Author Archives: Preston Gralla

It’s long been known that Silicon Valley has a monochromatic white-bro culture in which minorities and women are severely underrepresented. But a problem that is just as serious is only now coming into focus: The tech industry is ageist as well. If you’re of a certain age and you’re looking for a job in tech, you need not apply.

The evidence is in plain view. In 2007, then-22-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told an audience at Stanford that when it comes to hiring people, “I want to stress the importance of being young and technical. … Young people are just smarter.”

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Microsoft keeps making news of the privacy front, and not in a good way.

Much has been made of the way Cortana in Windows 10 may invade your privacy by collecting data such as the words you speak and the keys you strike. Though that is disturbing to many people, Microsoft has responded by noting that Cortana needs to know that information in order to fulfill users’ requests. That’s true, but beside the point. The real issue, as my fellow columnist Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols points out, is that it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to completely turn off Cortana.

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This presidential election presents one of the clearest choices in U.S. history between two major-party candidates. But one thing has been rarely discussed: Where do the candidates stand on tech issues? Whether it’s net neutrality, investing in tech infrastructure, building an educational pipeline of tech workers, privacy or any of several other tech issues, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton take very different approaches. It’s worth looking at their varied stances.

Let’s start with net neutrality. For Clinton, it’s straightforward. She supports the FCC’s rulings in favor of net neutrality. Trump opposes the concept. His primary statement on the matter came in a tweet in which he called President Obama’s support of net neutrality an “attack on the internet.” His full tweet is: “Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media.”

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Like every other tech firm, Microsoft is desperately seeking millennials, both as customers and employees. But something about that prized demographic makes the uncoolest of tech companies lose its head and become even uncooler — and, even worse, act like the Donald Trump of the tech world.

Since this spring Microsoft has had to apologize publicly three times for offensive, anti-Semitic, sexist, homophobic and racist words and acts, all in the name of getting millennials onboard. One of the incidents could be deemed unintentional, but a lack of foresight certainly contributed to the resulting marketing calamity. Memo to Microsoft: There are much better ways to lure millennials to your brand. In fact, thinking that any of this might help is deeply insulting to your target audience.

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