Also a collective mindset - if most people one knows are doing exactly the same, morality lines tend to conveniently blur, it requires very strong personality to keep the inner compass untainted for decades.

And its a grey business so to say, you can see various justifications for it also here since many folks here work for them, its not some Zyklon-B factory. At the end, everybody under certain circumstances has a price, and kids tend to blur this even more for many.

This is one of the many reasons that tech wants to hire young.

What really gets me, is very young software engineers (not managers or marketers), that emulate the values and behaviors of tech bro billionaires.

It’s not surprising, but it is kind of disappointing.

When I was young, I was convinced that all the bad in the world, was the fault of evil, greedy old men. If young folks ran things, we’d be empathetic, kind, ethical, and positive.

As SV is basically completely run by young folks, of various races, genders, and backgrounds , I have to admit that it is actually worse, than the evil old men.

There is only one reason that tech hires young and that's the growth rate in the number of software engineers. The profession looks young simple because there are probably 10x as many now as there were 30 years ago, so naturally there will be a whole lot less 50 year olds than 20 year olds.

This is not new: read articles of transcripts of speeches from 10+ years ago by Thiel or pg that lionize young, inexperienced founders and the benefits of working at startups pitched to the youth.

> kids tend to blur this even more for many.

I think OP meant the opposite -- that when people have children in the Bay Area and want to support them, they'll make moral compromises to do so, given the cost.

The very young may not grasp what they are doing, and they may be easily "boiled as frogs", but I think they are more likely to believe that they are not making moral compromises.

Envy is powerful too.