How to Work in Tech Without Losing Your Soul

It’s not as hard as you think

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These days, whenever you hear the word “tech,” it’s easy to get a bad taste in your mouth.

How can you not cringe whenever you read about billionaires shooting themselves into space or tech behemoths forcing warehouse workers to pee in bottles?

As someone who has been in this industry for roughly a decade, I’m here to say it’s not all bad — there are still plenty of opportunities for people who want to make money while still doing good.

Here are a few tips for working in tech without losing your soul:

Put your oxygen mask on first.

What exactly does this mean? The first step is acknowledging there is nothing wrong with wanting to make money. By now, I’m sure you’ve heard vision statements and messaging from tech companies that want to change the world or make it a better place. That’s great, but companies also exist to make money — it’s a fundamental part of capitalism and participating in the free market. Without money, they won’t be in business long enough to do much good. As someone who wants to work in tech, there is nothing wrong with wanting to get your piece of the pie. Sure, you hear plenty of tech bros claim “Money isn’t everything,” but there’s a good chance they never had to worry about it growing up. Many of them probably got by on mommy and daddy’s money. There’s no shame in getting yours so then you can turn around and help someone else get theirs.

Follow the money.

With any successful tech company, there is likely an insane amount of money flying around. After all, we are talking about an industry where it’s not unusual for Fortune 500 companies to make hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Much like politics, if you want to see what a company truly believes in, you have to follow the money. If you’re looking at a potential job at a company, look into who is funding them, where they make a majority of their revenue, and where they make donations. If they’re one of the bigger behemoths, there’s a good chance you may not agree with some of their most influential investors or who they donate money to during election season. Plenty of companies claim “they aren’t political,”…