The question not really asked: what are they doing in their own lives to match their Beliefs?
Why tech workers are quitting great jobs at companies like Google to fight climate change
Tech workers are walking away from high-paying jobs with great perks to help fight what they believe is the greatest existential problem of our lifetimes: climate change.
In some cases, that has meant taking a pay cut. But Sandy Anuras, who recently joined home solar provider Sunrun as its chief technology officer, says a big paycheck sometimes comes with a price.
“The tech giants have had these huge compensation packages. And it’s hard to say no to a huge compensation package,” Anuras told CNBC. “You just realize there’s a little bit more to life than maxing out your comp package. And I think people are realizing that now — and especially with some of the decisions that their companies have made to prioritize profits over democracy, for example.” (snip)
That’s how it was for software engineer Tom Melendez, too. He worked at Google for five years before leaving in 2019 to take a job at MethaneSAT, an affiliate of the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, which processes satellite data to measure emissions of methane, an especially potent greenhouse gas.
“I was proud to be at Google. While I was there, especially in the beginning, I enjoyed the work I was doing,” Melendez told CNBC. But eventually he started to feel disenchanted. “At the end of the day, you can’t help but feel like the sole purpose of this is really just to make money. I am not making anything better — or not really. The metrics that I’m rated on are important to the company, but they’re not really important to me.”
Nope, nothing about the changes they made in their own lives. Huh
For example, since the climate jobs website Climatebase launched in June 2020, more than 600,000 people have used it, poring over more than than 40,000 job listings from more than 3,000 climate tech companies and environmental organizations, according to co-founder Evan Hynes. Climatebase has also had over 3,000 applications for an educational fellowship the company runs. (Disclosure: I was one of the fellows in the founding fellowship earlier in 2022.)
A Slack channel for job seekers called Work In Climate has more than 10,000 members, up more than fourfold in the last year, said the list’s co-founder, Eugene Kirpichov.
Seems like a scam. Other than jobs where they try and force their beliefs on Other People, what are they doing?
Kirpichov decided to leave Google to pursue work full time on climate and he shared the email he wrote to colleagues on LinkedIn:
“The reason I’m leaving is because the scale, urgency and tragedy of climate change are so immense that I can no longer justify to myself working on anything else, no matter how interesting or lucrative, until it’s fixed,” Kirpichov wrote. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I think others, who have the privilege of being able to do so, should follow suit. I like to frame the problem positively as ‘how much can we save,’ and every one of us can have a hand in saving something.”
Still nothing on personal changes to match the Beliefs. Anyhow, privilege?
Because he (Melendez from first excerpt) had earned a high Google salary for years and owned his home, he was financially able to take the step-down in pay that came with his move to MethaneSAT. Having a steady housing situation ends up being a key factor in whether people can move to a lower salary in exchange for work they find meaningful.
So, rich folks able to pretend to be climate warriors.
“I was thinking about my family, being from Thailand and Southeast Asia. We know Southeast Asia is going to get hit really hard with climate change. And so I’m really thinking a lot about folks who don’t have the privilege that I have, where I can say, ‘Oh, I’m going to be in Seattle, where it is so cool and climate change is not impacting us in such a severe way,’” Anuras told CNBC.
“As a privileged technologist, where should I be spending my life?” Anuras said. As she realized that Anuras realized she can use her skills to combat climate change, the answers to her own questions became increasingly clear.
“What problems do I want to look back and say I helped solve: One of the greatest problems humanity has faced, or I worked on selling some widgets in the metaverse? It just didn’t compute for me.”
Nope, still nothing on lifestyle changes. Just a big scam.
Read: It’s A Cult: Tech Workers Quit To Fight Climate Apocalypse (scam) »