Ask HN: Are “progressive” tech companies actually narcissistic?
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I think the tech companies you are thinkg are liberals, not progressive. You are free to give your "soul" to them and the benefits are clear. They are not progressive per si: they don't invest in growing their collaborators just for that fact, but to get return from it.
For example, my parents made it seem like our family was very special, and I was lucky to be a part of it, because most other families suck and this one didn't. The reality is most families don't suck nearly to the extent my parents claim, and in fact our own family sucks way more than they claimed.
We say so often that traditional, boring industries are awful to work at. And that we're lucky to be working where we do. But in reality what I'm beginning to see is a bunch of CEOs/executive teams taking advantage of young adults who don't know (yet) what it means to have work-life balance and who are yearning to be a part of a community. So while the tech industry says "we don't hire old people because they're too far behind the times and we need to disrupt them", it's more like "we don't hire old people because they won't let their work-life boundaries get stomped on and they aren't going to enmesh their identity with their workplace".
Another example is my parents laid out expectations very poorly. I often had to second-guess what they said and try figure out what they really wanted, and it felt like I was walking on a minefield. A similar thing happens at these tech companies when they say flexible hours, flexible vacation, and flexible "you can choose what you want to work on".
So I propose this as a topic to debate: We think the tech industry is progressive and we have a lot to teach other industries but the industry is actually regressive and destroying traditions that benefit employees.