I remember when I was growing up, tech industry has so many people that were admirable, and you wanted to aspire to be in life. Bill Gates, founders of Google Larry Page, Sergey brin, Steve Jobs (wasn’t perfect but on a surface level, he was still at least a pretty decent guy), basically everyone involved in gaming from Xbox to PlayStation and so on, Tom from MySpace… So many admirable people who were actually really great…
Now, people are just trash. Look at Mark Zuckerberg who leads Facebook. Dude is a lizard man, anytime you think he has shown some character growth he does something truly horrible and illegal that he should be thrown in prison for. For example, he’s been buying up properties in Hawaii and basically stealing them from the locals. He’s basically committing human rights violations by violating the culture of Hawaiian natives and their land deeds that are passed down from generation to generation. He has been systematically stealing them and building a wall on Hawaii, basically a f*cking colonizer. That’s what the guy is. I thought he was a good upstanding person until I learned all these things about him
Current CEO of Google is peak dirtbag. Dude has no interest in the company or it’s success at all, his only concern is patting his pockets while he is there as CEO, and appeasing the shareholders. He has zero interest in helping or making anyone’s life pleasant at the company. Truly a dirtbag in every way.
Current CEO of Home Depot, which I now consider a tech company because they have moved out of retail and into the online space and they are rapidly restructuring their entire business around online sales, that dude is a total piece of work conservative racist. I remember working for this company, This dude’s entire focus is eliminating as many people as feasibly possible from working in the store, making their life living heck, does not see people as human beings at all. Just wants to eliminate anyone and everyone they possibly can, think they are a slave labor force
Elon musk, we all know about him, don’t need to really say much. Every time you think he’s doing something good for society, he proves you wrong And does the worst thing he can possibly do in that situation. It’s like he’s specifically trying to make the world the worst place possible everyday
Like, damn. What the heck happened to the world? You know? I thought the tech industry was supposed to be filled with these brilliant genius people who are really good for the world…
You must log in or register to comment.
Capitalism is the death of society and aligns the interests of people and corporations alike towards a race to the bottom for maximum exploitation.
EDIT: Death of society may sound like hyperbole, but it’s me just paraphrasing one of the biggest advocates of capitalism in history: Margaret Thatcher, who famously said: “There is no such thing as society, only individuals.”
What economic concept are you proposing that’s better than the current systems in place?
At least government regulations can help keep capitalism in check, but taking that too far leads to monopolies and dictatorships.
I have an ideal socialist libertarian utopia skin to anarcho-communism in my mind as does just about every leftist. But that’s not the point.
The point is that we need change towards balancing out rampant economic inequality that has been rising since the 80s and the impact of neoliberalism and trickle-down, the undoing of the priorities shift from private ownership and individualism to public and societal welfare and wellbeing. Towards a future where we can work on things that benefit us all, rather than enrich a select few at the expense of all others. Imagine a job that paid well and meant something, instead of bs job slaving away to make the line go up for some rich guy.
The point is that aligning the interests of society in such a way lead to amongst headier arguments of alienation - environmental destruction in a way that is fundamentally unsustainable and robs our children of their futures in many ways.
What you say could have very well been applied to kings in monarchies of old if one were to merely picture a dichotomy of the current world and a worse one. But that dichotomy is false, we have built a better world in many ways since then. We should do so yet again.
when I was growing up
This is really the key. We’re all stupid and unaware of how things work and the particular goings-ons when we’re kids. There were plenty of shitty people running the tech giant companies back then, but we just didn’t realize the extent of what was happening.
Edit: The evolution of social media also adds a lot to this. We are both more connected to each other and society, and therefore more aware of BS think it’s pulled by corporations. Then, of course, you have folks like Elon Musk who seem to make a point of making sure everyone knows how big of a piece of shit they are, and how proud of it they are.
