Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

I agree that any group of people will eventually have some form of conflict but I don't agree that a hierarchical structure is the only way to resolve said conflict. You could just as easily apply any of the methods of governance that humanity has devised to resolve a conflict so I don't think the method of governance is crucial to the resolution of conflict. I think that getting both parties to agree to a satisfactory resolution is what is critical. That can be done with force as in a hierarchy where an external party enforces a resolution on both conflicting parties or it could be done without outside intervention, this obviously happens all the time in a variety of situations.

Ideally, every conflict should be able to be resolved directly by the people involved without additional harm being caused. Maybe there is a way through education or other tools that we can build that would allow people to resolve any conflict in such a manner? Maybe prevention is the best remedy and there exists a way to defuse conflict before it reaches a level that cannot be easily resolved. My point is that resorting to authority or force is not the only solution.

Of course not. I may enjoy cleaning up my own messes, but not one that someone else has foisted upon me. The problem with teams like this is that the fast-movers are long gone by the time the impact of their expediency is being felt. They benefit from the accolades of a launch while shirking the responsibility of operating a product.

> In this case, why do you do it?

Because the product sucks and needs to be improved, but it is an unimprovable mess because everything was done expediently instead of well, some of which needs to be fixed in order to move forward. A lot of the hard work at this point is in figuring out the best pragmatic balance of what to fix vs. what to leave alone. A little forethought could have saved a lot of post-facto toil.

I do like iteration, doing things in small iterative chunks. But that is not the same as putting out a huge mess and hoping someone comes along who enjoys cleaning it up.

1) Part of what you experience is just gaining wisdom with age. You see how things really work, and you get disillusioned. The thrill of early experiences, does diminish over time. And that's not just software. The thrill of your first bicycle ride, is not reproducible. The sense of freedom you had, after that, riding around unsupervised -- that goes away too, obviously.

2) The word "tech" has changed radically over the years. I joined my first "high tech startup" in 1988. We really were doing technology that was just barely feasible at the time. The entire company was seven people -- founder, biz/ops guy, VP of engineering, four engineers. That was FUN. Figuring out how to solve these problems, seeing the parts come to life, seeing the whole thing come together, seeing it work for users as planned. In an environment like that, you really feel like you are doing something special, that you are lucky to be there, and you just want to spend all of your time on it. The fact that it might actually be worth serious money someday -- even better.

This incredibly exciting sense of being in a tech startup spread. Large companies would entice you by saying, this group is just like a startup within Megacorp. And I never understood how that fooled anyone. In that situation, you aren't scratching your itch, you are scratching Megacorp's itch, and that's a lot less exciting. There aren't seven of you. Outside your group, there are 700 or 7,000 or 70,000. Maybe you get a little bonus, or equity, but you don't own a chunk of the company YOU started.

However, Megacorp and similar companies definitely saw the advantage of getting their employees to commit to their work in the manner of startup employees, and so you get places like Google that gradually switch the incentive. First you want to be there all the time (back when Google was a startup). Then they make it enticing to be there all the time (campus, massages, gourmet dining, on-campus laundry and exercise, etc.). And finally, it's just expected. Being available and productive (or at least seeming to be) 24/7 is just the way things are at Megacorp these days.

And then finally, the last piece of it goes away: the interesting tech. "Tech" companies are no longer solving barely solvable, new problems. They are doing more of the same, implementing dull and possibly harmful goals for the sake of Megacorp. Megacorp is no more a tech company than it is an electricity company. It uses both to meet its goals, and you are merely someone familiar with either bits or electrons, using them in well-worn ways for the sole purpose of enriching Megacorp.

This is both a great pop song, and the lyrics really capture the disillusionment that sets in, although in a very different environment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1-EPTAFE0o

Got a little essay on that:

https://realminority.wordpress.com/