This seems like one of those life experiences that may...have to happen. Discover writerly ambition, lose faith, work for the man, enjoy the existentially painful but also sweet return to personal freedom and fulfillment. Ahhh, the cycle of life. Let’s hope the man part is swift, Redacted!
Claire, I always appreciated your writing when we were both at Google and -- like you -- I have a lot of reasons to be cynical about Tech; among other things, I was among the 12,000 people suddenly laid off from Google despite working my ass off there for 17 years.
With that said, your absolutist take on tech (and techies) saddens and frustrates me.
My last role at Google involved improving healthcare access in the U.S., particularly for the most vulnerable. We made some genuinely awesome progress, and I can't stress enough how genuinely inspiring my former teammates are: mission-driven, sincere, and kind.
Before that, I was fortunate to work on Project Euphonia (https://sites.research.google/euphonia/about/), which is focused on helping people with non-standard speech be better understood.
Not all tech is bullshit, and far from it.
We hear about tons of stupid, often ridiculous projects and companies chasing the latest hype, but we often don't learn about the many, many things in tech that people are (mostly) quietly working on to make the world better.
Nuance is hard. It doesn't get clicks (and I'm mostly referencing beleaguered & underpaid journalists with this barb). But we need more of it somehow, and I wish you'd help lead the way.
This seems like one of those life experiences that may...have to happen. Discover writerly ambition, lose faith, work for the man, enjoy the existentially painful but also sweet return to personal freedom and fulfillment. Ahhh, the cycle of life. Let’s hope the man part is swift, Redacted!
Claire, I always appreciated your writing when we were both at Google and -- like you -- I have a lot of reasons to be cynical about Tech; among other things, I was among the 12,000 people suddenly laid off from Google despite working my ass off there for 17 years.
With that said, your absolutist take on tech (and techies) saddens and frustrates me.
My last role at Google involved improving healthcare access in the U.S., particularly for the most vulnerable. We made some genuinely awesome progress, and I can't stress enough how genuinely inspiring my former teammates are: mission-driven, sincere, and kind.
Before that, I was fortunate to work on Project Euphonia (https://sites.research.google/euphonia/about/), which is focused on helping people with non-standard speech be better understood.
Not all tech is bullshit, and far from it.
We hear about tons of stupid, often ridiculous projects and companies chasing the latest hype, but we often don't learn about the many, many things in tech that people are (mostly) quietly working on to make the world better.
Nuance is hard. It doesn't get clicks (and I'm mostly referencing beleaguered & underpaid journalists with this barb). But we need more of it somehow, and I wish you'd help lead the way.
This is so damn good.