If I don't do it, someone else will, and so nothing has changed in the world.
If it's something I don't agree with, but there's still something interesting in there for me, then I celebrate my successes because it affirms my talent, and I celebrate my failures because then the thing I disagree with didn't went as planned.
It's better to know first-hand what potentially disagreeable things are being done, instead of guessing from a distance.
[edit] This is probably the one post where I cannot possibly understand why it was down-voted.. I am only answering the question that the poster asked, along with my own, personal reasons. Anyone is absolutely entitled to disagree with them, but I fail to see how they do not contribute to the discussion.
Do you realize that this the exact same justification used by many defendants at the Nuremberg trials? For example, folks who were asked to work for this outfit:
But I'll take the bait, where in that article is there any proof or indication that they were wrong in that assumption?
Also, to clarify, OP asked, and I answered what I personally did and my reasons for doing so, to help OP have a broader and more diverse view, to present him with data, not to sway him, or to justify or change his views. Not to engage in some ethical discussion that I can't get invested in.
But if you want to live your life on the basis of such, that's your call.
If you really want to spike the football you could say that you think their company is immoral, but they’ll probably trash your reply after seeing “I regret to inform you…” and move on to the next thing in their inbox.
I have spent 40 years not working for Microsoft. It makes some effort lately at seeming less Evil, but its increasing revenue demonstrates it is wholly as Evil as ever. Who buys anything from them by choice? (I guess Surface is OK hardware?)
More lately, Facebook. Goldman Sachs. The list goes on. I often turn down cryptocurrency recruiters.
Out of the FAANG, I would work with Netflix.
Mention it to the recruiter in a polite and constructive way. These companies will change if enough talent rejects them.
McKinsey is an absurdly evil company that is willing to destroy millions of lives for money, up to (and including) committing fraud and aiding authoritarian governments[2][3][4][5][6].
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/business/mckinsey-opioids...
2. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/how-mckins...
3. https://www.quora.com/What-s-the-most-evil-thing-McKinsey-ha...
4. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/business/mckinsey-purdue-...
5. https://www.quora.com/What-s-the-most-evil-thing-McKinsey-ha...
6. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/what-a-spectacularly...
I turned down an interview at DHS building a massive database of repeat migrant border crossing. Migrants come here and pick our strawberries, then send money home and fund their children’s educations. Sure laws need to exist, and illegal crossing violates the law… but come on. Can’t say I support using tech to make their lives even harder, especially since they do really hard work to literally feed us. I’m happy letting DHS remain low-tech and largely ineffectual. Nobody who is smart enough to get important things done should apply those smarts to something that makes the world less humane or more unpleasant. And by god, never work on terrible weapons.
Turned down an opportunity to build a really neat high volume high speed data storage system at Apple because their product design arrogance annoys me and I consider their repeated removal of awesome features a betrayal of me personally and user centric design in general.
Quit a lucrative contract gig because their inability to prioritize information security was begging for a massive breach and I wanted nothing to do with fallout.
You might be justified in wondering how I can work anywhere;-) turns out there are plenty of places not actively making the world worse.
> Hi Saket and Rajat,
> I appreciate Rajat reaching out to me and offering me this interviewing opportunity. However, I cannot morally use filtered.ai's service. You might not be aware of this, but filtered.ai sends the recorded video questions to "Vempathy", which uses facial recognition software to judge a candidate's "emotional state" using AI.
> Right now, AI facial detection technology cannot be responsibly used for hiring decisions. It's not robust enough to provide reliable data on all candidates, and will likely be discriminatory to wide portions of the population.
> I have no issue completing online interview coding tests or in-person whiteboard interviews. But I cannot allow facial-encoding AI to guide hiring decisions in this field, or truthfully, any field.
> I notice you are based in Plymouth, MI. This is where my father grew up. I was raised in Ann Arbor. I would be happy to connect you with leading AI/ML experts at the University of Michigan who can help illuminate the problems with this technology as applied to hiring decisions.
> Respectfully, [Redacted]
For context, I am a conventionally attractive white male...I suspect that current AI analysis would work in my favor.
