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It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. I quit my job at Microsoft due to their complicity with Israeli war crimes and oppression (and certain

by slowin 7d ago

It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. I quit my job at Microsoft due to their complicity with Israeli war crimes and oppression (and certainly the US government was involved too). It's tough to leave a high paying job, but I feel good about it every single day. We don't have to be cogs in the MIC machine and we don't have to build systems that terrorize people.

dgellow 7d ago
Thank you, both for following your values and for sharing it publicly
- 1234letshaveatw 7d ago
  yes, OC was so brave
  - slowin 7d ago
    I just want to say that I don't think I was brave at all. I actually feel a lot of shame because I knew that Microsoft wasn't compatible with my values when I joined. I didn't know the exact details that came out later, but I took a very high paying job for a company that I thought at best didn't align with my values. I had to live with a growing cognitive dissonance about the choices I made. I also didn't exit tech fully, I still work for a company that seems ethical and nice, but has VCs that are probably involved in the MIC post we're discussing. I've debated exiting tech fully but I do have people to support. I think that's kind of an excuse though. I also tell myself that anywhere I go, if you follow the money far enough up the chain, it will be unethical. That's also kind of an excuse. I'm not brave, but I do feel trapped. I think we need some sort of reckoning as an industry, a country and possibly a planet. I don't know what will happen but I'm trying to balance living in 2026 with making choices that I can live with in the future.
    - monideas 7d ago
      Well there's definitely a global reckoning happening, people are not having children in developed countries due to very serious social ills (every developed country except for Israel of course).
      - Fraterkes 6d ago
        Social ills whose minds are pure machinery! Social ills whose blood is running money! Social ills whose fingers are ten armies!
      - dgellow 6d ago
        Diminishing birth rates doesn’t actually correlate with what you call socials ills. The strongest correlation I’m aware of is with the education level. It’s a worldwide phenomenon, not something that only impacts developed countries
        monideas 6d ago
        If people are not having children then the society is dying. That indicates there are social ills, by definition. “Education level” is probably also an indication of social ills and a social ill itself given that most people are not suited for higher education. Most “higher education” in the US is abject slop and partying for 4 years. College used to be restricted to the aristocracy and particularly promising students. If you take a young person who is already not of an elite quality and subject them to slop and partying, campus meal plans, basically unproductive day care for 4 years that also fills their heads with nonsense that is obviously going to do a lot of damage to them, especially young women who are especially impressionable. It’s also worth noting that while Israel does have universities, as a societal intuition they function very differently. Young people serve in the army first for 2-3 years or they do university with a deferral and then serve in specialized roles in the army based on their degree. It’s not slop and partying for 4 years starting at 18. And it’s normal to not go to university at all.
    - SoftTalker 6d ago
      So, did you stay long enough to accumulate FU money and then quit? Because that's a bit easier than quitting or turning down a job when you need the income. Since you say you're still working and have people to support I am guessing it was more the latter, but maybe the "very high paying job" gave you the runway needed to make that choice? I quit a high paying software job under different circumstances. The company wasn't doing anything unethical (that I know of) but I was just sick of how they managed people and projects. It had reached the point where I sat in my car for 15 minutes (or longer) every morning just trying to summon the willpower to get out and walk into the office. So I finally just quit. But it was easier as I had stashed away enough money to give me time to find a new job without having to jump on the first offer. I ended up freelancing a bit to extend the runway even longer.
      - slowin 6d ago
        I don't have FU money but I'm financially in a good spot, so definitely privileged compared to someone who would be out on the street with a few missed paychecks. Congrats on getting out of a toxic situation btw, that's hard to do too if you're getting paid well. In a way I was similar, every morning started to be a real struggle for me.
  - buellerbueller 7d ago
    Did you realize that sharing personal attacks is, in fact, optional?
FLeXMurphy 7d ago
What was your job at Microsoft?
- slowin 7d ago
  I was a 68 working on consumer products, but it was still too much for me. Especially the revelation that Satya worked with the IDF to capture all Palestinian phone conversations and host them on Azure. Every day I woke up to go to work after I found that out, I was sick to my stomach. I eventually couldn't take it any more. I took a pay cut and I'm still in the tech industry working for a startup, and still facing ethical dilemmas (with our investors) but at least I'm not on the front-lines of human rights abuse. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-israeli-military-palestinian-phone-calls-cloud https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-isra...
  - FLeXMurphy 7d ago
    War is a massive racket.
  - 1234letshaveatw 7d ago
    TIL an intelligence agency spying on a foreign adversary is human rights abuse. I would be super upset if my country of residence did the same to a neighbor sending rockets my way, would make me sick to my stomach
    - swozey 7d ago
      He didn't work for Israel, unless he failed to mention that this was not a USA job.
    - tessierashpool 7d ago
      take these theatrics somewhere else, please. you're changing the topic and you're not arguing in good faith.
      - 1234letshaveatw 6d ago
davidw 7d ago
I feel like tech has lost its way recently. It's a huge, huge field, so there have always been people working on 'bad' things, but IDK, I just don't have the same feeling of optimism about things that I used to and I wish there was some kind of movement bringing that back.
- lbrito 7d ago
