The Ethics of Job Mobility

For the last 3 summers and also while at school I have worked for the same company. The company is a startup that I helped found called Asignio which I think can take off in the next few years. Even though I could probably make more guaranteed money by switching jobs, I feel that the money is only a small part of the reason I want a job and I love where I am working.

A popular idea right now in startups is to fail fast or succeed fast. Since products have much shorter life-cycles in tech in comparison to industries of the past, it is possible for a company to start, grow, succeed, and die all within a 10 year period. I want to work in the entrepreneurship and startup field and therefore I see myself having some mobility just due to the mobility inherent to the field. However, since I want to be the one founding the companies, I do want to see them out and only leave if I am forced to or the company is dying.

Since I am hoping to be the boss and lead the company I firmly believe that company loyalty is very important. I will do everything in my power to take care of and help you, and in turn you as the employee should be loyal to what the company stands for a work hard for me. If you are not enjoying the work, then I want it to be a discussion point that we talk about and work to fix rather than you jumping ship at the first possible opportunity. I also believe that a dedicated employee with expertise that knows the company will do better work and be more efficient than an employee that is just starting. While some companies are moving to faster and faster turnover rates with employees coming and going, I think that the 2 years is much to soon and employees and companies should try to see out the idea especially in entrepreneurship specific companies.

I really like the idea of a non-compete in the abstract but I think its implementation can be lacking in the real world. If I have a great employee that is leaving the company and then goes to a direct competitor and helps them beat my company using the knowledge he/she gained working for us, it is pretty much an example of corporate espionage. They are moving to help someone with the knowledge that they gained working for us and that someone is one of our enemies in the world of business. While I agree with non-competes, I think they should be forced to be very limited in scope. With the speed that the industry moves, in 1 year a ton of stuff can change. For this reason I think that non-competes should be a maximum of 1 year long for the tech industry. In other industries such as automobiles or aerospace that have much longer product development time this non-compete term could be longer, but in tech I think it should be short and limited to a set of direct competitors.

I think job hopping is an ethical thing to do only if there are issues with the company and employee fit. I would rather an employee try to get a raise than jump ship and have to find, hire, and train a replacement. I firmly believe that the company should do whatever it can to help the individual and the individual should do what they can to help the company. I know that with the mobility of talent now seen in tech there is a lot of movement, and while I think that is morally okay, I think that sometimes it is not the best decision to move, especially if your company is loyal and good to you.

Tech and Income Inequality

San Francisco and Silicon Valley have been the center of a boom in startup culture and wealth over the past 40 years. One of the biggest generators of wealth was the ability to distribute information and products over the internet and the growth of personal computers.  As internet has increased in capacity it is now possible to sell and distribute a product without making a single disc to do so with. This allows for growth rates that would be unheard of years ago because there is no need to create the factories and hire the laborers to create goods. Once the software is right, you can sell as much of it as you want.

All of these factors have led to increasing income inequality. Globalization has created a culture with a small group of individuals with special skills and connections at the top, and much larger groups in the middle and bottom of the socio-economic ladder. In the world of software and hackers the ability to leverage a strong product is even greater than the ability of a professional athlete to leverage his or her abilities and can lead to immense wealth. Whatsapp was purchased for 19 billion dollars and only had 55 employees at the time. If split equally and disregarding the shares to venture capitalists and other investors, each employee would net around 350 million dollars. The company was founded in 2009 so in just 5 years it “created” 19 billion dollars in value. Part of this valuation is due to the growth and ability to create natural monopolies in the market that exists in software, but even so, that the employees would be worth 50 million dollars a year is absurd.

I believe that the leaders in the technology industry have the obligation to help and change the world for the better. Technology and the startup culture allows for a more mobile workforce that can tackle problems more efficiently and quicker than ever before. This can lead to huge economic payouts but this money should be used philanthropically. Bill Gates is a great example of this. He made an exorbitant amount of money but has pledged most of that wealth to the betterment of others. This and the pledge that Gates founded with Warren Buffet centers around trying to make the world a better place.

While technology leaders and the industry in general is in my opinion well situated to address issues such as hunger, disease, and energy problems, I feel that the industry is set up in the complete wrong way to address income inequality. The entire idea of startups is that if you hit the homerun you will become incredibly wealthy. Also startups are about increasing efficiency which can lead to a decrease in jobs. Uber, robotics, Amazon, and many other companies and categories of technology take away jobs from laborers while redistributing the money to a smaller group of individuals. Because of the extreme valuations of a successful startup and how it does not take as many individuals to create a successful technology startup as it does for car manufacturing or other industries startups are contributing to rising income inequality rather than decreasing it.

Even though I do not think that startups will be able to correctly address the income inequality issue, I do think that startup culture has a major positive impact on the world. Because of the great power that technology grants those that know how to use it I believe we have the obligation and duty to try and help the world in any way we can. Even so I think because of the makeup of this culture there will continue to be a growth of income inequality and I do not know how it can be solved. Stopping the growth of tech may help the problem but I believe the benefits of tech outweigh the increase of income inequality that is happening at this time.

Why Study Ethics in Computer Science?

We are entering a digital age where computer science is more and more important. Most things are connected to the internet or have some amount of code in them. This can lead to a more connected and better quality of life but also can cause problems. Hackers have increased ability to steal data and cause trouble.

While we all know that hacking to steal money or information is illegal and immoral, there are other issues that are much less cut and dry and can be very complex. Is a “victimless” crime better than a crime with human interactions? Is personal information on a computer okay to access and use for business purposes? Where is the line that you draw for using this information? Is copying software stealing? When does it count as a crime and when does is it okay to copy software ideas and code?

All of these questions are important to try and understand and this course will help us look at the issues and think about how we feel about these moral dilemmas. Many of us will likely be put into difficult ethical dilemmas centered around computer science so I believe it is important for us to learn about what we might see and what we should do if put into one of these challenging situations.

Introduction

Hi, my name is Calvin Rutherford and I am a senior computer science student. I am particularly interested in the entrepreneurship aspect of computer science and plan to work for a startup after graduation. I am particularly interested in how mobile security will evolve over time.

In this course I hope to learn more about the privacy issues and how these will change as time goes on. It is easy to find a specific person with just a few pieces of information so I am interested to learn more about privacy and how to protect it.