“American Dream”, the hidden crisis behind Silicon Valley 996
Author | Juni
Editing | Pony
The bloody truth under Silicon Valley
September 19, 2019, a programmer jumped from Facebook’s office building at Menlo Park headquarters and ended his 38-year-old life like a meteor. .
In the afternoon, the detailed identity information about the programmer was on the Internet. We have no intention to uncover the scars of his family and friends, so I am not prepared to give detailed information about him. In order to facilitate the writing, we call the deceased A.
When looking through A’s short life experience, we are looking at a diligent struggle life. We are curious, what kind of pressure is that let the programmer who has the aura of domestic and foreign famous schools and the blessing of the world famous enterprise work experience stand in desperation on the roof of the office building, and jump down? A’s experience is like the children of other people in the parents’ mouth. After graduating from a top prestigious university in China, he went to work for the world’s top 500 companies. Then he traveled across the ocean and went to another top foreign university to study and research. He joined Facebook Facebook, one of the largest technology giants in Silicon Valley last year.
A’s colleague said that A worked extremely hard before his birth, but he was not appreciated by management. He was asked to join the PIP and was likely to lose his job. As an immigrant who has not yet received a US green card, losing his job represents the invalidation of the visa, which is related to the problem of staying with him and his family. And this is very likely to be the last straw that overwhelmed A.
A is not the first programmer to choose to end his life in such an extreme way. In 2017, a computer engineer at Uber suicide, leaving his wife and two underage children. All his actions before suicide revealed that his pressure from the company’s poor management, high-pressure work environment and uncooperative team relationship could not be relieved, so he chose such an extreme way to end his life.
RecentlyExtrusion of employees, so that they do not have the strength to toss, work mechanically like gears, until the employee’s available value is extinguished like a cigarette butt; can also use policies to tie foreign immigrants and let them “long” in the company; but the most important The means are to use greed in humanity – the desire for money, the yearning for fame, and the definition of success.
If the problem of A is H1b’s tie, then there is a top-level university undergraduate diploma, and the death of Dr. W of Canada’s top university doctors allows us to see the cruel side of Silicon Valley. W entered an IT factory in 2008 and became an engineer in the baseband integration department. After 7 years, it was cut for the first time. In 2017, W returned to the company. After 10 months, he was dismissed again. W jumped from the sixth floor of the headquarters office building. W has an American identity and is economically rich, but he cannot overcome this. Why? After all, it is still closely related to the culture that Silicon Valley respects. They are not unacceptable to leave the United States, unable to accept layoffs, but cannot accept that they are being laid off. They had a glorious past, so they refused to cloud the clouds.
On September 26th, Silicon Valley Chinese were dissatisfied with Facebook’s negative attitudes and countermeasures against A’s death, and organized protests. Ask for a full investigation, give the truth, and oppose workplace bullying.
But should we also think about it, in the secular sense of “success”, where will we lead us?
Just like Tech Lead, who worked at several technology companies, commented on his comment: No company is worthy of your death, and no company is your family.
Silicon Valley must kill the hidden culture of this vicious circle and kill the “I” that is magnified in everyone’s mind.
After all, at the end of the day, our lives are not finished or unfinished PPT and spreadsheets, written or unfinished code definitions.
Reference article:
The death of Facebook Chinese programmers: only 38 years old jumped from school,EE graduates from Zhejiang University, just joined the company last year – chestnut fish sheep from the concave temple – https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/ 83886539
Facebook confirms employee death was suicide after protest outside its headquarters-
Salvador Rodriguez – https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09 /27/facebook-employee-death-was-suicide.html
An Uber engineer killed himself. His widow says the workplace is to blame.- Marco della Cava – https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/04/27/is-uber-culture- To-blame-for-an-employees-suicide/100938330/
The Gospel of Hard Work, According to Silicon Valley –Nitasha Tiku – https://www.wired.com/2017/06/silicon-valley-still-doesnt-care-work-life-balance/
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