Far Away focuses on satirizing government bureaucracy. It’s more fun to have a space government that’s incompetent, rather than one that’s evil. Even the most ardent supporters of strong federal governments will admit there are some inefficiencies worth poking fun at. While there’s material left in that comedy bucket, Corporate Espionage (now funding on Gamefound) shifts the spotlight to Big Tech. This world that promises to disrupt us with AI-powered everything is a fun place to crack jokes.
Full-disclosure, I work at Microsoft. Our CEO has made it clear we’re going to Copilot everything. Internally, the struggle each product manager does to prove their area ladders up to Copilot is silly. Equally silly is the industry-wide pressure to slap “AI-powered” on everything, despite signals consumers don’t actually want that. But this isn’t new – every tech company chases the shiny thing du jour. Kickstarter wanted to move to the blockchain, whatever that means. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon all tried to make an iPhone, just to find the market only supports one dissenting vote of a product. Sometimes, they copy ideas outside of tech, like Uber’s legally-distinct-from-a-bus bus. An industry founded on innovation has seemingly collapsed into a reductive cluster of indistinguishable brands with precious little to individually offer.
This veneer of progress leads to tech folks believing they’re “disrupting” industries. Not every single employee can be a trailblazer, so naturally folks have to iterate. Except that’s not exciting. You have to oversell the ability to take online credit card payments for a company with a name that implies they already do that. Or maybe you’ll disrupt your own product. I assume UX designers must be bored with how much they change functional interfaces you’ve grown accustomed to. Of course, none of this has to do with real innovation. It’s all a ruse to convince you to subscribe to software instead of own it, and look at ads instead of using a functional product. Look what came up when I searched “ads obstructing view in Google maps”.
It's fair to ask why tech employees, especially those of huge, multinational companies, buy into this disruptor culture. It’s because those companies internally act like startups. Some pretend they can relive the glory days of late-night whiteboard sessions to make the next big thing. Some have a C-Suite that never grows up. Others underfund most projects because the small team mentality makes everyone work harder. Of course, companies that do this aren’t startups. They have HR departments, recruiters, and a web of middle managers. You’re a special genius when you’re working late and completely expendable in the grand scheme of things.
However, some those special geniuses truly believe they are God’s gift to humanity’s advancement. The ego in tech is stifling. As a manager, I’m ordered to describe average performance as “doing a great job of a hard job”. These folks are being paid so much, perhaps that’s a lie we have to say to save face with the rest of the world. And who can blame these kids for thinking they’re special. If you get A’s through college, of course you think you’re extraordinary. Tech companies pride themselves on solving difficult problems, so to convince new talent to join, they are incentivized to flatter these new employees. It’s a positive feedback loop that creates a culture that looks down on other industries and people. At Microsoft, we try to “meet a customer's unarticulated and unmet needs”. That’s a great philosophy when approached with empathy, and a crap one if you think you’re smarter than your customer.
I always feel weird walking into the office at Microsoft. I have the CS background to get hired, but spent my twenties being drunk in kitchens. “Agile” has nothing on working on a line. My goal with the writing in Far Away: Corporate Espionage is to approach Big Tech will a critical eye. It’s self-deprecating, but not in the usual pity-based way. Tech companies are weird. They control so much of our lives. It behooves us to point and laugh at the weird thing before we can’t anymore.