>What is toxic tech culture? Toxic tech cultures are those that demean and devalue you as holistic, multifaceted human beings. Toxic tech cultures are those that prioritize profits and growth over human and societal well being. Toxic tech cultures are those that treat you as replaceable cogs within a system of constant churn and burnout.
has there been any factory floor, farm, private or government office where things have been different? Except may be for a situation like a tenured professor at Stanford. Or a 4 star general who after having been a cog for like 30 years finally gets to be the one burning and replacing the cogs at his will/choice.
If anything, i think tech is among the most progressive places, if only for the fact that one can easily switch jobs instead of suffering for years for example under harassing boss like it was before and still is in the other industries where job market is worse. With employees having such freedom, the tech companies and management are forced to treat the employees better than at the other industries. I wonder how many of the people complaining about toxic tech culture did actually work at non-tech places.
I feel like some of this may be more pronounced in areas like SV. Specifically, areas of the highest competition. The personality traits that correlate most strongly with success are: high conscientiousness, high stress tolerance, and low agreeableness. Of course it makes sense that the people in the areas of stiffest competition in tech are in an environment of high stress and are generally really disagreeable to be around. This is going to be the case at the top of any field with stiff competition.
I live in a 2nd tier city (not NY, SF, LA, etc) and these depictions of the "tech industry" are unfamiliar to me. Sure, there's the odd asshole, but those are everywhere. I feel like people around SV and other high competition big cities are generalizing about the industry in a way that doesn't reflect my day to day life.
It's hard to generalize but I don't think it's true for the kinds of things Valerie Aurora cares about. My experience is that those competitive SV companies have the most supportive culture when it comes to marginalized minorities, while software companies that aren't in SV and aren't run like SV tech companies are closer to non-tech companies, both in terms of sensitivity towards minorities and political orientation of their people.
Running around yelling from the mountaintops about how many minorities you have, treating them like trophies, is not the same as sensitivity. Further, I don't know how you could suggest Google/Twitter/etc. have a sensitivity towards differing political orientations given the ongoing scandals of demonetization, censoring, etc. and the now famous DaMore memo. "Minority political orientation" doesn't mean the same thing in rural Mississippi as it means in San Francisco.
You misread - I was saying "software companies that aren't in SV and aren't run like SV tech companies are closer to non-tech companies, both in terms of (sensitivity towards minorities) and (political orientation of their people)". You can take that however you want but whatever the merits of your criticism, it has nothing to do with what Valerie Aurora is saying. She's not saying the political progressivism of tech companies is toxic. All I'm saying here is that SV tech companies are rare in the corporate world in that they take her concerns seriously and have lots of people in leadership that are highly sympathetic to her views.
Difference is that tech poses itself as "new" (i.e. different from old, traditional things/companies) and its leaders (actual business magnates or your average CEO) either indirectly or directly talk about making the world/people better. Therefore, when they do stuff any other company does (because they're just like any other company, surprise), it feels or sounds a lot worse.
Also, stories on tech (maybe because of the above?) are trendier. No one cares if a factory or finance firm have toxic cultures (because we all expect them to?).
> Difference is that tech poses itself as "new" (i.e. different from old, traditional things/companies) and its leaders (actual business magnates or your average CEO) either indirectly or directly talk about making the world/people better.
No, a very few Silicon Valley businesses pose themselves as new and its leaders talk about "making the world/people better". These aren't representative of the whole worldwide IT sector, which is no more "feminist" than the coal industry.
> Also, stories on tech (maybe because of the above?) are trendier. No one cares if a factory or finance firm have toxic cultures (because we all expect them to?).
Many of the people here are too young to remember how Wall street used to be seen as a "left wing" sector in the 90's the same way "big tech" is now. Ironically shun by leftist activists today as the "personification of the devil".
Wall St finance used to be called the "new money" sector as opposition to the "old money" which was the core of the republican elite. And the same way, some financial companies and CEO claimed to be something new and make the world better. So the irony of your statement...
>has there been any factory floor, farm, private or government office where things have been different?
First thing I thought also. The problem is we have a society where people are dependent on their jobs to keep from being homeless and to maintain their lives. If people had an option to walkaway, the amount of toxic workplaces in any occupation would drop drastically. Any place where people are forced to submit just to keep their lifestyle is an opportunity for someone above them to take advantage.
> has there been any factory floor, farm, private or government office where things have been different?
If anything, then the concern would be "out of the frying pan and into the fire", i.e., leaving tech because of real problems in the industry, but then finding it just as bad or worse in other fields.
Does anyone know of anecdotes where someone says "I left tech because of discrimination, but it was way worse in this other industry, so I returned?"
And yes - I agree that parts of the tech industry are quite progressive. It sounds like (not just from this article) that other parts are quite not.
> Does anyone know of anecdotes where someone says "I left tech because of discrimination, but it was way worse in this other industry, so I returned?"
Office Space ?
Hard to believe that movie is almost two decades old now.
We went to see Office Space when it was in the cinemas, after having heard a number of good things about it. There were 8 of us. 7, myself included, kept bursting into laughter throughout the film. The last one didn't really register.
When we walked out, the silent one quipped: "I don't get how that was supposed to be funny. I see that same stuff at work every day."
Didn’t the main character not return to tech and end up in construction? And none of his buddies left tech because of the toxic environment ... they were let go. Forgive me if I misunderstood your comment.
And yeah, it’s hard to believe it’s been that long. And it’s an awesome movie
> has there been any factory floor, farm, private or government office where things have been different?
Yes. It's the 1930's anymore. Especially in the last 20 years even grubby industries have come around to treating their labor with dignity. At least in part because of legal liability.
Your comment is just classic whataboutism. I don't doubt that there are problems with diversity and discrimination in non-tech industries, but that doesn't mean we don't have some serious problems that need to be addressed.
If you're talking about fiduciary duty, one, that only applies to public companies, and two, no, that's not what it means. (For instance, the Supreme Court has recently stated, "Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.")
No, that's a myth. Look it up, fiduciary duty does not involve duty to maximize profits no matter what. There's no such law and the laws that exist give the management very wide leeway in how the company is managed, as long as it is not overtly subverting company's resources for one's own (or somebody else's own) benefit to the detriment of the company. As long as you have a plausible argument that it's for the good of the company, in a very wide understanding of it, it's fine with the law.
has there been any factory floor, farm, private or government office where things have been different? Except may be for a situation like a tenured professor at Stanford. Or a 4 star general who after having been a cog for like 30 years finally gets to be the one burning and replacing the cogs at his will/choice.
If anything, i think tech is among the most progressive places, if only for the fact that one can easily switch jobs instead of suffering for years for example under harassing boss like it was before and still is in the other industries where job market is worse. With employees having such freedom, the tech companies and management are forced to treat the employees better than at the other industries. I wonder how many of the people complaining about toxic tech culture did actually work at non-tech places.