We have to make our tech community great again. We have to rebuild our industry. And we have a long way to go. We are just in such serious trouble because we've gone down the wrong path. I am so sick of the 1% getting all this preferential treatment. Enough is enough. We need to unite and work together if we are going to get through this.
Most of us, when we began developing, we had no formal organization, we had no money, and we were competing head-to-head with the most powerful technology corporations of the world. And, let me take this opportunity to thank the many, many contributors who have been working tirelessly all these years. Our community has worked night and day, made issues, and tried out a heck of a lot of ideas, and we provided solutions because of their energy. Thank you all so much.
In my view, the Open Source movement has been an important step forward, no question about it. But, we can, and must, do better. And I have to tell you I'm here because I have great respect for Richard Stallman and have great respect likewise for Mozilla, Github and everybody, and tremendous respect for the Free Software Foundation. They don't get enough fair press; they just don't get it. It's not fair.
Also, the people of the Web. They all have something in common: hard-working people. They want to work, they want to make the Web great. I love the people of the Web. So that's the way it is. Very simple.
With that said, the Internet is really headed in the wrong direction, with an industry that is doing an absolutely terrible job. The world is collapsing around us, and many of the problems we've caused. Our VCs are either grossly incompetent, a word that more and more people are using, or they have a completely different agenda than you want to know about, which could be possible. In any event, Silicon Valley is broken, and our industry is in serious trouble and total disarray. Very simple. Executives are all talk, no action. They are all talk and no action. And it's constant; it never ends.
Now, what the people understand is that our great network was based on a simple principal, and that principle is fairness. Let me be very clear, it is not fair when we have more income and wealth inequality today than almost any other industry on Earth. And, when the top one-tenth of 1% now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%, that's not fair. It is not fair when the 20 wealthiest entrepreneurs in this world now own more wealth than the bottom half of the tech world.
Qualified developers shouldn't be financially distressed for decades for the crime, the crime of trying to push humanity forward through innovation, that's absurd. We should not be paying by far the highest prices in cost of living at a time - listen to this, when the top tech company in the world made $45 billion dollars in profit last year. That is an obscenity…
Further, it makes no sense that as business owners we continue to spend far, far more per user in advertising than we do for protecting their privacy and guaranteeing security to all our users. That is why I believe in an Open Web, a decentralized software program which will not only support the basic human rights of privacy and freedom of choice for all, but will save the average user thousands of dollars in the long run in service costs.
And, let me say that as a member of a startup, and a committed developer myself, the debate is over. Staff burnout is real. It is a human liability, and it is already causing devastating problems for developers around the world. We have a moral responsibility to work together to transform our working environments away from micro-managing and office politics to employee empowerment and unbiased rewards.
I believe that, as a human being, the pain that one person feels, if we have children who want to learn how to code, if we have elderly people who can't access our websites… what impacts you, that impacts me. And we should worry about a society where some people say: "It doesn't matter to me. I got it, I just don't care about other people". We are all in this together and when children can't get technical proficiency, when our colleagues lose their jobs and end up sleeping out on the street, it should impact us.
That's a guiding principle in my life; absolutely, it is. Everybody practices a creative lifestyle in a different way. To me, I would not be here tonight, I would not be running a startup if I did not have these very strong creative and humanitarian feelings.
I know what needs to be done to make the Web great again. We can make this industry great again. The potential is enormous. Tonight, we serve notice to the technological and economic establishment of this world that the people will not continue to accept a discriminating startup finance system that is undermining innovation, and we will not accept a rigged industry in which ordinary developers work longer hours for lower wages, while almost all new income and wealth goes to the top 1%.
Given the enormous crises facing our community, it is just too late for the same old, same old establishment exit strategies, and establishment economics. The people want real change. What the people are saying - and, by the way, I hear this not just from progressives, but from conservatives and from moderates, is that we can no longer continue to have a startup finance system in which Silicon Valley and the billionaire class are able to buy creativity.
So, are you guys ready for a radical idea? Together we are going to create an industry that works for all of us, not just the 1%. And, when many of our people are working for starvation wages, yep, we're going to raise the minimum wages. And, we are going to bring pay equity for women. And, if we need the best educated workforce in the world, yes, we are going to make education and mentorship free. And, for the thousands of developers struggling with horrendous working conditions, we are going to substantially ease that burden.
Critics say, "you know, that's a great idea, you're into all this free stuff. How are you going to pay for it"? I will tell you how we're going to pay for it. The greed, the recklessness, and the illegal behavior drove our industry to its knees. The developers gave Silicon Valley its glamor and appeal, now it's Silicon Valley's time to help the developers.
My friends, we must fix our broken collaboration that divides, and create a path towards rewarding hardworking contributors who are living in the shadows. We must fix our broken funding system that enslaves intelligent minds, and create a path towards liberal entrepreneurship. We must rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, and when we do that, we create millions of decent paying jobs. We must pursue the fight for user rights, for business rights, for creator rights. We must against stronger, and stronger, opposition protect the right of a person to control their own privacy online.
We, the people of the Web are sending a profound message to the business establishment, to the technology establishment, and by the way, to the media establishment. Our goal is about thinking big, not small. It's about having the courage to reject the status quo. There are a lot of developers that are disenfranchised with the status quo. And you know what? If many of us get together, we can bring change. Let us never forget, developers and the public wins when the participation in the dialogue is high. The privileged elite wins when people are demoralized, and dialogue deliberation is low.
My friends, we must tell the billionaire class and the 1% that they cannot have it all at a time of massive wealth and income inequality, the wealthiest people and largest corporations will start paying their fair share. We will stop letting the executives get away with absolute murder. Just look at meritocracy. A total catastrophe and by the way, everything about meritocracy was a lie. It was a filthy lie. And when you think about it, lies, I mean are they prosecuted? Does anyone do anything? And what are the governments doing about it? They lied about the prospects, they lied about every aspect. And it's disgraceful.
We need to return to the original promise of the Web, and this is the promise we must keep alive for future generations. What began just a few decades ago, what people around the world confirm today, is nothing short of the beginning of a developer revolution.
It is a developer revolution that will bring tens of millions of our people together. It will bring together working people who have given up on the entrepreneurial process. It will bring together young people who have never participated in the development process. It will bring together blacks, and whites, latinos, asians, americans and europeans, straight and gay, male and female. People who were born in metropolitan centers, and people who immigrated there.
We will all come together to say loudly, and clearly that the governance of our great network belongs to all of us, not just a few wealthy venture capitalists. That is what this discussion is about and that is what the developer revolution is about.
So, developers, thank you again. Thank you, Internet. And, now it's on to professional self-realization, fulfillment of our users' promises, and beyond.
Note: Hope you appreciated this exhibition of creative writing using contemporary political speeches as a template to bring forward actual developer issues. The burn is real; let's not be bystanders of history and start treating our smart people as more than just "resources".