Rescuing Silicon Valley From Its Own Excess
▼ Summary
– Alex Komoroske, a former Google and Stripe employee, has long been uncomfortable with the tech industry’s prioritization of profits over people and its disregard for users.
– He and a group of concerned technologists have released “The Resonant Computing Manifesto,” a set of principles aiming to recenter Silicon Valley on lost values beyond hyperscaling and shareholder value.
– The manifesto is a response to cynicism and represents ideals that many in the industry want to follow, according to its authors, including Techdirt founder Mike Masnick.
– The idea emerged from an informal think tank that recognized the potential and dangers of generative AI, with Komoroske comparing LLMs’ importance to the printing press but noting their risk within an “engagement-maxing” internet.
– By 2025, the group felt Big Tech had strayed from its ideals and aligned with political interests, prompting them to draft this manifesto to outline a different, value-driven course for technology.
The technology industry stands at a critical juncture, where the relentless pursuit of growth and profit has often overshadowed its foundational promise to improve lives. A growing movement of industry veterans is now pushing back, advocating for a fundamental realignment of values to rescue the sector from its own excesses. Alex Komoroske, a former product manager at Google and Stripe, represents this shift. He recalls a moment at Google where his focus on a project’s societal benefits was met with a telling remark: he was told he’d be a vice president by now if he just stopped thinking through the implications of his actions.
That exchange from the 2010s encapsulates a broader trend he finds troubling. As tech revenues and valuations have soared, so too has what he describes as a blithe disregard for users. “It’s disgusting to see the industry as it currently is,” Komoroske states. This disillusionment has now crystallized into action. He and a coalition of concerned technologists are publicly releasing The Resonant Computing Manifesto, a set of idealistic principles aimed at recentering Silicon Valley around human-centric values lost in the scramble to hyperscale.
The manifesto invites anyone who connects with its message to sign it and champion its values in their own work. An accompanying collaborative document outlines “the theses of resonant computing,” allowing a community to refine these shared principles. It’s an attempt to build a collective conscience for an industry often perceived as lacking one. “There are a lot of us who remember a Silicon Valley, a world of innovation, where we felt good,” said Mike Masnick, founder of Techdirt and a coauthor, during a recent panel. “A lot of us have noticed that we don’t get that feeling anymore.”
Komoroske emphasizes that the document is a direct response to pervasive cynicism, arguing that the values it outlines are ideals many in the Valley secretly wish to follow, even if surface actions suggest otherwise. The project originated from an informal think tank of technologists alarmed by the industry’s direction. They began with a group chat, met regularly, and once a year would retreat to a secluded Airbnb to strategize.
A pivotal moment came during one such retreat. “The second year we did it, we did generative AI two weeks before ChatGPT came out,” Komoroske reveals. Witnessing OpenAI’s chatbot shortly after was a shock. He realized large language models would be as historically significant as the printing press or electricity, but also recognized their potential for incredible destructiveness within the internet’s existing “engagement-maxing machine.”
By 2025, it became clear to Komoroske and his peers that Big Tech had drifted far from its early idealism. As the industry’s alignment with specific political interests intensified, the group felt compelled to chart a different course. A casual suggestion evolved into a drafting process, resulting in the manifesto released today. They selected the word “resonant” for its positive connotations, defining it in the document as “the experience of encountering something that speaks to our deeper values.” This effort seeks to forge a new path, one where technology resonates with human dignity rather than merely extracting attention and capital.
(Source: Wired)