  I think many people share this feeling. I sure do. I don't see how it could have gone any other way. The internet became too pervasive, too embedded into too many people's lives, for it to not be weaponized by governments and large companies.
- Benjammer 7d ago
  Recently? Blind (teamblind.com) culture has been taking over tech for like a decade at this point.
  - lbrito 7d ago
    I think the parent commenter is referring to a much darker side of tech than just TC-chasing Blind culture, which is pretty harmless in comparison
    - davidw 6d ago
      Yeah, people trying to get rich quick are maybe not great, but that's a side of humanity that has always been with us and always will be and you can kind of discount it. I'm talking about the people who run things lurching towards some pretty ugly stuff.
  - foobiekr 6d ago
    Blind culture is really just asian cultural values in aggregate form.
- edgyquant 6d ago
  I don’t know I think it’s really rich to see people who’ve spent a generation hooking the world on dopamine machines and making society full of hate suddenly act like those who work in the MIC are “going to far.” People working at big tech are complicit in the destruction of communities and the mass depression and suicide of our youth, compared to that wanting your country to have the best military tech is altruistic. Military tech isn’t the problem foreign policy is, you can’t say the same about slop factory builders.
shimman 7d ago
It should be noted that MSFT is the only tech company that explicitly asked the FBI to surveil about workers that were protesting the Gaza genocide: https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/microsoft-allegedly-asked-fbi-to-track-gaza-protests-by-employees/ https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/microsof... --- Also thank you for your bravery, it is not easy leaving well paid jobs. If you haven't already, I'd start donating some time with your local mutual aid groups. It's very therapeutic to spend time with people that believe similar things while helping others.
username_my1 7d ago
This is the problem with capitalism. Nothing is ever enough, all the top tech companies, it's not enough that the conquered the global market, not enough that they dominated commerce, media, automotive, cloud, space ... it's not enough that they have the largest headcounts on the planet (outside India / China). they always need to do more and bigger the next quarter. no morals, no core market, no other guideline, simply more, and I have to do it because else someone else will. I really hope the Chinese keep killing everything that gets too big to fail. endless growth is the same as cancer. unnatural destructive.
- MisterTea 7d ago
  > I really hope the Chinese keep killing everything that gets too big to fail. Be careful what you wish for. What happens when China gets too big to fail?
  - username_my1 6d ago
    they don't have to answer for the next quarter, and that's good enough for me.
  - lbrito 6d ago
    Perhaps the world gets a new hegemon that isn't going to spend the next century bombing other countries, installing dictatorships and destroying democracies? Doesn't sound too bad!
    - MisterTea 6d ago
      > destroying democracies? Taiwan would like a word.
      - lbrito 6d ago
        I'm not saying China is perfect, but its not unreasonable to entertain the possibility that it might be better than what we've suffered for the last century. Okay, Taiwan. They are the losing side from the Chinese civil war from over half a century ago and proclaim themselves as the true Chinese government. I'm not saying China has the right to crush them, but the tension is at least understandable. A comparison with the democracies and lives destroyed by US FP is ridiculous. If Taiwan would like a word with China, well, half the world would like a word with the US.
pfdietz 7d ago
> It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. This appears to me to be unrealistic or performative, except if you mean pushing back in the sense that anyone could, as a voter for example. Boycott of defense work won't work; attempting to claim some special authority in debate won't work either.
- datsci_est_2015 7d ago
  The opposite of performative action is even worse: nihilism or even active support of atrocities. Too many nihilists in the tech industry with the attitude “if I don’t do it someone else will”, and here we are as a professional class actively making the world an objectively shittier place. The VCs can’t do it without us.
  - ForHackernews 6d ago
    This is exactly the problem: Software developers are not a professional class, we are hired goons with no professional organization nor a code of professional ethics. This is one of my personal bugbears. I keep making this point on HN but devs want to LARP as professionals so they usually don't want to hear that they have more in common with retail workers than they do with carpenters, engineers, or accountants. Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47625159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47625159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932441
    - datsci_est_2015 6d ago
      Maybe AI will provide an impetus for change. One can only hope. I’d be willing to pay a few hundred dollars a year to be a part of a professional organization that maintains ethics requirements at this point.
    - mikestew 6d ago
      Yeah, and read the responses to your comments: "but, but, 'professional' is a state of mind, not just a piece of paper" and some crap, completely missing the point. Professionals push back with "I'll lose my license/certification/disbarred". Software developers push back with "yes, sir, how high, sir?" or "I quit".
leonidasrup 7d ago
Microsoft has been participating in PRISM program (SIGAD US-984XN) since 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM There are allegation that Microsoft changed Skype architecture (after buying Skype for $8.5 billion) to make wiretapping easier. " In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism; " https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-...
- EA-3167 6d ago
  It’s genuinely amusing to see how and why people posture, as though working for MS prior to 2023 was somehow ethical. Your post arguably only scratches the surface too. I’ve concluded that most people care far more about appealing to the crowd than actually thinking by anything through.
  - JoshTriplett 6d ago
