alt Hacker NewsJust makes me think how we have encouraged a generation of tech leaders to be complete assholes with no consequences. That “loser thinking” line should never be accepted in any company discourse, even from leadership. If this person wasn’t an exec, they’d be shown the door for that language.
Have people completely lost their humanity? Is winning at whatever you’re doing that important we can’t be equally obligated to show each other decency?
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This is a wider problem than just the tech industry. The kind of rhetoric, words used in political rallies, debates, on TV etc just sets the tone for society as a whole to become a bit more meaner, nastier...one step at a time. Even religious talks, sermons etc aren't immune to this
Techies are getting a glimpse at how other employees have always been treated all along, and they don't like it.
Maybe they'll start unionising more, back in the days as long as they had a coffee and a chair they never complained...
Also, seems counterproductive. If you work for proton, you’re probably realistically updating your LinkedIn profile about now.
resignation is the only acceptable consequence.
This is what the mainstream public considers "tech bro" behavior. Software engineering used to be cool until these kinds of people took the limelight.
> Have people completely lost their humanity? Is winning at whatever you’re doing that important we can’t be equally obligated to show each other decency?
Pretty much, I found some very helpful words and perspectives on this from Michael Sandel - Tyranny of Merit. The winners begin to think there success is their own doing, forgetting the luck, good fortune, and many people who helped them along the way. They grow arrogant and full of hubris, looking down on and belittling others.
The question is then, how do we get out of this mess? Sandel offers some interesting foundations, along with Acemoglu.
Links to brain food:
100% this.
Tech leaders have lost touch with people. And the top leaders — take your pick — have normalized shitty behavior.
I used to think Proton was good.
Not so, anymore.
I’m not supporting their products anymore. Cancelling my subscription
I don't think CEO personality types have changed all that much. I work IT in manufacturing, and have consistently seen this "macho masculinity alpha" type before. He was quickly let go by the board, thankfully.
We live in a world where CEOs typically have gotten their position through nepotism, or fucking over many people to get to the top. It's just who they are.
I guess people go where the incentives are. For at least the last decade that sort of behavior hasn't been punished or has even been rewarded (see: the entire Trump administration).
Meanwhile, being a decent person carries very little benefit anymore. So it's probably not surprising that people no longer take the effort.
Especially* the exec
It would appear that the presiding heuristic is:
"Do whatever you can get away with, with prioritization on local optimization with eager evaluation"
So basically, be an asshole/sociopath. The tennets of objectivism.
"morality" is basically memoized reinforcement learning over many human generations. So, it seems that the cache has been wiped out, and they need to learn again why they shouldn't be focusing on local optimization exclusively.
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"Have people completely lost their humanity? Is winning at whatever you’re doing that important we can’t be equally obligated to show each other decency?"
It's a team not a family.
The idea that demanding performance from your employees is "losing your humanity" is insane.
I was recently 'mentored' with some leadership advice. Be optimistic. Nobody wants to put a pessimist in a leadership role. Who would you hire for a C level position? An optimist or a pessimist?
The problem is that being optimistic creates massive cognitive disconnects in engineering teams who are trained to think in terms of systemic failure modes. There isn't the same practice of systemic success modes (perhaps that's the role of product managers?)
Anyway, this type of CEO is pushing his brand of 'optimism' down the org chart and making anyone who feels different an outcast, hence his choice of words.