Yeah we’re baffled about how kids get sucked into worshipping Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, but I remember a brief time in my life when I thought Steve Jobs was the greatest and that he singlehandedly invented the iPhone with a rusty pair of pliers and gumption.
“Leaders”
They were always bad people but media shilled them as good guys… Buffet is similar example. We all LARPed it. Now we are learning the hard truth.
These people a part of the owner class and control key portions of us and global economy.
They are not the same as the rest of us. They know it and they act upon it.
When you step on an ant do you even notice?
They don’t either peasant, now get back to fucking cucking and making daddy some mother fucking money, boy
lack of “social intelligence”. They mostly rose through the ranks because their technical (or business) skill. They never had to act for benefit of others to advanve
My thought is that these people think that their smarter than everyone else therefore they are justified doing anything they do. On the other hand, anyone with a billion dollars got it by making a whole lot of other people poorer. And they ate neither actually geniuses nor benevolent in any other way.
The Phillip Morris CEO makes money by hooking people onto something that isn’t good for them. Tech CEOs are very seldom any different. Anyone who says otherwise usually has a financial interest in making you believe them.
Capitalism. Specifically, the stock market. IPOs make good companies into bad companies.
Being owned by stockholders effectively removes any amount of “human” in the company’s choices and direction. There becomes a single goal, to which everything else is sacrificed: make stock prices go up in the short term. The C-suite execs will say all sorts of other shit, but any appearance of accountability or altruism is solely geared to making more money at any cost. Any leadership with a soul will be forced to either give up trying to be “good”, or they leave.
Because being an industry leader is more about controlling people rather than whatever it is that your industry produces.
Money
Monkey + money = bad
Came to post the short answer as well. It’s always the same.
The link below isn’t the fundamental reason, but I think it helps to explain the shift in mindset. With the best of intentions and a desire to innovate and help people live better…the ersartz movement became corrupted by conspicuous consumption and a “disruptor” capitalist mindset:
It was a lot easier to pretend to be a good person when every moral failure you make wasn’t broadcast around the world the moment it was discovered. Case and point, look into Bill Gates more. He wasn’t always a respectful guy, got caught up in the whole “filthy communists” schtick when the government was investigating his company, advocates for more restrictive control of aid distribution favoring manufacturers more than those he’s trying to help, conflicts of interest in his charity, opposing twitters ban of Trump after the insurrection, etc.
I don’t ever remember Bill Gates or Steve Jobs being good people. Or Jeff Bezos, trying to kill bookstores.
The guys behind Google seemed okay at first and I think they really wanted to do good. But the way the company culture was built was toxic.
But in the end it’s all about the greed. As soon as a company becomes public and whose stocks become available on the market, it turns to shit.
Look at how Steam is going well and actually helping personal computing progress. Gabe Newell is doing a great job because he loves that he does and ensures the people who work for him do too.
Newell also has overseen Valve as one of the pioneers of the most predatory monetization in the video game industry (lootboxes, etc.).
There are no saints at this level.
TBF to Valve, their lootboxes were limited to cosmetic items in a free to play multiplayer games. You can ignore those and it wouldn’t change the gameplay at all.
I mean their unwillingness to do anything about the market abuse and rampant child-gambling aside, the lootboxes for purely cosmetic items are one of the least predatory ways to do microtransactions. It’s not like EA where the only way to unlock entire characters in some games is to grind for hundreds of hours or pay, or like COD where they took the lootbox idea and made it actually affect (multiplayer) gameplay
the least predatory ways to do microtransactions
Damning with faint praise.
I mean, in some ways, yeah. In other ways, CS2 is entirely free to play, and the microtransactions fund that, like LoL.
Bethesda used to be awesome. Until they popularized DLC
You’re not going to out-compete the sociopaths if you’re a saint. That’s a reality.
And in politics, too!
Bill Gates was a huge piece of shit in his heyday, rivalling the Zuckerberg and Musks of today, and Jobs was an abusive narcissist shitcunt on a surface level.
