I quit Twitter because I realized that it was at risk of conditioning me to be addicted to meaningless micro-approvals.
The quality of thoughts definitely improves once they are “my own private thoughts” and you’re not rehearsing, in your mind ad nauseum, explaining them to other people.
One thing I have learned about this industry is that it encourages self-promotion and publicity early, but as you progress in your career, that can hurt you. A public reputation, even a “good” one, is an albatross that just raises expectations and can cause problems. I’ve seen really top-notch people (with public reputations) driven out of companies because others on the team perceived, not always incorrectly, that (a) they were getting preferential treatment because of their publicity, and (b) that they would blow off job duties that didn’t support their public reputations.
Once you’re 10 years in and you’re competing for managerial or specialist positions that are very rare, publicity is a pain in the ass… especially because most companies want bland, ethically pliable people for management roles, and not people who’ve taken a public stand (whether by repping a cultural issue or by supporting an open-source library). I understand why people pull the infamous “410 GONE” move.
The problem is that in the corporate world, there’s a lot of confusion about what we’re supposed to be. Employers love to say that they want creative, risk-taking people. In fact, most of the time, they want mindless, consistent subordinates. It isn’t politically correct for them to say that, though.
When you’re out in the public as someone who would, say, refuse to do something unethical just to protect a few already overfed executives, it can cause trouble. And my long-term pattern of vocal antifascism has certainly made me quite a few enemies in Silicon Valley.
[Comment removed by author]
I quit Twitter because I realized that it was at risk of conditioning me to be addicted to meaningless micro-approvals.
The quality of thoughts definitely improves once they are “my own private thoughts” and you’re not rehearsing, in your mind ad nauseum, explaining them to other people.
One thing I have learned about this industry is that it encourages self-promotion and publicity early, but as you progress in your career, that can hurt you. A public reputation, even a “good” one, is an albatross that just raises expectations and can cause problems. I’ve seen really top-notch people (with public reputations) driven out of companies because others on the team perceived, not always incorrectly, that (a) they were getting preferential treatment because of their publicity, and (b) that they would blow off job duties that didn’t support their public reputations.
Once you’re 10 years in and you’re competing for managerial or specialist positions that are very rare, publicity is a pain in the ass… especially because most companies want bland, ethically pliable people for management roles, and not people who’ve taken a public stand (whether by repping a cultural issue or by supporting an open-source library). I understand why people pull the infamous “410 GONE” move.
[Comment removed by author]
Right. This is absolutely correct.
The problem is that in the corporate world, there’s a lot of confusion about what we’re supposed to be. Employers love to say that they want creative, risk-taking people. In fact, most of the time, they want mindless, consistent subordinates. It isn’t politically correct for them to say that, though.
When you’re out in the public as someone who would, say, refuse to do something unethical just to protect a few already overfed executives, it can cause trouble. And my long-term pattern of vocal antifascism has certainly made me quite a few enemies in Silicon Valley.