Working in tech these days feels like staring into the abyss. Everyone I know is either burnt out or checked out. Eyes blank, mics muted, slouching through yet another Zoom meeting.

To young people starting out: I am sorry. It wasn’t always like this.

Don’t get me wrong, things weren’t perfect by any means. I had to use PTO when my twins were born, as if having babies were somehow equivalent to a trip to Hawaii. A man refused to acknowledge me in my own office either because I’m trans, or a woman. He didn’t say. He didn’t have to.

Still, I loved what I did.

For one, engineers and designers had offices with doors back then. I could close mine and think for hours without interruption. There were a total of three people between me, a junior engineer, and Steve Jobs.

Above all, we had a sense of purpose and pride in what we did. We believed we were changing the world for the better. There were very few cynics. Most of them worked at Microsoft, they paid a lot better.

With the iPhone, it seemed like the misfits and the rebels had finally won. It was something we could all be proud of, because we could see the wonder and delight when people played with their iPhone for the first time. God I miss that.

“In a wasteland, people are fulfilling purposes that are not properly theirs but have been put upon them as inescapable laws”

― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

But gradually all the offices were taken by lawyers and HR while engineers and designers languished in open playpens. We stopped serving our customers and started monetizing them. We spend more time in meetings talking about work than doing the work. We stopped dreaming of a better future and started performing for the next standup.

Our purpose forgotten like a plastic bag on a monument. Our pride? Buried under an avalanche of KPI and OKRs.

I was trapped in algorithms designed to make rich people richer, while wrecking the planet and selling out our children's future.

We've arrived in the Wasteland that Joseph Campbell warned us about. I wanted to get away from it all, but everywhere I look it's the same wasteland underneath the same lies I've heard before.

In my dark night of the soul, I stumbled upon a clip of Think Different. Out of nostalgia, I hit play. Tears began streaming down my face when I heard the words: "here's to the crazy ones..."

It all came back to me. I remembered why I became an engineer in the first place. To change things. To push the human race forward. To dream and build a better future.

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do”

― Think Different

That’s why we started Studio Ikigai. Not to disrupt, not to optimize, but to remember.

To remember how it feels to have pride in what we build.

To remember the joy of seeing the delight in our customers.

To remember that we are not here to mine attention for profit, but to make things better.

For all of us. For future generations.

So if you’re tired of faking it, of playing the game. If there’s still fire in you that refuses to die.

Let’s remember why we do what we do.

Let’s serve our customers, once again, with pride.

Let’s build something the algorithms cannot.

Together, we can change tech culture for the better,

Together, we can bring back purpose to what we do,

Together, we can make something wonderful, again.

If this resonates with you, join the conversation at The Wasteland Podcast.