I'm leaving tech for good

After a decade of working in tech, the industry that I once loved is unrecognizable.

When I began my career in tech in 2012, I was excited about the prospect of working for a company where dress codes didn’t matter, remote work was allowed, lunches and dinners were catered, and the stuffy corporate lives of our parents were replaced with a not-so-serious *culture*. It was a relatively new industry where we built products that were taking over the world. Think about what Facebook looked like in 2012. It was mostly college students and recent graduates, and we were told to be careful about what we posted because prospective employers could be looking there to see how we operate in our personal lives. Over a decade later, those same people live their lives on the platform. Facebook marketing was in its infantile phase. Now, I’m sure you’ve all noticed that every social network has become an ad-pocolypse. I’ve worked at 5 startups in various stages in my tenure, and somewhere along the way, the industry gradually warped into the corporate hell of our parents. And so, I’m leaving for good.

After my layoff in 2020, I spent 2.5 years participating in endless interviews at dozens of tech companies, which included 4-7 stages, as well as unpaid case studies (of which I’ve completed at least ten without receiving any feedback). Imagine taking a test and just never getting your score back, but instead receiving a generic rejection email after spending a month and at least 5 hours of unpaid labor moving through a seemingly arbitrary interview process in an attempt to land a “secure” job. Nearly every single company I interviewed with has since had a mass layoff; even the ones I viewed as “safe” since they were well-funded.

I still love technology and I’m excited about how Web3 and AI will further shape the world and everyday life as we know it, but I cannot condone what tech leadership is doing. We were sold a narrative of disrupting evil industries to create a better, fairer world, not to harm unions or completely crush small businesses, then price gouge loyal customers and exploit employees in favor of shareholder value maximization. We used to scoff at the corporate suits and claim we’d never be like them, now everything we worked to disrupt has come full-circle and we have become the corporate suits repackaged in athleisure.

For now, I’m saying goodbye to tech and grieving the life that I thought I’d have…that I thought I wanted. I’m not sure if tech changed or if it is me who changed, but I am sure now, that this train is barreling down a track that I simply cannot endorse. We are no longer, as Steve Jobs put it, “the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently,” in his iconic 1997 Think Different Apple campaign. We are just like them.

So what’s next? Well, for starters THIS! I studied Journalism in college, and I’ve spent most of the past 2.5 years writing, creating content, and generally connecting to my creative roots. Join me on my journey of actualizing my goals and continuing to Think Different to create a better world.

“Build your own dreams or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” — Farrah Gray