Some things I’m thinking about.

  1. Act Your Wage
  2. Tech startup exploitation of labor
  3. personal examples of being hired for 10x as theater

Act Your Wage is a phrase I recently heard. It stuck with me. It exhibits class conciousness in a typically American way. Not too much Marx but enough to make you think, right? It’s always good to know the kids are alright. This was brought to my attention by a Gen Z wage worker in a cafe. Nice work if you can get it. Coffee is serious business. Way more than my own early adulthood. How can Act Your Wage be brought into the tech worker trades? Most of us aren’t on wage. A select few of us get shockingly high salaries. But it’s not too hard to break these bi-weekly, or monthly distributions into a rough hourly wage. On top of that, there is a whole class of consultants that are wage workers, though more similar to lawyers and private doctors than factory machine operators and baristas. But there’s something there…can tech workers experience wage theft? I think so. I also think there are ways to fight back.

Startups have a reputation outside of silicon valley as the domain of young geniuses who can see what is unseen, reveal it to the people (or more likely private markets) and assign a price for this insight. The owners of the wealth that funds this mythology are gambling on it. Demonstrated high performance through shipping results, growing users, pleasing board members and gaining praise through media is valued. The key myth is going “from one to ten” and consequently, 10x. This is a bad myth at best and destructive at worst. It’s anti-worker and promotes exploitation of labor. We need to fight back.

On the 10x to 1x upgrade, there’s a rich history of startup founder who are exploited by their investors and board members to deliver 10x engineers. They comb the world for top talent and offer huge promises or incentives to spend time with their company, not a competitors. What makes a 10x engineer? It’s never one single thing. If I knew every one this story would sound different. I’m looking forward to exploring this corporate mythmaking more in depth later this week.