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...
Bill Gates was a huge piece of shit in his heyday, rivalling the Zuckerberg and Musks of today, and Jobs was an abusive narcissist shitcunt on a surface level.
Tom and Zuckerberg both came from the same time. Zuck was shit since day 1, today has nothing to do with it.
I think you just have some very rose tinted glasses.
Going back even further is assholes like Edison and Ford.
I think it’s easier to name the people who have been decent in tech. Woz seems like a decent guy.
Ted Waite all in all was decent. Not perfect but decent.
Stallman was right about everything
Stallman is a notable figure in the industry but he was never the leader of a large tech company. That’s probably why he’s a decent guy
He was a big defender of paedophilia, necrophilia, incest, and bestiality. He thinks people should have the right to fuck their pets and their children. Not to mention the reports on his creepy behaviour with women.
Stallman is an incredible steward of FOSS, and he's been very prescient in predicting the absolute nightmare of proprietary software, but he is not a decent guy overall IMO.
It hurt me to find that out, because I looked up to him. But I guess it's another sobering reminder of why celebrity worship is bad. I see way too many people try to bury or deny his scummy side, just because they worship him as a FOSS celebrity figure.
Let's note that necrophilia with mutual agreement (pre-mortem, and same with cannibalism) and incest with mutual agreement (between adults) are fucked up, but should be defended. Animals can't consent, children can't consent, so not that.
That - yeah.
Believing in discourses and narratives without understanding that they are never real is bad.
You can believe only in what you see with your own eyes since inception and till death.
Why are you saying between adults, as if that's what he said? He was talking about children. I even provided multiple examples of him saying so.
He's saying all of those. Those concerning children obviously can't.
I had never heard that about him. That’s disappointing.
Yeah, for me too. Because I love practically everything he says when it comes to software.
RMS on June 28th, 2003
RMS on June 5th, 2006
RMS on Jan 4th, 2013
In the interest of fairness, he did claim to have changed his mind on some of this, although that only happened 2 days after his job became on the line after making strange comments about Epstein/Epstein clients/Epstein victims, particularly in presenting Epstein's underage sex workers as being willing.
For me, suddenly having a change of heart on a decades-held (and publicly-championed) opinion, only to suddenly change your mind the second it threatens your job seems a bit too convenient, so I'm unwilling to believe it.
Holy shit...
Well, the opinion that a child can consent is technically acceptable, because the line at 12,13,14,16,18,21 years is arbitrarily drawn which is why it differs in various countries.
But in practice he should have used common sense and at least drawn his own line.
That's scary, but I'm not sure how really wrong he is. The issue is again with child's consent being less certain, affected more easily by various distractions.
So am I, the question is whether he has internal consistency or not in his views. If yes, it's still better than, well, just being a jerk and proud of it.
This charitable interpretation doesn't make sense when you remember that he also says it's a shame people can't have sex with animals/their family pets. They definitely cannot consent, even if you argue that a 12 year old could (which I'd also disagree with).
Well, a cat is what, equivalent to an 8yo in terms of intelligence? My intention is to be charitable with interpretations. It makes arguments better.
I don't, but I think in Iceland age of consent is 13 and in some Russian regions 14 in certain situations (generally 16). Talking about laws.
I would say it’s not a sincere change. It’s groupthink.
Well the skit keeps getting smaller and smaller
You think being against having sex with infants is "groupthink" (i.e. a group pressuring individuals into having – or expressing – an irrational or dysfunctional view)?
I don't think that's true. I'm against raping children because it's wrong.
That isn't what I said at all. It's weird that you would come to that conclusion. What I clearly said is his change is just repeating what he was told to say. I don't think his views changed, he is just repeating what people want to hear.
The FSF isn't exactly what you think of when you hear the words "large tech company"… but you could argue that in some ways it is one couldn't you… 😁😛
You could, but the OP is talking about the people who became filthy rich or at least notable. I don't know if Tom ever made any real money. Almost all of the people listed used their corporate power to smash competition and dominate the market.
If anything, Stallman is the antithesis of most of these people.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tom-myspace-sold-social-media-153011703.html?guccounter=1
Don't know how he invested it but the guy certainly wouldn't have had to work another day in his life
What he did is important, but he's definitely an asshole as well
Old captain crunch is another one that turned out to be a weirdo
I think you have that backwards.
While at the sametime being a gross person.
Gabe too.
There are no good billionaires
You don't even know whether Gabe is or isn't a billionaire.
Why are we using his first name
Because people think he's their friend because he offers a good product when the truth is he's just another one of those leeches at the top of a big company taking money from people's pockets and accumulating it while their clients can barely afford to pay rent.
Why not?
https://www.forbes.com/profile/gabe-newell/
https://luxurylaunches.com/transport/gabe-newell-luxury-yachts.php
If he wasn't a billionaire it would be very simple, there are no good multi millionaires either!
Ok, I was wrong, I didn't know about all the boats and the second company/charity.
The Forbes thing is just an educated guess though. And are you saying anyone with 2 million dollars or anyone with 2m in assets is automatically a bad person?
People around you are starving and barely able to afford to pay rent and you're worth 2m? Sorry my man, you're one of those who is taking advantage of the system.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/28/americans-median-net-worth-by-age.html
Overall the median is under 200k, you're talking about someone worth ten times that.
If you want to say that about billionaires that's one thing but by that logic wouldn't many people with a small a business or trying to retire be considered "bad".
If you're trying to retire and it's all based on being worth 2m+ from real estate or investments in the stock market or whatever else, you very much are part of the problem. Capitalism is the issue here. People who are worth 2m+ because they bought a house for 50k back in 1975 are just lucky enough to be profiting from it, but the end result is the same, they bought a house that could be purchased on one salary that four median income couldn't afford today! How is that sustainable?
So let's say I bought an apartment building and now it's worth 2+ million, what should I do to make amends for my situation?
Sure hope you're renting they shit for peanuts
Well that's my point lol. Renting out apartments isn't inherently evil, just like owning a business isn't inherently evil. If I charge a reasonable rent, then owning 2+ million in assets doesn't automatically make me a bad person.
Thing is the reason it's worth that much is because rent is enough to cover a mortgage on that much, right? So yeah, you're part of the machine that makes sure most people stay poor.
Daniel Stenberg seems like a nice guy.
It's hard to beat ignoring doctors and not treating your very treatable form of cancer, then using your wealth to get a liver transplant and then dying anyway. Dude committed manslaughter because of his own arrogance.
Bill Gates was a ruthless businessman destroying competition but as far as I know he didn't support fascists or facilitate pogroms.
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter has done far more harm to our societies than whatever shady tactics Bill Gates used.
Not to take away from Zuckerberg, Musk, and the less-known people in tech like Thiel, but Bill Gates was and is a huge piece of shit who harmed more than just his competitors. Among other things he convinced the world that we need IP and patents for covid vaccines instead of sharing them freely, which alone cost countless lives around the world. I don't even want to know what other ills his "philanthropy" has and will cause. https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines
Gates and Jobs both are responsible for consumer based computing. Proprietary software lynched what should have been a global birth of inventive software engineers.
The crap that Zuck shills had its groundwork laid by those two.
That actually happened. Just wasn't perpetuated after 1995 or something.
Adding to that, Bill Gates put quite some effort into image building and mostly succeeded.
Before Microsoft, programmers were treated like factory workers by HP and IBM and setup in large open floor rooms like a secretary pool from the 1960's. Gates thought programmers were important and gave every programmer a private office.
Gates did dirty tricks to competitors even to tiny ones they could have bought out (stacker). But he was never Musk's level of evil.