
Ask HN: Are social and political conflicts within tech pushing you away? - dvdhnt
From Uber to Peter Thiel, Ellen Pao to Susan Fowler, Opal to Nodejs - the list keeps growing, magnified by the current political climate. I&#x27;m going to assume that most of you don&#x27;t actually hate many people - especially entire groups of people for genetic or lifestyle reasons within the tech communities.<p>I consider myself to be forward thinking - fiscally conservative yet socially liberal - having grown up poor in the south surrounded by all kinds of &quot;diversity&quot;. Tech used to be this place where we all collaborated to make beautiful things to either make lives better or fund our next idea. Now, I&#x27;m getting burnt out, having to stop every two weeks to follow&#x2F;address&#x2F;avoid a new issue (some valid, some grandstanding).<p>Are you growing (insert emotion) with the growing number of conflicts, incidents, soap-box speeches, etc being publicized or revealed throughout the industry?<p>Are we headed towards a more vanilla, corporate-like industry where people-soft training and HR presentations are baked into our daily lives to ensure we&#x27;re all getting along?<p>Will all of the conflict and friction slow down innovation or stunt open source technology?<p>I&#x27;d love to hear your thoughts, HN!<p>Refs:<p>Gender diversity: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mashable.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;06&#x2F;08&#x2F;silicon-valley-harassment&#x2F;#ybOPzWFGdEqH<p>Peter Thiel: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2017&#x2F;01&#x2F;11&#x2F;fashion&#x2F;peter-thiel-donald-trump-silicon-valley-technology-gawker.html<p>Nodejs: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=15081821<p>Opal: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;opal&#x2F;opal&#x2F;issues&#x2F;942
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chuck32
It does seem that Silicon Valley used to have a hacker / technologist culture
(think Steve Wozniak, Robert Noyce etc.) while now most of the new companies
are often just traditional businesses but with slightly better tech and
rebranded with nauseating slogans about grandiose missions to "change the
world", "connect people", "give experiences" etc.

For most of these companies their mission statements and "company culture" are
complete BS. Just look at how much tax these companies (think Apple, Facebook,
Amazon etc.) pay to see if they are truly "progressive" and "forward-thinking"
companies. They are not. And that hypocrisy trickles right down to the bottom.

Thats why its not surpising that in supposedly one of the most liberal and
open-minded places in the world, sexual harassment and other forms of
discrimination are rife.

I can't find this thread but there was a discussion about workplace
discrimination and a transgender woman wrote that she had pretty much no
problems working in a large corporate mid-west based company where the
majority of employees were conservative and Christian but faced plenty of
abuse and comments from co-workers when working for a more "open-minded"
silicon valley style company with more of a "bro" culture.

