I don’t blame him, but Ian Dunt started his column last week with this:

Somewhere along the line, technology went from something hopeful to something threatening.

Given the continued overreach of the trillion Dollar companies (Meta, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon) this is understandable. Whether we like it or not, these companies have an outsized influence on the technologies we use. Their success allows them to push into even more niches, from your phone, to your watch, to your speakers, to your car, to your fridge. When they collectively decided that AI was the next big thing, they subjected us to it, whether we wanted it or not. These companies farm your personal information so they can sell advertising¹, and obscure what they do to make it impossible to opt-out or give informed consent.

Worse², to further their goals, they try to curry favour with tawdry politicians by contributing money and time and undeserved compliments.

You can see why we’re questioning our dependence on tech.

However, these few companies are not the tech industry. They don’t speak for the entire industry any more than Walmart speaks for your local corner shop.

I’m biased, of course. I work in the tech industry, though never for any of Big Tech³. My belief in technology changing the world for the better came before my career. I loved nineties era Wired because of that positivity.

You may have read this quote before:

We are told to be angry, bitter, and resentful about technology… Technology is the glory of human ambition and achievement, the spearhead of progress, and the realization of our potential.

While more hyperbolic than I would have been, I mostly think it’s directionally correct.

Unfortunately, I can’t endorse the whole article, which is Andreesen’s famous piece about techno-optimism. He takes that positivity as a starting point and veers off into some nasty capitalistic hellscape. Not my thing at all.

Do their vast riches distort and desensitise them? Can they no longer appreciate what it’s like to live and work in the Real World?

From a position of substantially less privilege⁴:

I wonder what the point of [their] wealth and power is if [they] will only use it for more wealth and power?

(This quote is about Tim Cook but applies to all the CEOs to some extent.)

In any case, despite their wealth and influence, tech is far from only Big Tech. Most people in tech don’t work for them. Most innovations that happen do not come from them, much as their marketing might suggest otherwise⁵.

The products that most of us work on are not going to save the world. We’re not curing cancer, or solving the climate emergency, or ending homelessness. Then again, we’re not mining personal information or lobbying to avoid regulation. But I think most of us believe that we’re making the world better, even if only a little.

The software I work on helps people get their credit card rewards sooner, quickly prices their new glasses, make contactless payments speedy and reliable, and ensures that the parts to repair your car are available faster⁶. None of these things are life changing, but all make people’s lives incrementally more pleasant.

The tech industry isn’t all social networks and messaging services and AI chatbots. You probably don’t notice most of it, and you almost certainly haven’t heard of the companies or people making them.

That invisibility and the incremental nature of improvements means it’s easy to miss them. But there are thousands of companies and millions of people pushing forward. Even if most fail – and they will – there will be many great ideas.

When I think of the tech industry, that’s what comes to mind. Their sheer size and influence means that we can’t ignore Big Tech but it’s a mistake to conflate them with everyone else.

Update (2 February, 2025): Halle Winkler made an excellent point that I got quite close to making but didn’t quite get there.

There are simply a huge number of people in this industry, big tech or not, who resonate with the industry Leitmotif of not applying humanism to their choices.

When I read the Andreesen quote, I imbue it with humanism because that’s how I see the world. I want it to be true! I do not believe that technology is inherently good, rather that with care and thought it can be used to enhance our lives. As Halle notes, this take is not shared by everyone.

I guess the question is how many people in the industry subscribe to each philosophy? There is probably no way to know. In my bubble, I know very few who take Andreesen’s tech-is-inherently-good outlook. That’s unlikely to be representative. However, I want to believe.