KY DECKER BELONGS IN TECH NOW MORE THAN EVER

This essay is a direct response to Ky Decker’s post on AI Burnout. I’ll summarise it, but they’re a great writer and I recommend you read the original essay. You can do so here.

The tech sector is in a crazy spot. Everyone’s joining the accelerationists at OpenAI and Anthropic in a race to the bottom on both dependency and token spend, and as they’re skydiving down the bottomless pit, they’re finally noticing that the brickwork on the walls of the well is starting to show some concerning hairlines. To many professionals in the space, this is enough to pull the ripcord and deploy the parachute. Many have, the wisest among us have never hopped into the hole.

Tech companies, especially the unpleasant ones, take token spend as a sign of progress. This is wrong, clearly, and to anyone with a brain I don’t need to explain this non-connection, but on the off chance that you are convinced that Claude Code will usher us into a golden age where the rivers flow with milk and honey, I’m going to have to disillusion you with an Anthropic-bill-shaped hacksaw.

This puts many engineers and designers into a bind. Like Ky says in their essay, nobody gives a shit anymore. The tech sector is sad now. 1000+ line PRs get approved or ignored, and you ask for review, the thoroughly disinterested programmers will lob a slop grenade in your direction, which as we know, does damage over time.

Ky didn’t have a Mechanic’s Kit to fix that status effect, so they quit. I think that’s fair. I can’t blame them. Hell, I wish I was this consequent with my principles, which I hope you’ve noticed by now will align. If you’re a designer, or something like that, whatever that means, and you care about your work, you really, truly give a shit, then the worst thing that can happen to you is being kept in the proximity and employ of people who thoroughly, unapologetically, clearly and adamantly don’t.

But there’s a question here. I don’t mean that in a weird metaphorical way, it’s a literal question. It’s the title of Ky’s essay.

Do I belong in tech anymore?

Ky says, maybe not. They haven’t decided. But I think I have to say something, out loud, to them - and by proxy, to everyone else out there who feels the same way. So, Ky, if you’ll permit the direct callout:

Yes. You do. You so, so do.

Your entire essay is reasons over reasons why you do. You care. You’re of the small, tiny subset of computer touchers out there who do not compromise on this shit. You have laid out your core beliefs better than I could ever have, and the most important one is that there are no shortcuts.

You’ve explained why. Your engineers don’t care, and when tokens become too expensive to maintain the habits, they’re going to be left with overcommented garbage code. They don’t care about design if the AI churns out things that are passable, for a few weeks, until the internet has been so saturated that we can all spot the AI Habsburg jaw on any given web app.

That is exactly why you belong in tech. Money can’t buy taste, compute can’t generate values. There absolutely needs to be a person, someone who truly, deeply gives a shit.

Someone who’s willing to put their foot down and say no, you fucking morons, we’re not putting AI images on our home page. Who can say no, you will take the time to review the 1000 line PR. That is what you’re paid for, god damn act like it.

This shit is driving me insane! I do reviews of startups and websites on occasion, and holy fuck, the amount of vibe-coded go-gurt out there makes my skin crawl! None of it is good! None of it has the touch of someone who cares! There are! No! Shortcuts, you god damn idiots!

You know this, Ky. I know this. There’s many more people out there who’ve known it, and even more who are discovering it.

Of course, I’m not going to tell you to go back to your job. Fuck ‘em. They don’t deserve you.

But please, don’t look at the erosion of taste and quality everywhere around the web and the tech sector in general and take away that it’s not your world anymore. It’s yours more than ever. You will get to build the new world over the ruins of Ozymandias’ empire. And I know your work, so I know it’s going to be beautiful.

This is more pathetic than I’m intending, but fuck! I don’t like this either! I have a stack of tech bro morons in my circles that would benefit from a swift kick in the butt, and many times a day I think about throwing it all away. Like you. Nobody blames you for that.

But I love this. I love the web. The relentless fascination of the computer has gripped me at age five and I’ve treated that disease ever since. I fear it may be chronic, and most likely fatal.

But I won’t let these joyless morons take the thing I love from me.

Ky Decker, you belong in tech.

More than ever.