Made-up controversy. If you don't see what is going on here, then fasten your seat belt because I'll tell you.
First of all, every decent human being is going to side with "the Google Chef" (you know, he has a name: Charlie Ayers). He took a risk and it paid off. He earned every fucking cent. If you really think "Google chefs" like Charlie don't deserve to get rich on their stock, then you're an asshole.
Now, let's look at why this controversy really exists. It's to emphasize the elevation of the Second Estate (programmers, data scientists, designers) over the Third Estate (workers) for the benefit of the First (executives, VCs). The First Estate of the Valley works overtime on creating divisions between the Second and Third so that the bricks go through the windows of Google buses (Second Estate) instead of houses in Atherton. It's divide-and-conquer.
Investors and executives are going overboard to make the software engineers who keep the Valley running that they're a privileged class, and that they should be happy to deal with long hours, unreasonable expectations, low autonomy, fast and dishonest firing, and age discrimination because it could be worse, they could be "out there" preparing food instead of churning through Jira tickets.
It's like telling a shit-poor, clay-eating Southern white person in 1850, "cheer up, you're still above the slaves."
There always have been and always will be class divisions. Every society has a version of the phrase "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in 3 generations." But now the slaves are free. We all get world class free public educations (ask the teacher unions.) We all have access to free graduate level education in technologies online. I'll brashly assert that class mobility has never looked better, and while they are possible, there are no real-world examples of a better society than ours (at least to my view).
First of all, every decent human being is going to side with "the Google Chef" (you know, he has a name: Charlie Ayers). He took a risk and it paid off. He earned every fucking cent. If you really think "Google chefs" like Charlie don't deserve to get rich on their stock, then you're an asshole.
Now, let's look at why this controversy really exists. It's to emphasize the elevation of the Second Estate (programmers, data scientists, designers) over the Third Estate (workers) for the benefit of the First (executives, VCs). The First Estate of the Valley works overtime on creating divisions between the Second and Third so that the bricks go through the windows of Google buses (Second Estate) instead of houses in Atherton. It's divide-and-conquer.
Investors and executives are going overboard to make the software engineers who keep the Valley running that they're a privileged class, and that they should be happy to deal with long hours, unreasonable expectations, low autonomy, fast and dishonest firing, and age discrimination because it could be worse, they could be "out there" preparing food instead of churning through Jira tickets.
It's like telling a shit-poor, clay-eating Southern white person in 1850, "cheer up, you're still above the slaves."