Eat the State: Exodus of the Geeks

“A long time ago, during the last epoch of the New Economy, all
the computer Geeks worked for large Multinational Corporations.
They toiled in their tiny cubicles programming and debugging rude
and crude software products demanded by other companies which, in
turn, sold them at highly inflated prices to the unsophisticated
public, to schools and to the government.

“The Geeks worked 60 to 70 hours a week without vacations or
weekends off. There was little light and ventilation in their
cubicles. They never went outside. They were forbidden beer and
pizza. Their only entertainment was an occasional game of Sims or
Myst. Their email traffic was monitored. They were denied the
profits of their intellect. Despite these conditions, they could
not leave their cubicles because each of the Geeks had signed a
Non-Competition and Non Disclosure Agreement. They could not work
elsewhere.

“Over time, a very special programmer arose among the Geeks. She
was a gifted programmer who could code circles around everyone
else. She could debug better than anyone else. She understood
operating systems and compilers, higher level languages and machine
level languages. She could solve computer hardware and software
problems that no one else could solve. She knew C and C++ and Bb.
Her programs were clean and elegant and OO so object-oriented.
Among the Geeks, she became known as The Guru…”

Complete
Story