    If you shame people for acting now rather than earlier, you discourage them from acting at all. Sometimes people aren't in a position to be secure enough to act. Sometimes different issues are more effective at resonating enough to break through previously cached unconsidered patterns of thought. Sometimes people don't know all the things that are going on, and act once they've learned about them. Whatever the reason, if your reaction is "took you long enough" rather than "welcome", you discourage people from acting. Don't punish the behavior you want to see more of. (Also, OP is not even an instance of what you're decrying; see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647687 .)
    - EA-3167 6d ago
      I’m not interested in shaming people or crediting them for superficial performances. The entire premise is ridiculous, as if the companies people are working for are somehow ethical. You’re making money from venture capitalists and tech firms, MS, Meta, X, Google, etc… which of them is any better than MS? They’re all awful in different ways.
georgeburdell 7d ago
Do you support the status quo of millions of H1Bs? Those people I doubt can or will take such a principled stance, making collective action by tech workers impossible.
- wartywhoa23 7d ago
  That's exactly why they are imported in such huge numbers.
- tombert 7d ago
  Wouldn't this be an argument for people who can take principled stances to do so?
  - cyanydeez 6d ago
    that they'll be replaced by H1Bs?
- dietr1ch 6d ago
  You can comfortably go back to your home country. It might feel that you wasted your time in the US, but it was hard to foresee Trump ruining the US so fast and there's little to do about it as an immigrant.
- Dig1t 6d ago
  Absolutely, there’s a reason as well why the VC’s funding these defense tech startups are so pro H1B. It guarantees them a compliant workforce who can’t easily quit, ask for higher wages, or complain about things like genocide.
- __MatrixMan__ 6d ago
  This is why H1B needs to be a relatively fast path to citizenship. Without that, the bosses will continue to behave badly.
  - klausa 6d ago
    Why do people always assume that people on H1Bs _want_ a citizenship? There's tons of things you can do to make people on visas more empowered to push back at work without them become citizens; and in many cases cutting ties to their original countries.
monideas 7d ago
Well it's good you just left on your own accord, basically you fired yourself rather than wasting their time having to do it. There's an interesting dynamic with this in that the Chinese and Indian (and other foreign born/first gen immigrant) workers at big tech companies don't care about these things at all. There are some very intense ideological dynamics within big tech companies among the employee base but I always found it interesting that the foreign born employees did not care at all, they were just there to work.
- PorciiVorbesc 7d ago
  >There's an interesting dynamic with this in that the Chinese and Indian (and other foreign born/first gen immigrant) workers at big tech companies don't care about these things at all. Why do you think the elite business owning class wants to replace you with desperate and malleable foreign workers from countries where morals and human rights are suggestions at best? The other thing is, you built your nest egg taking Microsoft's "blood money" for a few years giving you the luxury to quit on a dime, but there's a lot of people on the planet or even in your country, wishing to do as you did. You can't just pull the ladder after you and expect everyone make the same sacrifice as you except without their own nest egg. If you want to start a moral and egalitarian society then what about a higher tax on the wealth of tech bros, to finance the lives of the non-tech bros to accept humane jobs?
  - monideas 7d ago
    [flagged]
    - PorciiVorbesc 6d ago
      >Because they're intelligent, work hard and have strong family ties. So when imported workers are having strong conservative values prioritizing their family over progressive values = good, but when western locals are having strong conservative values prioritizing their family over progressive values = bad? >But these things dissipate within a few generations of living in the US Have you heard of the amish? Or the ultra orthodox jews? Or other such groups with strong conservative values. You underestimate the stubbornness of certain cultures to adopt american/western progressive liberal values. They can stay conservative longer than you can stay alive. And also, given their significantly higher birth rates of their culture and religion, they'll also be able to outvote liberals who have catastrophically low birth rates, within a few generations. What do you think happens then with liberals and their values in a democracy? >hence the need for more and more foreign workers. Even when the locals are struggling to find jobs?
sadnvkse 7d ago
At the risk of being downvoted to oblivion. Threads like this always have lots of people agreeing to people quitting the jobs, not even ones that are directly working on that but even ones just associated with the company at hand. This is an honest question, how do you decide what is Ok? A job with a company that was involved in this is not Ok, fair enough. What about working with a company that does business with Microsoft or uses Microsoft products? What about owning Microsoft stock and benefiting off it? what about owning Microsoft stock via index funds? Don't mean to be pedantic, but can I use Microsoft products, can I use outlook? can I use an xbox? What are my other realistic options, considering it feels like every industry (not just tech) has big 2-3 realistic options and they all likely have something bad headlines, even if I don't know about it. How much time can I realistically invest digging and fact checking this? I want to be good, but these threads generally leave me feeling judged. I understand everyone has their moral compass, and they act accordingly. But, I find it hard to not ask myself, if this is not OK, why is this other related thing Ok? how do I decide what's Ok and seems when you ask the question you get downvotes and lots of judgement instead of answers.
- NDlurker 7d ago
  I sold my Microsoft stock when they started talking about military AR headsets. Except the index funds. I'm not sure what to do about that.
- t-writescode 6d ago