Tom and Zuckerberg both came from the same time. Zuck was shit since day 1, today has nothing to do with it.
I think you just have some very rose tinted glasses.
Going back even further is assholes like Edison and Ford.
Before Microsoft, programmers were treated like factory workers by HP and IBM and setup in large open floor rooms like a secretary pool from the 1960’s. Gates thought programmers were important and gave every programmer a private office.
Gates did dirty tricks to competitors even to tiny ones they could have bought out (stacker). But he was never Musk’s level of evil.
I think it’s easier to name the people who have been decent in tech. Woz seems like a decent guy.
Ted Waite all in all was decent. Not perfect but decent.
Stallman was right about everything
Stallman is a notable figure in the industry but he was never the leader of a large tech company. That’s probably why he’s a decent guy
He was a big defender of paedophilia, necrophilia, incest, and bestiality. He thinks people should have the right to fuck their pets and their children. Not to mention the reports on his creepy behaviour with women.
Stallman is an incredible steward of FOSS, and he’s been very prescient in predicting the absolute nightmare of proprietary software, but he is not a decent guy overall IMO.
It hurt me to find that out, because I looked up to him. But I guess it’s another sobering reminder of why celebrity worship is bad. I see way too many people try to bury or deny his scummy side, just because they worship him as a FOSS celebrity figure.
I had never heard that about him. That’s disappointing.
Yeah, for me too. Because I love practically everything he says when it comes to software.
“The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, ‘prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia’ also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.”
RMS on June 28th, 2003
“I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.”
RMS on June 5th, 2006
"There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.
RMS on Jan 4th, 2013
In the interest of fairness, he did claim to have changed his mind on some of this, although that only happened 2 days after his job became on the line after making strange comments about Epstein/Epstein clients/Epstein victims, particularly in presenting Epstein’s underage sex workers as being willing.
For me, suddenly having a change of heart on a decades-held (and publicly-championed) opinion, only to suddenly change your mind the second it threatens your job seems a bit too convenient, so I’m unwilling to believe it.
Holy shit…
I would say it’s not a sincere change. It’s groupthink.
Well the skit keeps getting smaller and smaller
as long as no one is coerced
Well, the opinion that a child can consent is technically acceptable, because the line at 12,13,14,16,18,21 years is arbitrarily drawn which is why it differs in various countries.
But in practice he should have used common sense and at least drawn his own line.
“I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren’t voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.”
That’s scary, but I’m not sure how really wrong he is. The issue is again with child’s consent being less certain, affected more easily by various distractions.
so I’m unwilling to believe it.
So am I, the question is whether he has internal consistency or not in his views. If yes, it’s still better than, well, just being a jerk and proud of it.
Let’s note that necrophilia with mutual agreement (pre-mortem, and same with cannibalism) and incest with mutual agreement (between adults) are fucked up, but should be defended. Animals can’t consent, children can’t consent, so not that.
Not to mention the reports on his creepy behaviour with women.
That - yeah.
But I guess it’s another sobering reminder of why celebrity worship is bad. I see way too many people try to bury or deny his scummy side, just because they worship him as a FOSS celebrity figure.
Believing in discourses and narratives without understanding that they are never real is bad.
You can believe only in what you see with your own eyes since inception and till death.
and incest with mutual agreement (between adults) are fucked up, but should be defended.
Why are you saying between adults, as if that’s what he said? He was talking about children. I even provided multiple examples of him saying so.
He’s saying all of those. Those concerning children obviously can’t.
The FSF isn’t exactly what you think of when you hear the words “large tech company”… but you could argue that in some ways it is one couldn’t you… 😁😛
You could, but the OP is talking about the people who became filthy rich or at least notable. I don’t know if Tom ever made any real money. Almost all of the people listed used their corporate power to smash competition and dominate the market.
