questions is understandable but it’s not that justifiable.

[qnleigh]

I think a more charitable reading of this post doesn't defend the moral aspects you're referring to, but is about much more pedestrian things like office politics.

It kinda makes me sad to see the top comment on a thoughtful piece like this expressing outrage on something the other didn't even take a stance on. I come to Hacker News to avoid this kind of rhetoric.

[whilenot-dev]

> I come to Hacker News to avoid this kind of rhetoric.

I think this rhetoric fits seamlessly inline with the hacker ethos, and that's one of my motivators (if not the biggest) to read through HN comments at all. It's exhausting to comprehend at times, but so are any well expressed positions in the complexity of life. Otherwise, I worry that HN will complete its transformation to become just another marketing platform for the wider tech sector, like some seem to already think it is.

[elliotto]

I wrote this comment in a response to his second chapter, where he presents criticism of the political role of the company as cynical, and then later where he presents a perspective on some tech company anti-union behaviour being conspiratorial.

I definitely took an uncharitable reading, but man am I tired of being told big tech is neutral. I will continue to be cynical and I will continue to gnash my teeth at anyone who tells me otherwise.