I like my job. It also feels like a prison.
On the year I spent doing live audio full time, the back injury that ended it, and what employer-tied healthcare actually does to the people depending on it.
Posts tagged "values"
Dave, you should be sorry
His most recent blog post is the worst one, but it isn't new. I read two-plus years of David Heinemeier Hansson's writing, and then watched someone I respect get excited to work with him anyway.
I'm more productive with AI. Why doesn't my paycheck reflect that?
AI has made me measurably faster at my job. My salary hasn't moved. Here's where I think that value is actually going.
If Zuckerberg's right about AI and power, why doesn't it feel right?
Meta's new AI manifesto makes an argument I've made myself, about concentrated power being the real danger. That's exactly why it's worth taking apart.
If AI is unethical, so is your phone
Webinar comments rage about AI ethics and never once mention the cobalt in the phone they typed it on. The selectivity is the actual story.
Is Elon Musk right about universal high income?
Elon Musk says AI and robots will make work optional and hand everyone a universal high income. He never explains how ownership gets from him to everyone else.
Why do I think my AI use is okay?
I use AI every day and I think AI art is bad for the world. Here's my attempt to think through why - honestly.
Who's responsible for what my agent does
I used to have a clear answer to this question. Agentic AI is making it harder.
Who's verifying your Claude account
Anthropic's new identity verification policy is narrower than the takes suggest. The vendor they hired to do it is not.
There is enough for everyone
A record I've been listening to since I was a kid turns out to have been right all along.
There is no ethical way to become a trillionaire
There's no loophole, no asterisk, no charitable reading that makes this false.
Erasure is the first step. What comes next is worse.
The first books the Nazis burned were about trans people. The fire is the part you remember. The erasure was done by everything that came after - and the same kind of machinery is being assembled now, in public, by companies whose names we know.
Yet you participate in society. Curious.
On the cognitive dissonance of working in tech while knowing what tech is doing.
Conditional values aren't values
Sticking to your values is easy until it costs you something. That's when you find out if you actually have them.
Is AI going to solve all of our problems?
AI is powerful. That's not the interesting question. The interesting question is why we haven't solved these problems already.
The Palantir Manifesto is a technofascist blueprint
The Technological Republic isn't political philosophy. It's the ideological scaffolding for technofascism, written by the people who profit from it.
The tech industry built the machinery of American fascism
Scholars say the U.S. no longer qualifies as a democracy. The tech industry built the tools that made this possible.
Watch the videos. Then tell me who the terrorists are.
Federal agents executed two US citizens in Minneapolis in three weeks. Neither was breaking any laws. The administration is now using their deaths to demand access to Minnesota's voter rolls.
What the hell are you still doing on X?
Every post you or your company makes on X legitimizes a platform flooding with CSAM and hate speech. Your brand presence is an endorsement. It's time to leave - publicly.
Where do we draw the line? On building tools and unintended consequences
What happens when a tool you built with good intentions ends up causing harm? Exploring where we draw the line between building tools and responsibility.
Find your spark bird
Before Fleet, I joined Jamf and Fastly early. Both grew explosively, Now I'm making the same bet again. Here's the pattern I follow.
Did I write this, or did an LLM?
A colleague recently found out that I use an LLM as part of my blog writing process, and they told me that this changes how they see my writing. But my blog posts haven't changed, only the knowledge of how I made them. Does that change the value of my writing? And if so, why? These questions are complicated, and I don't have the answers. Neither do you.
Mourning missing milestones
Reflecting on what would have been my 10-year anniversary at my former company while celebrating 2 months at Fleet. On institutional betrayal, grieving what was lost, and why alignment matters more than tenure.
Why I'll always help a competitor (and why that's not weird)
Why helping competitors isn't weird in the Mac Admin community. On collaboration, friendship, and why we share configs across company lines.
When did caring about people become political?
I've spent most of my career trying to stay out of political discussions in professional spaces. Not because I don't have opinions, but because in tech communities, we've generally agreed that keeping our professional spaces focused on the work creates room for everyone. That's still true. This isn't about that.
Why moving from management to IC isn't a step backwards
Moving from management to individual contributor isn't a demotion or a step backward. It's a deliberate choice to align your work with what you actually want to do.
My first month at Fleet: the onboarding paradox
After one month at Fleet Device Management, here's what I've learned about remote work, open-source product development, and building something that matters.
Can company culture survive capitalism?
Can you build a healthy company culture within a capitalist system that fundamentally rewards the opposite? Maybe. But only if you're willing to accept that the contradictions are features, not bugs.
My first week at Fleet: finding alignment
Starting at Fleet Device Management: First impressions of remote work, open-source development, and a company that actually practices what it preaches about transparency and empathy.