alt Hacker News> I'm in senior leadership, and have made it clear that anyone who has worked on these products should not be hired.
Can't say I agree with that specific take (and find it a bit naive to be honest), unless you're also not hiring anyone from companies like Amazon, Meta, and all the other tech companies that have also ruined/preyed on society in their own way just as much as any gambling app has.
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This is such a HN comment. Yes, I am not hiring those people either. If that sounds unviable or even uncommon then you’re just too deep in the culture. This is quite common.
Naive? I think it shows a higher than average level of awareness. Gambling is rent-seeking that targets vulnerable individuals. It's really only a small step away from dealing in addicting drugs; and is in some ways worse, because it addicts not just individuals, but also cities and countries who get used to the tax output.
> unless you're also not hiring anyone from companies like Amazon, Meta, and all the other tech companies that have also ruined/preyed on society in their own way just as much as any gambling app has
It depends on the role. If you were doing something deeply technical, or facing customers who loved your work, I think you get a pass. If you were building features nobody outside your company is thankful for, you need to do a convincing repentance act. If you worked on Instagram for Kids or whale optimization, fuck off.
Or the young person who needs a job and doesn't yet have OP's fully formed understanding of exactly where the line is - apparently gambling bad/ ad tech OK.
I'd be ok with the rule only if the candidate liked the field. I respect anyone who is willing to have a bad time in order to put food on the table, and be upfront about it. There's plenty of psychopathic candidates where I won't get that datapoint simply because they were luckier with the job market.
Morals start and stop somewhere, please don't attack people when they actually show some proper morals on this forum despite the employment of many members here.
this is a false equivalence. Amazon and Meta have caused plenty of damage, companies in our capitalist economies are bad etc. But shipping you books or connecting you to other people isn't inherently evil. There's nothing wrong with the service itself. Gambling is. It's been a vice in virtually every culture for thousands of years. It's akin to peddling drugs. The practice itself is corrosive and destroys people.
It's one thing to acknowledge that any for profit company in some way behaves badly, but you can't change the world. You can choose not to sell poison.
I think the difference between the two is Amazon and Meta do provide some utility to balance it out, whereas gambling is purely a net negative on society. You can be young and naive enough to believe you're "making the world a better place" in big tech. You can't work on pure gambling products without being a scammer at heart; you know what you signed up for.