  I think you answered it. Everyone has their own moral compass and act accordingly. The concept of “No Ethical Consumption Under Capitalism” and the moral framing of later seasons of The Good Place give good representations of how. Ultimately each person makes a mark of what they can and cannot care about, and caring about literally everything is a fast-track to total impotence. Some situations are (relatively) easy: * Harry Potter is a relatively isolated (though formative for many) franchise. Some situations are way harder. * Nestle creates a HUGE amount of the food we eat. * Amazon powers half the internet * Microsoft is the backbone of a huge number of corporate sites. Excel makes the world go round. Unfortunately, this is all up to you, and there are individual scales of “harm to the world by participating” vs “harm to you by abstaining” you have to personally weigh. There is no global answer.
nater5000 7d ago
You know, if enough tech workers at Microsoft felt strongly about these ethical issues, they could influence Microsoft's decisions internally which is probably the most effective position to be in to do so. But all well, glad you can feel good about yourself by leaving so that someone with less concern about these ethical issues can fill the void and assert their own influence on the company instead.
- JohnMakin 6d ago
  Have you ever worked at a large company? This is simply not how things are done. Speaking up about something like this is almost a guaranteed fast track to getting laid off in the next round of reduction in force, and if you do somehow have the pull individually or collectively to make a meaningful difference here, coordinating all those levers in a way that satisfies the board/shareholders and effects meaningful change is pretty much an impossibility. And we're dealing with nation states who are going to have their own levers to push (and internally too). For an individual contributor or hell, someone who's not on the board/C suite, quitting and letting management know they're losing talent because of their stance on certain issues is probably the most effective thing someone can do in that spot. Following your line of thinking, why don't you join microsoft and effect such change? I guess it's easier to leave a moralizing snarky comment and feel good about yourself.
  - reverius42 6d ago
    There's a solution to this problem, and that solution is workers unionizing.
- deleted 6d ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 6d ago
  > if enough tech workers at Microsoft felt strongly about these ethical issues, they could influence Microsoft's decisions internally This isn't how companies work or are structured. If you have the CEO's ear, potentially. If you don't, the only ethical thing to do is to quit. (I don't personally have an issue with the military per se. I have other issues with several tech companies which would make taking a job there something I couldn't do.)
righthand 6d ago
You’re doing the right thing! Glad to see this kind of action.
sippingabonedry 6d ago
On the contrary, you will do exactly as you're told if you expect to cash those sweet MSFT paychecks, which I assume you did prior to this epiphany, otherwise you would have returned all the money. Has this level of obtuseness infected the software industry because this is not the first time I've heard this; usually someone will take a job at a missile factory then later realize "Wait, we build war machines AND sell them to countries I don't like? I had no idea!" This isn't an employee-owned grocery store where your opinions matter. You're at the point in Goodfellas where he tells the babysitter "do you understand what we're involved in here?"
- cyanydeez 6d ago
  I bet your opinion of effective altruism is essentially the same as mine: the idea that you can do the worst things in the world to make enough money to solve all the worlds problems is a delusions on par with "prosperity gospel". Humans are just excellent as crafting a philosophy that suits what they've already chosen to do.
ricksunny 6d ago
Good on you. I left my post-university defense job after a year and a half. Of all career decisions, that's one I don't regret, and rather the regret I harbor was for joining in the first place (albeit did so under a combination of limited information & naivete). The 'will not' list in here I Just learned about today, https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies it easily maps to the employment situation question.
cynicalsecurity 6d ago
You spoke to my heart, comrade! Already sending Microsoft my resignation letter so I can join you on skid row fighting against the evil capitalist empire!
tamimio 6d ago
Yeah, relying on someone’s conscious won’t really cut it, greed and current economy will always win. The best solution imo is crowdsourcing, there should be a site or platform that aggregates all the people who works in these companies, categorize the company as grey or black list based on how they are engaged in shady practices. If someone chose to do something morally questionable, it’s up to them, but it’s also transparent that other people get to know that, could be colleagues, employers, or investors. I think it’s fair that whoever is building surveillance systems and tracking to be surveilled, whoever is making weapons to be known, they can be a public danger given that they sell their morals to highest bidder.
georgemcbay 6d ago
> It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. Sadly in my experience a lot of tech workers just don't even care about the issue, let alone have the courage to push back against it. I certainly care about it and I have immense respect for your decision, but I've worked with numerous "typical tech/dev" types in the past who later went on to work at places like Shield AI and Anduril with seemingly no compunction about the imperialistic baby-killing aspects of working directly within the military-industrial complex as long as the pay is good.
xyzelement 6d ago
A few days ago I recall you taking the position that Israel should not exist and that anyone who disagree is a Zionist (correct definition) that you would not associate with. The implication of your idea is what? The desire for a destruction of a state of 10 million people and another exhile of the Jews? That's the stance you deem moral - or am inferring unfairly (I hope I am actually) If I am following correctly - you left Microsoft because it doesn't share this genocidal desire? I guess that's consistent and I admire that part, but the underlying perspective is horrifying when you just casually drop it in like that
- slowin 6d ago
  Israel should not exist because it's a state built by ethnic cleansing the Palestinians. I believe in the right of return and sovereignty for Palestine. I also don't think Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa should exist, and they no longer do. I think it's up to the Zionists on what this inevitable dissolution looks like. They should work toward peaceful reparations and land return for the Palestinians.

