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> I’m an optimist who works in technology because I think tech can be a lever for democratizing access and giving opportunity.

Is anyone else tired of this worn-out canard? It seems like every message in my LinkedIn inbox is from some company "democratizing" this or that nowadays. Any tech company aspiring to a large customer base now makes a generic claim to liberating the masses as well.

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I literally have those sentences framed in our offices, to remind my employees that we are just making software. Sentences taken from websites we stumble across, like « We advance humanity » or « 125 years experience with the future », all on backgrounds of cute things which people pretend to be helping because they provide the software that helps build a machine for the doctor who helps a kid in Africa. Let’s be humble, as employees the company is here to provide us with experience and pay, and hopefully a good time; We must be mindful of the community we’re in and always talk to the old lady upstairs and lend our drill to the father who’s rebuilding his bathroom in the building; and the software we build has a nice role among the million other cogs that make society work. No go back to taking care of your families ;)

It honestly has a negative connotation for me since it’s been so overused to almost be meaningless. It either means they have no business model or their business model is surveillance for profit. Big red flag.

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