Making a Better World, and Making Money are not Compatible Objectives

This what made Silicon Valley intolerable for me. For it, making money was more important than anything else. And no one noticed this was its fundamental objective. That would have been too embarrassing.

Every one said they were making a better world, but what they actually did, was far different.

In the first job I had as a Tech Writer, in Orange County, in the Eighties - I was hired to make the destruction of a fine company seem like a good thing. It was the first company to get into Computer Graphics. This was a huge breakthrough in Computer technology.

A secret group plotted to take over the company. At a meeting of its Board of Directors, the President of the company, who was responsible for its success, was fired - and a new group took over. They now owned the cow, and they were going to milk it for all it was worth.

Looking back at it, this is easy to see. But at the time, this was not obvious at all - because they covered their tracks so well. No one kept track of where all the company money went, and they could quietly pocket much of its money - as long as they remained legal, which they were usually careful to do. They were legal bank robbers, and they carefully honed their skills. And without knowing it, I was helping them along.

This went on for twenty years (1980-2000) in Southern California and then in Silicon Valley.

I would like to say, I had a clear idea of what was going on. But I didn't, I just felt something was not right - and didn't know if that was because of me, or something else. Everyone was saying, I was in the wrong, not everyone else. A very confusing situation!

What I actually did, was pretty radical - I moved to Costa Rica, and stayed here. I can look back, and see what was wrong - but cannot explain this to anyone else.

I want to give credit to the NY Times, and its article Sundar Pichai of Google: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’