I remember when I was growing up, tech industry has so many people that were admirable, and you wanted to aspire to be in life. Bill Gates, founders of Google Larry Page, Sergey brin, Steve Jobs (wasn’t perfect but on a surface level, he was still at least a pretty decent guy), basically everyone involved in gaming from Xbox to PlayStation and so on, Tom from MySpace… So many admirable people who were actually really great…
Now, people are just trash. Look at Mark Zuckerberg who leads Facebook. Dude is a lizard man, anytime you think he has shown some character growth he does something truly horrible and illegal that he should be thrown in prison for. For example, he’s been buying up properties in Hawaii and basically stealing them from the locals. He’s basically committing human rights violations by violating the culture of Hawaiian natives and their land deeds that are passed down from generation to generation. He has been systematically stealing them and building a wall on Hawaii, basically a f*cking colonizer. That’s what the guy is. I thought he was a good upstanding person until I learned all these things about him
Current CEO of Google is peak dirtbag. Dude has no interest in the company or it’s success at all, his only concern is patting his pockets while he is there as CEO, and appeasing the shareholders. He has zero interest in helping or making anyone’s life pleasant at the company. Truly a dirtbag in every way.
Current CEO of Home Depot, which I now consider a tech company because they have moved out of retail and into the online space and they are rapidly restructuring their entire business around online sales, that dude is a total piece of work conservative racist. I remember working for this company, This dude’s entire focus is eliminating as many people as feasibly possible from working in the store, making their life living heck, does not see people as human beings at all. Just wants to eliminate anyone and everyone they possibly can, think they are a slave labor force
Elon musk, we all know about him, don’t need to really say much. Every time you think he’s doing something good for society, he proves you wrong And does the worst thing he can possibly do in that situation. It’s like he’s specifically trying to make the world the worst place possible everyday
Like, damn. What the heck happened to the world? You know? I thought the tech industry was supposed to be filled with these brilliant genius people who are really good for the world…
They still exist and they’re just as unheard of as the unsung heroes who brought us the digital revolution of the 20th century.
Alan Turing, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Gary Kildall, the list goes on. At least Torvalds and Stallman got some recognition for what they did within their respective communities, even if the latter is a bit of a creep.
All of those people where far more important to computing, and far less famous. Just like how no one really thinks about the developers holding up the open source projects which function as the bedrock of our modern society. They’re more interested in company heads than actual technologists, or more accurate, that’s what the people in power are more interested in.
Actual engineers tend to have pesky things like morals and ethics.
The people you list didn’t prioritize money, so they’re not billionaires, so don’t apply to OP’s question.
A crowd is attracted to those whom it feels to be strong and without this:
, and also it’s mostly comprised of people who are not engineers, but are maybe strong against someone here and there.
So they just identify with those who are on top via social and not technical means. It’s easier and makes them feel good.