by slowin 7d ago

dgellow 7d ago

Thank you, both for following your values and for sharing it publicly

1234letshaveatw 7d ago
yes, OC was so brave
- slowin 7d ago
  I just want to say that I don't think I was brave at all. I actually feel a lot of shame because I knew that Microsoft wasn't compatible with my values when I joined. I didn't know the exact details that came out later, but I took a very high paying job for a company that I thought at best didn't align with my values. I had to live with a growing cognitive dissonance about the choices I made. I also didn't exit tech fully, I still work for a company that seems ethical and nice, but has VCs that are probably involved in the MIC post we're discussing. I've debated exiting tech fully but I do have people to support. I think that's kind of an excuse though. I also tell myself that anywhere I go, if you follow the money far enough up the chain, it will be unethical. That's also kind of an excuse. I'm not brave, but I do feel trapped. I think we need some sort of reckoning as an industry, a country and possibly a planet. I don't know what will happen but I'm trying to balance living in 2026 with making choices that I can live with in the future.
  - monideas 7d ago
    Well there's definitely a global reckoning happening, people are not having children in developed countries due to very serious social ills (every developed country except for Israel of course).
    - Fraterkes 6d ago
      Social ills whose minds are pure machinery! Social ills whose blood is running money! Social ills whose fingers are ten armies!
    - dgellow 6d ago
      Diminishing birth rates doesn’t actually correlate with what you call socials ills. The strongest correlation I’m aware of is with the education level. It’s a worldwide phenomenon, not something that only impacts developed countries
      - monideas 6d ago
        If people are not having children then the society is dying. That indicates there are social ills, by definition. “Education level” is probably also an indication of social ills and a social ill itself given that most people are not suited for higher education. Most “higher education” in the US is abject slop and partying for 4 years. College used to be restricted to the aristocracy and particularly promising students. If you take a young person who is already not of an elite quality and subject them to slop and partying, campus meal plans, basically unproductive day care for 4 years that also fills their heads with nonsense that is obviously going to do a lot of damage to them, especially young women who are especially impressionable. It’s also worth noting that while Israel does have universities, as a societal intuition they function very differently. Young people serve in the army first for 2-3 years or they do university with a deferral and then serve in specialized roles in the army based on their degree. It’s not slop and partying for 4 years starting at 18. And it’s normal to not go to university at all.
  - SoftTalker 6d ago
    So, did you stay long enough to accumulate FU money and then quit? Because that's a bit easier than quitting or turning down a job when you need the income. Since you say you're still working and have people to support I am guessing it was more the latter, but maybe the "very high paying job" gave you the runway needed to make that choice? I quit a high paying software job under different circumstances. The company wasn't doing anything unethical (that I know of) but I was just sick of how they managed people and projects. It had reached the point where I sat in my car for 15 minutes (or longer) every morning just trying to summon the willpower to get out and walk into the office. So I finally just quit. But it was easier as I had stashed away enough money to give me time to find a new job without having to jump on the first offer. I ended up freelancing a bit to extend the runway even longer.
    - slowin 6d ago
      I don't have FU money but I'm financially in a good spot, so definitely privileged compared to someone who would be out on the street with a few missed paychecks. Congrats on getting out of a toxic situation btw, that's hard to do too if you're getting paid well. In a way I was similar, every morning started to be a real struggle for me.
- buellerbueller 7d ago
  Did you realize that sharing personal attacks is, in fact, optional?

FLeXMurphy 7d ago

What was your job at Microsoft?

slowin 7d ago
I was a 68 working on consumer products, but it was still too much for me. Especially the revelation that Satya worked with the IDF to capture all Palestinian phone conversations and host them on Azure. Every day I woke up to go to work after I found that out, I was sick to my stomach. I eventually couldn't take it any more. I took a pay cut and I'm still in the tech industry working for a startup, and still facing ethical dilemmas (with our investors) but at least I'm not on the front-lines of human rights abuse. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-israeli-military-palestinian-phone-calls-cloud https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/microsoft-isra...
- FLeXMurphy 7d ago
  War is a massive racket.
- 1234letshaveatw 7d ago
  TIL an intelligence agency spying on a foreign adversary is human rights abuse. I would be super upset if my country of residence did the same to a neighbor sending rockets my way, would make me sick to my stomach
  - swozey 7d ago
    He didn't work for Israel, unless he failed to mention that this was not a USA job.
  - tessierashpool 7d ago
    take these theatrics somewhere else, please. you're changing the topic and you're not arguing in good faith.
    - 1234letshaveatw 6d ago

davidw 7d ago

I feel like tech has lost its way recently. It's a huge, huge field, so there have always been people working on 'bad' things, but IDK, I just don't have the same feeling of optimism about things that I used to and I wish there was some kind of movement bringing that back.

