The proletarianization of tech workers ( doctorow.medium.com )

Remember when tech workers dreamed of working for a big company for a few years, before striking out on their own to start their own company that would knock that tech giant over?

Then that dream shrank to: work for a giant for a few years, quit, do a fake startup, get acqui-hired by your old employer, as a complicated way of getting a bonus and a promotion.

Then the dream shrank further: work for a tech giant for your whole life, get free kombucha and massages on Wednesdays.

And now, the dream is over. All that’s left is: work for a tech giant until they fire your ass, like those 12,000 Googlers who got fired six months after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years.

We deserve better than this. We can get it.

GIF
zoe ,

go back to monke: learn a trade

ShittyRedditWasBetter ,

The crazy stories and imagination you have.

rah ,

Remember when tech workers dreamed of working for a big company for a few years, before striking out on their own to start their own company that would knock that tech giant over?

No.

puppy ,

Actually that’s how Silicon Valley happened. Intel and a buch of other semiconductor companies were created by founders quitting the big firm and starting a competitor.

rah ,

Actually what you’ve said here doesn’t contradict what I said.

jonne ,

I don’t think anyone seriously had the ‘become a billionaire by starting a company and revolutionising the industry’ as a career plan. Most of us just switch companies every few years as a way to get a raise.

ImplyingImplications ,

Tech workers are a few years away from being in the same boat as actors and writers are right now. Both industries are unique in that labourers make something once that the company can then sell a million times over. The labourers are not getting a fair share of the immense value the product they produce generates. The only issue is that the entertainment biz has strong unions, whereas the tech industry doesn’t.

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