Tech work just ain't what it used to be

I never worked for one of those perk-laden tech companies. Oh, some of them were perky enough to have video games in the kitchen and beer bash Fridays, but none of the goodies that today's tech behemoths offered when they were in their early years. 

Rachel Grey joined Google in 2007:

At a two-week orientation at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Ms. Grey discovered a utopia of perks. The company’s cafeterias served steak and shrimp, kitchens were stocked with fresh juices and gyms offered free workout classes. Workers received stock grants on top of their salaries, a 50 percent match on their retirement contributions and a Christmas bonus that came in the form of $1,000 tucked in an envelope. (Source: NY Times)

Google was also pretty transparent about sharing information with employees. 

Over time, the benefits and transparency dwindled.

For years, Google famously went by an informal motto: Don't be evil. But not being evil can sometimes be at odds with a corporate desire to make profits, whatever the cost to lives, limbs, hearts, and souls. And, thus, Google did what companies do and:

.. abandoned a pledge that its artificial intelligence would not be used for weapons. 

Employees at Google and the other mega techs that have defined the 21st century tech-dominated era - Apple, Meta, Twitter - were once encouraged to speak up. Not so much these days, when it's more speak up? get out!

It’s the shut up and grind era, workers said.

Many tech companies still provide free lunch. But there's really no such thing as a free lunch:

“Tech could still be best in terms of free lunch and a high salary,” Ms. Grey said, but “the level of fear has gone way up.”

“I suppose it’s better to have lunch and be scared to death than to not have lunch and be scared to death, but I don’t know if it’s good for you to be there,” she added.

Not surprisingly, Ms. Grey is no longer a Googler. And tens of thousands of others have lost their jobs at the behemoths, in the name of greater efficiency (and the greater desire of the already unfathomably rich to get even more unfathomably richer). But also due to shifts in corporate policies that are increasingly aligned with Trump-era dictates to end anything that smacks of DEI and to promote "free speech" (especially as it applies to white nationalism and anti-science) by curtailing fact checking. Not to mention decency checking. (Racist? Sexist? Homophobic? Come on down!)

But the shift in tech was compounded by the rise of generative artificial intelligence, which executives say has already made some jobs redundant. In January, Mr. [Mark] Zuckerberg said he believed A.I. would replace some midlevel engineers this year. Mr. [Elon] Musk went further, predicting last year that A.I. would eventually eliminate all jobs.

“The tide has definitely turned against tech workers,” said Catherine Bracy, the founder and chief executive of TechEquity, a nonprofit that pushes for economic inclusion in the industry. “Companies have even more leverage to use against workers, and A.I. is supercharging that.”

From what I've seen from AI search results, AI is not yet ready for primetime. Which is not to say that it won't be at some point. Which is not to say that the Musks, Bezoses, and Zuckerbergs of the world could give two shits if AI ends up replacing 99% of tech and other white-collar workers - as long as they can become unfathomably richer and can fully protect themselves from the pitchfork-wielding masses who might well rise up if we reach Depression-era and beyond levels of unemployment. 

Even though we didn't get free lunches and swank offices, I mostly enjoyed working in the tech industry of yore. There were always layoffs, so tech of my era was never about lifetime tenure. We all knew that we were replaceable and/or expendable. But we never had to worry about being replaced by an AI.

I just hate to see the balance shift so rapidly against the workers, and in favor of the upper-ups who revel in having the upperhand. Tech workers may not be risking their lives shoveling coal into a blast furnace for twenty cents an hour, and no one's guaranteed a free lunch, but what's happening in tech (and elsewhere) is not good at all for the common good. 

Sigh...

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Image Source: PBS