lbrito 7d ago
I think many people share this feeling. I sure do. I don't see how it could have gone any other way. The internet became too pervasive, too embedded into too many people's lives, for it to not be weaponized by governments and large companies.
Benjammer 7d ago
Recently? Blind (teamblind.com) culture has been taking over tech for like a decade at this point.
- lbrito 7d ago
  I think the parent commenter is referring to a much darker side of tech than just TC-chasing Blind culture, which is pretty harmless in comparison
  - davidw 6d ago
    Yeah, people trying to get rich quick are maybe not great, but that's a side of humanity that has always been with us and always will be and you can kind of discount it. I'm talking about the people who run things lurching towards some pretty ugly stuff.
- foobiekr 6d ago
  Blind culture is really just asian cultural values in aggregate form.
edgyquant 6d ago
I don’t know I think it’s really rich to see people who’ve spent a generation hooking the world on dopamine machines and making society full of hate suddenly act like those who work in the MIC are “going to far.” People working at big tech are complicit in the destruction of communities and the mass depression and suicide of our youth, compared to that wanting your country to have the best military tech is altruistic. Military tech isn’t the problem foreign policy is, you can’t say the same about slop factory builders.

shimman 7d ago

It should be noted that MSFT is the only tech company that explicitly asked the FBI to surveil about workers that were protesting the Gaza genocide: https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/microsoft-allegedly-asked-fbi-to-track-gaza-protests-by-employees/ https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/microsof... --- Also thank you for your bravery, it is not easy leaving well paid jobs. If you haven't already, I'd start donating some time with your local mutual aid groups. It's very therapeutic to spend time with people that believe similar things while helping others.

username_my1 7d ago

This is the problem with capitalism. Nothing is ever enough, all the top tech companies, it's not enough that the conquered the global market, not enough that they dominated commerce, media, automotive, cloud, space ... it's not enough that they have the largest headcounts on the planet (outside India / China). they always need to do more and bigger the next quarter. no morals, no core market, no other guideline, simply more, and I have to do it because else someone else will. I really hope the Chinese keep killing everything that gets too big to fail. endless growth is the same as cancer. unnatural destructive.

MisterTea 7d ago
> I really hope the Chinese keep killing everything that gets too big to fail. Be careful what you wish for. What happens when China gets too big to fail?
- username_my1 6d ago
  they don't have to answer for the next quarter, and that's good enough for me.
- lbrito 6d ago
  Perhaps the world gets a new hegemon that isn't going to spend the next century bombing other countries, installing dictatorships and destroying democracies? Doesn't sound too bad!
  - MisterTea 6d ago
    > destroying democracies? Taiwan would like a word.
    - lbrito 6d ago
      I'm not saying China is perfect, but its not unreasonable to entertain the possibility that it might be better than what we've suffered for the last century. Okay, Taiwan. They are the losing side from the Chinese civil war from over half a century ago and proclaim themselves as the true Chinese government. I'm not saying China has the right to crush them, but the tension is at least understandable. A comparison with the democracies and lives destroyed by US FP is ridiculous. If Taiwan would like a word with China, well, half the world would like a word with the US.

pfdietz 7d ago

> It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. This appears to me to be unrealistic or performative, except if you mean pushing back in the sense that anyone could, as a voter for example. Boycott of defense work won't work; attempting to claim some special authority in debate won't work either.

datsci_est_2015 7d ago
The opposite of performative action is even worse: nihilism or even active support of atrocities. Too many nihilists in the tech industry with the attitude “if I don’t do it someone else will”, and here we are as a professional class actively making the world an objectively shittier place. The VCs can’t do it without us.
- ForHackernews 6d ago
  This is exactly the problem: Software developers are not a professional class, we are hired goons with no professional organization nor a code of professional ethics. This is one of my personal bugbears. I keep making this point on HN but devs want to LARP as professionals so they usually don't want to hear that they have more in common with retail workers than they do with carpenters, engineers, or accountants. Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47625159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47625159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932441
  - datsci_est_2015 6d ago
    Maybe AI will provide an impetus for change. One can only hope. I’d be willing to pay a few hundred dollars a year to be a part of a professional organization that maintains ethics requirements at this point.
  - mikestew 6d ago
    Yeah, and read the responses to your comments: "but, but, 'professional' is a state of mind, not just a piece of paper" and some crap, completely missing the point. Professionals push back with "I'll lose my license/certification/disbarred". Software developers push back with "yes, sir, how high, sir?" or "I quit".

leonidasrup 7d ago

Microsoft has been participating in PRISM program (SIGAD US-984XN) since 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM There are allegation that Microsoft changed Skype architecture (after buying Skype for $8.5 billion) to make wiretapping easier. " In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism; " https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-...

