Who Counts as the Working Class in Tech?
Since the Great Layoffation of 2022-2023 commenced, I’ve read lots of pieces on the sharpness of lines being drawn between capital allocators and the working class. The most recent one I skimmed is here.
One tidy quote sums it up:
I’m going to make an assertion here: If you are (or were) a tech worker — a software engineer, a site reliability engineer, a product manager, you know, the kind of people who actually do the work — you’re not in the same class as the tech executive.
The tech executive is in the capital class. They are compensated with 7-figure stock packages. Their interest is in maintaining the security of their position by upholding the values of their class. They share no interests with you.
If you haven’t grasped this idea yet, just move on. Go read Hacker News. Read Leetcode’s advice to the lovelorn. This isn’t for you.
I’ve lived many lives in tech, and I have a bit of a difficult time grasping the idea that workers and the capital class are clearly drawn-in. I think what is happening right now is the class battle that product marketers, salespeople, comms, and HR workers in tech have been facing for decades is finally coming to the engineering class, and (just like those other groups) they’re discovering that they, too, are replaceable. Of the three layoffs I’ve experienced in the industry, zero percent of them involved anyone on the technical side — so, admittedly, my experience is somewhat biased.
On the same beat, there isn’t a truly unified capital class, either: there is a stark difference in power between LPs and VCs, for example, especially more junior VCs whom, even with a partner title, don’t have access to self-sustained deal flow nor any ownership stake in the outcomes of the fund. In many ways, the latter is simply an investment banker with more Twitter clout.
All that said, though, I think it is a good thing that the engineering class - with it sitting at the top of the worker class food chain - to finally see what folks in non-engineering roles in tech faced for many years. More solidarity is a better thing.
But I just hope that this collective ire isn’t directed at some VC associate (unless, of course, they’re an unashamed sycophant of your neighborhood billionaire). They’re just as much a cog in the system as the other 99.9 percent of us, and if there is to be true, philosophical changes in our current iteration of capitalism, we need to acknowledge and embrace that.