Good Work

Once, I’d’ve loved to work for Facebook. Before Cambridge Analytica.^[1] Facebook supposedly surpassed 2 billion users in 2017. Internet.org was bringing connectivity to parts of the globe that constituted meaningful platform growth, because oh my god they have so many users they have to start connecting other parts of the world to continue growing. Eight years ago I saw how this was problematic — cool, a private and unregulated entity providing infrastructure to the Global South warred with cool cool cool, infinite growth at what cost — but also, damn, how cool to ship one’s work to an unprecedentedly global diverse, multicultural audience.

I remember learning in interviews that they had around 400 designers. I couldn’t decide whether that was a wildly large or small team. “2 billion” has a too many zeroes.^[2]

Full disclosure: I got to the onsite and didn’t progress. I’ve started interviewing once with them since, but cut it off myself in Summer 2020. I hope I wouldn’t entertain them these days.

In 2020, my company’s consumer product was visibly used by some pretty deplorable people. The scale of our scandal paled beside Facebook, but despite the intense discomfort and scrutiny, I was proud to be an employee of a small company where discussion was vibrant and individual employees had a voice, as opposed to be a drop in Facebook’s bucket.

That brings us to the last few weeks. The writing’s bee on the wall, but that makes it no more pleasant to read. In planning our move^[3] I’ve dwelt on which goals I’m letting go. The Bay’s always been among them: somewhere to live — at least for a bit — and somewhere to make my design practice meaningful and real. Austin’s a joke of a design market,^[4] and the gulf from our talent pool to the Bay’s, let alone in FAANG, is wild.

I’d wanted to work for Apple since a recruiter contacted me 2011. I had a small visual design website and in taking small freelance jobs, made a point to not make it too obvious online that I was a teenager. We reengaged two years later, and in Summary 2013, I interned on the iWork team shortly before iWork for iOS and iWork for iCloud (Beta) launched in October with the new iOS 7 design.

I’d held onto a desire to return, but recent events changed my perspective. ICEBlock was removed from the App Store^[5] around Oct. 2. Eyes Up was removed less than a week later.^[6]

It’d be great if we can return to the U.S. in some years and pursue our earlier goals. We’ve leaving because, in large part, we feel both that’s no longer viable and the short term is increasingly unsafe. Leaving feels like a recognition that the things we’d wanted are no longer possible, but whether or not we leave, we know they’re no longer possible.

I hope that my friends at these companies are safe, and affect what positive change they can while taking care of their own. I’m privileged to be able to try washing my hands of this, and were I employed in FAANG, I can’t say with certainty what I would do. I know that now, on the other side of that question, I’m both lucky and saddened that I no longer need to find out.