Second, business realities and the end of ZIRP are something that a whole generation of software …

"I started working in 2000, and had a decade under my belt leading teams and becoming CTO of a Web 2.0 era startup before I made as much money as new grads expect to earn today fresh out of school." The dollar had an average inflation rate of 2.55% per year between 2000 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 87.60%. In other words, if you were paid 60k in 2000 you would need 112200 to make the same inflation adjusted income (but note that income tax increases as you increase in income in absolute terms, so that new inflation-adjusted income is less net of taxes). If you reached 100k in 2000 you would need 187k today (and again, tax makes it worse).

I don't think this is an easy reaction at all, I read it as someone who sees through the BS and has experienced it first-hand. You call it grandstanding, I call it just being a good person and supporting your coworkers. Maybe a little 'grandstanding' is all that is needed to break a handful of beaten-down people out of their rut to stand up a little more and demand some attention. Shining light on these entrenched issues is the only way to get them to change. Shame works wonders. I agree with the parent post that more and more standing up is the only way to change. Someone just has to have the courage to do it first, job be damned. That grandstanding can go so much further if someone with the CTO title were to push things. Things don't get more complicated the higher you go, they get easier, precisely because you're in the position of power and the influence, real or shadow, to actually …

I see the general philosophy that people should not protest their indignities as leading to a culture where it is weird to do so which is why it is so hard for everyone to do it---nobody around them does it. There is supposed to be a baseline amount of respect in an organization that dissolves most of the need for bitterness and power struggles. Tech companies I have worked at and heard about mostly do not have this . The more hypermodern the company, the less they have it. It's the principal reason why modern tech is so dystopian: because whatever happens to you, you are just expected to take it , and you're paid a lot so shut the fuck up. I've worked at several famous tech companies and I have very little respect for any of the management there because of the amount of "shut up and take the money" attitude there is. The organization rots, culturally, and everyone's life is devoid of me…