as a teenager in the 90s, i grew up around a lot of tech people. it was an exciting, weird place full of exciting, weird people. the vast majority of them went on to become ISP owners, software engineers, game developers, IT managers, and made a lot of money doing it.
the sad part was that the vast majority (okay, 100%) of them became people whose only goal in life was making money and spending it on themselves. once the technical knowledge was stripped away, they were utterly boring people to be around, living out a 19th century stereotype of the american dream.
reading Doug Carlston's (of Brøderbund) Software People - a book about the early 1980s software developers - I came across a name I hadn't heard in a long time: Paul Lutus. While I've never met Paul personally, he sounds like the living contrast of the IT people I grew up around. He had been homeless (by choice) for a while, and worked on the Space Shuttle lighting system. After developing an insanely popular series of text editors for the Apple // called Apple Writer in a cabin he built himself in Oregon, he donated his land on 8 Dollar Mountain to the Nature Conservancy (+ a big cash donation), funded Planned Parenthood, and exited the software industry.
If we're going to reductively talk about the tech industry as being some kind of inherently evil thing, it's a disservice to folks like Paul. He did the hard work of making himself a value to society, and not because he wanted to be famous or rich.
He's my living prototype of how to live a good life, and not become a shithead while doing it.
A 1980s interview with Paul at his cabin in Oregon - showing off his Apple // setup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7iFA_TKyeQ
Two great photos of his setup in the cabin:
https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/q1iuz0/i_interviewed_apple_writer_creator_paul_lutus/
An AMA with paul from a decade ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q9qzn/iama_former_nasa_space_shuttle_engineer_created/
paul's personal homepage:
https://arachnoid.com