If anything, Stallman is the antithesis of most of these people.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tom-myspace-sold-social-media-153011703.html?guccounter=1
Don’t know how he invested it but the guy certainly wouldn’t have had to work another day in his life
What he did is important, but he’s definitely an asshole as well
Old captain crunch is another one that turned out to be a weirdo
he was never the leader of a large tech company. That’s probably why he’s a decent guy
I think you have that backwards.
While at the sametime being a gross person.
Daniel Stenberg seems like a nice guy.
Gabe too.
There are no good billionaires
You don’t even know whether Gabe is or isn’t a billionaire.
Why are we using his first name
Why not?
Because people think he’s their friend because he offers a good product when the truth is he’s just another one of those leeches at the top of a big company taking money from people’s pockets and accumulating it while their clients can barely afford to pay rent.
https://www.forbes.com/profile/gabe-newell/
https://luxurylaunches.com/transport/gabe-newell-luxury-yachts.php
If he wasn’t a billionaire it would be very simple, there are no good multi millionaires either!
Ok, I was wrong, I didn’t know about all the boats and the second company/charity.
The Forbes thing is just an educated guess though. And are you saying anyone with 2 million dollars or anyone with 2m in assets is automatically a bad person?
People around you are starving and barely able to afford to pay rent and you’re worth 2m? Sorry my man, you’re one of those who is taking advantage of the system.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/28/americans-median-net-worth-by-age.html
Overall the median is under 200k, you’re talking about someone worth ten times that.
It’s hard to beat ignoring doctors and not treating your very treatable form of cancer, then using your wealth to get a liver transplant and then dying anyway. Dude committed manslaughter because of his own arrogance.
Adding to that, Bill Gates put quite some effort into image building and mostly succeeded.
Bill Gates was a huge piece of shit in his heyday, rivalling the Zuckerberg and Musks of today,
Bill Gates was a ruthless businessman destroying competition but as far as I know he didn’t support fascists or facilitate pogroms.
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter has done far more harm to our societies than whatever shady tactics Bill Gates used.
Gates and Jobs both are responsible for consumer based computing. Proprietary software lynched what should have been a global birth of inventive software engineers.
The crap that Zuck shills had its groundwork laid by those two.
Proprietary software lynched what should have been a global birth of inventive software engineers.
That actually happened. Just wasn’t perpetuated after 1995 or something.
Not to take away from Zuckerberg, Musk, and the less-known people in tech like Thiel, but Bill Gates was and is a huge piece of shit who harmed more than just his competitors. Among other things he convinced the world that we need IP and patents for covid vaccines instead of sharing them freely, which alone cost countless lives around the world. I don’t even want to know what other ills his “philanthropy” has and will cause. https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines
I generally think Satya is a fairly decent guy.
Microsoft is still a fucking shit show, but still.
Perfect human beings don’t exist. Apparently there’s a religion positing there was one perfect human, but we nailed him to a cross for interfering with business.
Here’s a thought. If you were able to get away with Almost Anything ™ and were surrounded by people praising your genius, dashing good looks and boundless generosity towards their persons, how long would it take for you to lose your moral compass, you think? You would pretty soon lose your frame of reference to the normal people, and your empathy would follow. And that’s assuming you’re not 2nd or 3rd generation ultra rich, in which case you never had it to begin with.
Succession is a very good TV series exploring the mindset of such people, if you want to see it in action. Otherwise, history is full of examples - such as Nero, the greatest poet to ever set fire to Rome.
I know there are exceptions, like everywhere else in life. But those tend to cultivate humility as a habit, like other people go to the gym.
I don’t know much about the other guys you named, but close friend of Jeffry Epstein, Bill Gates is a demon with good PR. A lot of his outreach consists of privatizing schools in Africa and America, testing vaccines on tribal girls in India without consent, and demanding Oxford sell their covid vaccine instead of releasing it free..
But if you google anything about Bill Gates medical activities, they get drowned out by puff pieces and fact checks about microchips in vaccines instead of the.
