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Comment by robbiewxyz | Hacker News Reader

Small nit, but these folks 100% can not be described as the "tech community". They're owners of big tech monopolies, their VC backers, and our new oligarchs. Tech community, however, they are not.

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You need to get to know your own industry.

"These folks" can absolutely be described as the tech community:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_Tunney

> In March 2014, Tunney petitioned the US government on We the People to hold a referendum asking for support to retire all government employees with full pensions, transfer administrative authority to the technology industry, and appoint the executive chairman of Google Eric Schmidt as CEO of America.

DOGE is staffed precisely by the tech elite. Like 20 year old grads who are elite programmers winning competitions, that type.

Are they not part of the tech community now? You highly overestimate the political homogeneity of the tech community, because opposing voices were previously so shut down. You would be surprised by what your co-workers are thinking deep down.

That feels like a No True Scotsman argument after decades of chasing VC approval, prestigious jobs at those huge companies, and adopting their practices and software. I don’t like the oligarchy either but it’s a huge part of the tech world under any definition I can come up with. We’re having this conversation on a board run by one of the VC firms with partners who are openly supportive of what’s going on, after all - is this not part of the tech community?

I mean, HN doesn't have a leg to stand on, but I would say there's a difference between "big tech" and "tech startups", community-wise.

People who love working at Big Tech love it for everything people who go for the Startup World hate, and vice versa.

Sure, but there’s a lot of shared culture even though they have distinct subgroups. I don’t think the guys in the news wouldn’t be welcomed at most startups.

Honestly fair enough. Pay package over principles does pretty well describe the policy of far too many of the colleagues I've worked with over the years.

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