People say all publicity is good publicity, right? Well, I think it’s safe to say that most of tech’s heavy hitters would disagree with that statement after 2018. There seemed to be controversy every single day; a dark cloud seemed to be parked above Silicon Valley (and other spots) that only grew bigger and bigger. I could write an entire book about all the CRAZY SH*T that happened but don’t worry; I’ll give you Cliff’s Notes version.
Facebook: Where do I begin? They spied on all kinds of users, to anyone with a checkbook. And to make matters worse, people didn’t have to be logged into the site. Think about that for a minute. Mark Zuckerberg knew where you were and what you were doing on a regular basis. He influenced users the way you only see in a movie like A Clockwork Orange. My takeaway? STOP USING FACEBOOK!
Google: Where have I heard this one before: *Uber cough-cough* Male executives were getting away with sexual harassment. Thankfully, employees marched out and demanded more from their company. I applaud that. And I also applaud the fact that they threatened strikes if Google went ahead with Project Dragonfly, a secretive contract to build a censored search engine for the Chinese market that complies with the authoritarian Chinese government’s requirements. Seriously, do these executives have any integrity? You’re supposed to be leading the world in innovation, and you’re going to create a censored search engine? Hmm, wonder if my search is censored to the highest bidder. Oh, I forgot… it is.
Elon Musk: Talk about a midlife crisis. First of all, you don’t smoke weed so stop making a fool of yourself on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Secondly, stay out of Chicago/LA with your stupid tunnel ideas. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen in my life. Not to mention, if it’s anything like your Model 3, we will probably have flying cars by the time the project is completed. Elon, you wanted the “cool guy” (you aren’t cool) spotlight… how’s it going for ya buddy? Stay in your lane. Keep making cars and flying people to space.
Apple: I’ll just leave it at this: now that customers have to pay full price for your phones they aren’t selling as well, and you’re surprised about that?
I could go on and on about other companies like YouTube, Uber, Amazon, and Twitter (the latter could have its separate blog with the bots, racists, and scum that are tearing apart our country) but I wanted to keep the narrative simple. Silicon Valley has been doing some very unethical things in hiding, and now that they are being exposed we realize how big and powerful they are. We need to keep them in the spotlight. Think about that the next time your Google search pulls an ad for something you were just talking about.