I get this feeling off a lot of high-profile stories, whether tech, banking, real estate, or something else altogether. Theranos gave me some of the same sense, that the business wasn't 'medicine' but 'power'. Back before his campaign, Trump's Scottish golf course did also. He bought cheap land that wasn't zoned for a golf course, because at that level zoning laws are business hurdles to have altered, not boundaries to work within. The hiring collusion story in tech as well; it happened in the Valley, but was a consequence of power, not tech.
At a certain point you're not talking about the culture of some specific industry, you're talking about the culture of the rich, powerful, and cutthroat across any industry. I think it's an important distinction to maintain.
I mean, I'm also in tech, in the US, which means my salary is higher than 99% of salaries in the world, but I can't begin to dream of living the same lifestyle my buddy can enjoy, and he's most likely small potatoes compared to the "wolf-of-wallstreet" types mentioned here.
It's unbelievable.
Perhaps. But those VCs and CEOs and COOs are your bosses. Just as engineering cannot be divorced from the effects of what is built,"tech" is hard to separate from it's own environment. And it appears that the same antics continue down the stack.
No, they aren't. I don't mean to be hostile here, but I object strongly to the implicit assumption that 'tech' means "heavily Sandhill-funded software companies operating in the Valley".
I've worked at several software companies, some good, some bad. But I, like a very large portion of American 'tech' workers or even 'CS-degree bearing programmers', have never actually worked for a Silicon Valley company, much less one with major VC financing, much less one where VC culture has shaped everyone else's environment.
That's not to deny that there can be a very real issue here. But as an example, banking has similar serious issues at the top, and I wouldn't assume that every realtor's office, even ones ultimately tied to Merrill Lynch, had the same issues. Even if a realtor did have issues with sexism and discrimination, I think it would be unreasonable to assume that they came from what happened at the top carrying 'down the stack'.
I think it does a real disservice to 'tech' in general to understand it entirely in light of people like Travis Kalanick and Justin Caldbeck. I think it even does a disservice to efforts to fight sexism and harassment; the behavior of the richest and most powerful people in tech seems to have more in common with the rich and powerful of other industries than the rank-and-file of tech.
And I worry that this concept of trickle-down misbehavior will do exactly what the top comment points out - obscure everyday issues and opportunities in favor of a focus on a small group that's behaving quite differently, and can't be easily improved.
The nearest would likely have been when I worked with London "unicorn" Powa Technologies, and we all know how that went...
VC Cash influences power dynamics between tech companies very very heavily. If you're not in SV and chose to get funding elsewhere and are successful, safe bet that an SV competitor of yours will get better funding than you and eat up some of your potential market size. Each big firm will fund one top competitor in the space and let them duke it out, so how long will you last without their funding? Odds are high there are many companies with diverse founders and superior products who lost the battle to a competitor funded by one of these VCs. If top VC firms don't have strong female and diverse partners, they don't see the value in businesses that serve female and diverse markets as well.
I've been in tech for close to 20 years now. I get paid pretty well compared to the national average pay, and globally speaking it's off the charts.
But the figures and activities mentioned there are completely alien to me. This is the (a?) world of high finance and I can't relate to it.
I've seen a lot of casual and systemic sexism in the tech industry, in the trenches and at the coal face so to speak. I think it's often this that is the focus of criticism of the industry as a whole, and I think it's this that's a valid criticism of the tech industry.
To be absolutely clear - From what I've read here, Ellen Pao was treated really, really badly and has a whole litany of valid complaints, I just don't recognise the business painted here to be "tech".