EA-3167 6d ago
It’s genuinely amusing to see how and why people posture, as though working for MS prior to 2023 was somehow ethical. Your post arguably only scratches the surface too. I’ve concluded that most people care far more about appealing to the crowd than actually thinking by anything through.
- JoshTriplett 6d ago
  If you shame people for acting now rather than earlier, you discourage them from acting at all. Sometimes people aren't in a position to be secure enough to act. Sometimes different issues are more effective at resonating enough to break through previously cached unconsidered patterns of thought. Sometimes people don't know all the things that are going on, and act once they've learned about them. Whatever the reason, if your reaction is "took you long enough" rather than "welcome", you discourage people from acting. Don't punish the behavior you want to see more of. (Also, OP is not even an instance of what you're decrying; see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647687 .)
  - EA-3167 6d ago
    I’m not interested in shaming people or crediting them for superficial performances. The entire premise is ridiculous, as if the companies people are working for are somehow ethical. You’re making money from venture capitalists and tech firms, MS, Meta, X, Google, etc… which of them is any better than MS? They’re all awful in different ways.

georgeburdell 7d ago

Do you support the status quo of millions of H1Bs? Those people I doubt can or will take such a principled stance, making collective action by tech workers impossible.

wartywhoa23 7d ago
That's exactly why they are imported in such huge numbers.
tombert 7d ago
Wouldn't this be an argument for people who can take principled stances to do so?
- cyanydeez 6d ago
  that they'll be replaced by H1Bs?
dietr1ch 6d ago
You can comfortably go back to your home country. It might feel that you wasted your time in the US, but it was hard to foresee Trump ruining the US so fast and there's little to do about it as an immigrant.
Dig1t 6d ago
Absolutely, there’s a reason as well why the VC’s funding these defense tech startups are so pro H1B. It guarantees them a compliant workforce who can’t easily quit, ask for higher wages, or complain about things like genocide.
__MatrixMan__ 6d ago
This is why H1B needs to be a relatively fast path to citizenship. Without that, the bosses will continue to behave badly.
- klausa 6d ago
  Why do people always assume that people on H1Bs _want_ a citizenship? There's tons of things you can do to make people on visas more empowered to push back at work without them become citizens; and in many cases cutting ties to their original countries.

monideas 7d ago

Well it's good you just left on your own accord, basically you fired yourself rather than wasting their time having to do it. There's an interesting dynamic with this in that the Chinese and Indian (and other foreign born/first gen immigrant) workers at big tech companies don't care about these things at all. There are some very intense ideological dynamics within big tech companies among the employee base but I always found it interesting that the foreign born employees did not care at all, they were just there to work.

PorciiVorbesc 7d ago
>There's an interesting dynamic with this in that the Chinese and Indian (and other foreign born/first gen immigrant) workers at big tech companies don't care about these things at all. Why do you think the elite business owning class wants to replace you with desperate and malleable foreign workers from countries where morals and human rights are suggestions at best? The other thing is, you built your nest egg taking Microsoft's "blood money" for a few years giving you the luxury to quit on a dime, but there's a lot of people on the planet or even in your country, wishing to do as you did. You can't just pull the ladder after you and expect everyone make the same sacrifice as you except without their own nest egg. If you want to start a moral and egalitarian society then what about a higher tax on the wealth of tech bros, to finance the lives of the non-tech bros to accept humane jobs?
- monideas 7d ago
  [flagged]
  - PorciiVorbesc 6d ago
    >Because they're intelligent, work hard and have strong family ties. So when imported workers are having strong conservative values prioritizing their family over progressive values = good, but when western locals are having strong conservative values prioritizing their family over progressive values = bad? >But these things dissipate within a few generations of living in the US Have you heard of the amish? Or the ultra orthodox jews? Or other such groups with strong conservative values. You underestimate the stubbornness of certain cultures to adopt american/western progressive liberal values. They can stay conservative longer than you can stay alive. And also, given their significantly higher birth rates of their culture and religion, they'll also be able to outvote liberals who have catastrophically low birth rates, within a few generations. What do you think happens then with liberals and their values in a democracy? >hence the need for more and more foreign workers. Even when the locals are struggling to find jobs?

sadnvkse 7d ago

At the risk of being downvoted to oblivion. Threads like this always have lots of people agreeing to people quitting the jobs, not even ones that are directly working on that but even ones just associated with the company at hand. This is an honest question, how do you decide what is Ok? A job with a company that was involved in this is not Ok, fair enough. What about working with a company that does business with Microsoft or uses Microsoft products? What about owning Microsoft stock and benefiting off it? what about owning Microsoft stock via index funds? Don't mean to be pedantic, but can I use Microsoft products, can I use outlook? can I use an xbox? What are my other realistic options, considering it feels like every industry (not just tech) has big 2-3 realistic options and they all likely have something bad headlines, even if I don't know about it. How much time can I realistically invest digging and fact checking this? I want to be good, but these threads generally leave me feeling judged. I understand everyone has their moral compass, and they act accordingly. But, I find it hard to not ask myself, if this is not OK, why is this other related thing Ok? how do I decide what's Ok and seems when you ask the question you get downvotes and lots of judgement instead of answers.