However, I did interview recently with a (software engineering) consulting company, and I made it clear to the recruiter that there were some industries for whom I would not do work. She responded that they do not as a matter of policy work for those industries, so there wasn't anything for me to worry about. I ended up taking a different opportunity for unrelated reasons.
I recommend that you be honest and straightforward with the recruiter. It won't hurt you or them any. They ought to reconsider working for an unethical company themselves, if they're in a position to do so.
Now my criteria for employment is:
* remote work
* Discover how junior the work feels after speaking with the company. In my line of work everybody claims to want senior experts with 100 years of experience doing extremely beginner things in giant over-engineered tools for extremely insecure people.
That’s it. I used to have incredible reservations about working for an ethically compromised employer but now that I am old I would rather have high quality work as my primary consideration.
My ego would get a nice bump if/when I got a call, then eventually I'd bail, or just fail to get thru the process. And i have been a contractor at some, and probably would be again, depending on the specifics, etc.
I come from the Chomsky school of thought, tho -- basically, institutional analysis -- i.e. companies/CEOs/boards and economies, as currently constructed, are required to put short term profit above all else -- if that means enslaving children in south america, so be it -- if that means accelerating humanity towards the end of organized life on earth, so be it.
so, facebook has been killing and terrorizing muslims and rohingya and others in asia for years, and almost auto-couped the US government this year -- so be it. if facebook requires muslims, rohingya, or americans to suffer and die, it's not personal -- it's just business.
the biggest companies are generally the biggest criminals, and growing companies will grow into that role -- it's the way the system is designed.
Apple and Nike exploiting/torturing/killing people all over China, etc. -- the list of 'bad companies' we could come up with is almost endless. Tesla. ugh.
so we can refuse to work for fakebook/meta, or some other 'evil' company, but to me it's mainly just virtue-signaling. ditto for the folks who work for those companies and tell themselves they're 'trying to change it from the inside'.
that said, it still seems like the right-ish/less-wrong choice to not work for the worst companies.
but i think if you actually have ethical problems with certain companies, or with 'the system', then organizing to change them and 'the system' probably requires more than just pulling your wage slave paycheck from a different provider -- especially if you live in a relatively free country, etc.
i remember just a few years ago when my favorite company to hate was Palantir -- ah, the good 'ol days.
i have probably mentioned my moral superiority to recruiters in the past -- don't think it matters to anyone/anything -- just more virtue signaling.
Passive contribution/enabling is not the same as actively killing. It's just not. It's still worthy of condemnation, but it's not as worthy of condemnation as active, actual point-the-gun-and-pull-the-trigger killing.
All this kind of rhetoric does is make people think your moral compass is completely uncalibrated, and makes you look like a person to ignore.
agreed.
> All this kind of rhetoric does is make people think your moral compass is completely uncalibrated, and makes you look like a person to ignore.
unfortuantely, you might be right.
speaking the truth doesn't usually wins popularity contests -- it's why politicians rarely tell the truth.
MLK, for instance, was hated by most of America before he was murdered. presumably most of america wanted to ignore him because they thought his 'moral compasss' was 'completely uncalibrated'. he decided to tell what he considered to be the truth, and paid for it with his life. didn't help that the FBI probably had a hand in murdering him. so from that point of view, hopefully you are correct, and i'm being ignored, and i won't be murdered by some nazi (with or without the allged help of the fbi).
Just say to the recruiter you're not interested.
Literally nobody cares. No consequences, nada.
This will hopefully prevent spamy recruiters bugging you incessantly with high paying job offers in future.
Then you can find a job at a nice small or medium size company, because there are almost never any ethical issues that come up at these kind of places.
But many others just sincerely want to provide value to customers reliably. Often enough that value is not harmful to the larger world, and sometimes is a pure good.
The recruiter instead launched into a whole bit about how they felt the same way, changed their mind, ba ba ba. We went back and forth several times, fairly pleasantly. The guy _still_ contacts me every few months like clockwork.
I’ve stopped responding at this point.
Real change comes from government policy, not individuals, and not companies feeling guilty about themselves
There's nothing wrong with not wanting to work for these companies but don't be under the illusion that you declining to interview is going to somehow bubble up to senior leadership and make them think "gee we should stop being evil"