Reading 01 — Ethos of the Computing Industry

The readings from this week talk a great deal about the ethos of the computing industry being meritocracy, and whether that is true or false, good or bad, etc. Timothy B. Lee argues that Silicon Valley is the capital of meritocracy. He cites examples of this such as, the brilliance of Mark Zuckerberg’s programming abilities being the reason why Facebook succeeded and other sites like MySpace have since failed. He mentions how when companies fail to produce the “best” ideas they will quickly be eaten up by other companies with better thoughts. At first glance, his claim does seem to make some sense. Generally the better programmers, ideas, and leaders will rise to the top of the industry.

However, this assumes that everyone yearning to reach the top is starting at the same starting line. I really liked Megan Garber’s quote about the mobility escalator that Darren Walker discusses in her article. She says, “…that great escalator is far faster for some than it is for others. It is harder for some to get to in the first place than it is for others.” It’s easy for everyone to fall in love with the idealistic view of an equal opportunity meritocracy, but it simply does not exist today. I do believe that there is an element of meritocracy in the computing industry, but not enough to be content. For example, if you take two people and give them the same training and resources, most of the time one will clearly be a better programmer than the other. However, if you give the “better programmer” a significantly harder upbringing (less training and resources), they probably won’t be identified as the better programmer anymore. This same situation applies to startups. Whether it be race, geography, or socio-economic status there are a slew of factors that prevent some people/ideas to realizing their full potential. I was not too surprised to read about John Doerr publicly stating that “his most successful investments — and the no-brainer pattern for future investments — were in founders who were white, male, under 30, nerds, with no social life who dropped out of Harvard or Stanford.” In the past and even still today, these attributes represent someone who has the time, training, and resources to give Doerr the best chance of getting a return on his investment.

But it’s because of reasoning like this that I think the ethos of the computing industry is not a meritocracy, but rather its primary concern is fostering new ideas and technology that will improve the quality of life on earth, as long as there will be a profit. This obviously isn’t what they would have advertised, but I believe it is the actual underlying motivation for most of any company’s decision. The companies within the the computing industry are no different than companies in any other industry: they need a certain amount of profit in order survive and hopefully thrive. The bottom line is at the root of almost every decision that is made. Granted, many companies have wonderful agendas that they may be more passionate about, but if they neglect the financial side of things, they won’t be able to pursue their primary concern.

I think that the computing industry maintains these principles. At the end of the day being the best programmer or having the best idea is not the end all be all of success in this industry. Having resources and opportunity are critical factors, and not everyone is on the same playing field in that respect. This is why we are having these discussions. Many companies will gladly accept the programmer with a degree and good grades over someone who may not have been able to afford school but has the potential to be a better worker. As we read in the articles, VCs openly prefer certain types of people because there is less risk and they want a company led by someone they think is wealthy and has ties to important people.

I wouldn’t say that these principles match my own. I think that in an ideal world, everyone would start on an even playing field. After that, given the same amount of resources, time, training, etc. the best programmers or ideas would naturally rise to the top. However, unfortunately that is not the world we live in today. Although it is nice to see more and more effort being put into allowing people of all backgrounds to learn how to code. These programs show that even though companies know they must focus on making money, they are also willing to spend it on respectable causes to help everyone join the tech revolution.