NDlurker 7d ago
I sold my Microsoft stock when they started talking about military AR headsets. Except the index funds. I'm not sure what to do about that.
t-writescode 6d ago
I think you answered it. Everyone has their own moral compass and act accordingly. The concept of “No Ethical Consumption Under Capitalism” and the moral framing of later seasons of The Good Place give good representations of how. Ultimately each person makes a mark of what they can and cannot care about, and caring about literally everything is a fast-track to total impotence. Some situations are (relatively) easy: * Harry Potter is a relatively isolated (though formative for many) franchise. Some situations are way harder. * Nestle creates a HUGE amount of the food we eat. * Amazon powers half the internet * Microsoft is the backbone of a huge number of corporate sites. Excel makes the world go round. Unfortunately, this is all up to you, and there are individual scales of “harm to the world by participating” vs “harm to you by abstaining” you have to personally weigh. There is no global answer.

nater5000 7d ago

You know, if enough tech workers at Microsoft felt strongly about these ethical issues, they could influence Microsoft's decisions internally which is probably the most effective position to be in to do so. But all well, glad you can feel good about yourself by leaving so that someone with less concern about these ethical issues can fill the void and assert their own influence on the company instead.

JohnMakin 6d ago
Have you ever worked at a large company? This is simply not how things are done. Speaking up about something like this is almost a guaranteed fast track to getting laid off in the next round of reduction in force, and if you do somehow have the pull individually or collectively to make a meaningful difference here, coordinating all those levers in a way that satisfies the board/shareholders and effects meaningful change is pretty much an impossibility. And we're dealing with nation states who are going to have their own levers to push (and internally too). For an individual contributor or hell, someone who's not on the board/C suite, quitting and letting management know they're losing talent because of their stance on certain issues is probably the most effective thing someone can do in that spot. Following your line of thinking, why don't you join microsoft and effect such change? I guess it's easier to leave a moralizing snarky comment and feel good about yourself.
- reverius42 6d ago
  There's a solution to this problem, and that solution is workers unionizing.
deleted 6d ago
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JumpCrisscross 6d ago
> if enough tech workers at Microsoft felt strongly about these ethical issues, they could influence Microsoft's decisions internally This isn't how companies work or are structured. If you have the CEO's ear, potentially. If you don't, the only ethical thing to do is to quit. (I don't personally have an issue with the military per se. I have other issues with several tech companies which would make taking a job there something I couldn't do.)

righthand 6d ago

You’re doing the right thing! Glad to see this kind of action.

sippingabonedry 6d ago

On the contrary, you will do exactly as you're told if you expect to cash those sweet MSFT paychecks, which I assume you did prior to this epiphany, otherwise you would have returned all the money. Has this level of obtuseness infected the software industry because this is not the first time I've heard this; usually someone will take a job at a missile factory then later realize "Wait, we build war machines AND sell them to countries I don't like? I had no idea!" This isn't an employee-owned grocery store where your opinions matter. You're at the point in Goodfellas where he tells the babysitter "do you understand what we're involved in here?"

cyanydeez 6d ago
I bet your opinion of effective altruism is essentially the same as mine: the idea that you can do the worst things in the world to make enough money to solve all the worlds problems is a delusions on par with "prosperity gospel". Humans are just excellent as crafting a philosophy that suits what they've already chosen to do.

ricksunny 6d ago

Good on you. I left my post-university defense job after a year and a half. Of all career decisions, that's one I don't regret, and rather the regret I harbor was for joining in the first place (albeit did so under a combination of limited information & naivete). The 'will not' list in here I Just learned about today, https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies it easily maps to the employment situation question.

cynicalsecurity 6d ago

You spoke to my heart, comrade! Already sending Microsoft my resignation letter so I can join you on skid row fighting against the evil capitalist empire!

tamimio 6d ago

Yeah, relying on someone’s conscious won’t really cut it, greed and current economy will always win. The best solution imo is crowdsourcing, there should be a site or platform that aggregates all the people who works in these companies, categorize the company as grey or black list based on how they are engaged in shady practices. If someone chose to do something morally questionable, it’s up to them, but it’s also transparent that other people get to know that, could be colleagues, employers, or investors. I think it’s fair that whoever is building surveillance systems and tracking to be surveilled, whoever is making weapons to be known, they can be a public danger given that they sell their morals to highest bidder.

georgemcbay 6d ago

> It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. Sadly in my experience a lot of tech workers just don't even care about the issue, let alone have the courage to push back against it. I certainly care about it and I have immense respect for your decision, but I've worked with numerous "typical tech/dev" types in the past who later went on to work at places like Shield AI and Anduril with seemingly no compunction about the imperialistic baby-killing aspects of working directly within the military-industrial complex as long as the pay is good.

xyzelement 6d ago

A few days ago I recall you taking the position that Israel should not exist and that anyone who disagree is a Zionist (correct definition) that you would not associate with. The implication of your idea is what? The desire for a destruction of a state of 10 million people and another exhile of the Jews? That's the stance you deem moral - or am inferring unfairly (I hope I am actually) If I am following correctly - you left Microsoft because it doesn't share this genocidal desire? I guess that's consistent and I admire that part, but the underlying perspective is horrifying when you just casually drop it in like that

slowin 6d ago
Israel should not exist because it's a state built by ethnic cleansing the Palestinians. I believe in the right of return and sovereignty for Palestine. I also don't think Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa should exist, and they no longer do. I think it's up to the Zionists on what this inevitable dissolution looks like. They should work toward peaceful reparations and land return for the Palestinians.