Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
Hackers tend to be passive, arm-chair, activists. Twittering on the internet and feeding outrage to each other, but never actually getting engaged to solve real issues. How many hackers do you know that have dedicated their entire careers to causes in the public service?In comparison, I look around at my friends who majored in liberal arts. I know a double-digit number of people who turned down six figure jobs to go into public service for a fraction of the money, doing often thankless work. One of my best friends wants to save the environment. The summer after our second year of school, I went to go intern at a firm, which gave me a $1k/month lunch budget and a guaranteed job after graduation, while she went to intern for the EPA which doesn't have much of a budget for anything, and rarely hires anyone after graduation. Now, I've got an office with views of Manhattan, and she's waitressing on the side to make ends meet while looking for that rare opportunity to get a job at an environmental non-profit.How many hackers do you know that would turn down a job at Google or Facebook and instead try to break into the (often insanely competitive) job market of public service? I'm not judging the people who wouldn't go down that road. I think they're like me and most people: personally moral, but not willing to put a larger moral cause ahead of their own self-interest. That's fine, and the way it should be. But it's ridiculous to be that way then get self-congratulatory just because you write some scathing internet screeds complaining about the man.I'd estimate that about 10-12% of Stanford Law's graduating class each year goes into public interest work or government work. Can you imagine what the political landscape would look like if 10-12% of Stanford UG's engineering graduates each year went into public interest jobs or into government (to change policy from the inside?)