Yar
May 13, 2014 at 7:42 AM
On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 12:49 PM, Ryan Bethencourt
<ryan.bethencourt@gmail.com> wrote:

Marc I know you have a belief in moving technology that helps people and
increases access for all and act on it, which I fully support and partner
with you on where I can. I believe in putting people first too but I'm not
against the profit motive, especially if it's driven by a mission to do
broader good.

I don't however agree with your view on google or engineers that work for
google. I've met some really great people who work at google and are very
giving of their time and resources to help their local communities and I'm
sure there are some who are part of the Sudo community who do likewise. I
think it does us no good to speak in exclusionary terms of any group of
people, I think it's okay to criticize an individual for their actions if
they're not being excellent to people or animals but whenever we clump
people into groups we risk doing exactly what we're against, which is being
exclusionary.


I don't think there is any danger of that. Our community already
includes many people who work for large tech companies. Some of my
favorite people. They generally have nuanced analyses of the ethics
involved, recognize the compromises they are making, and will probably
say they are "working within the system," or at least donate their
disposable income towards good things. Very few would say "I'm
profiting. Yay!"

In fact, I'd say the average tech worker is very bad at profit motive.
Otherwise we'd have a strong union, be earning a larger piece of the
pie, and not letting our labor, talent and wealth be so transparently
leeched off by big companies and landowners, which is exactly what's
happening, to the detriment of everybody else.

Now this is interesting, if you haven't, I'd recommend Venkatash Rao's analysis of what he feels is the current shift which is occuring in the post industrial economy (which I actually think is part of a new economic era, we're only at the start):

"For the last few months, I’ve been cautiously testing a radical-sounding hypothesis on smart people: entrepreneurs are the new labor. Or to put it in a more useful way, the balance of power between investors and entrepreneurs that marks the early, frontier days of a major technology wave (Moore’s Law and the Internet in this case) has fallen apart. Investors have won, and their dealings with the entrepreneur class now look far more like the dealings between management and labor (with overtones of parent/child and teacher/student).  Those who are attracted to true entrepreneurship are figuring out new ways to work around the traditional investor class. The investor class in turn is struggling to deal with the unpleasant consequences of an outright victory. "

http://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2012/09/03/entrepreneurs-are-the-new-labor-part-i/


I know you're not exclusionary, I just wanted to make sure there's a clear
voice in the discussion that welcomes all people, Google engineer or not, to
Sudo room to come and help us make the community and world better through
technology.


Standing up for the subjugated voice of Google engineers is great and
all, but I wouldn't quite call it "welcoming all people". May any of
us someday earn the right to use that phrase.
I think we can all earn the right to use that phrase daily with our actions and our thoughts, no one is perfect and I hope one day there will be no need to earn that right, all people will know they're welcome at any institution without any discrimination. Until then, I hope to earn the right every day by my words and actions.
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Ryan Bethencourt

Tel: (415) 825 2705
ryan.bethencourt@gmail.com
@ryanbethencourt