Happy belated 4th of July! We hope you got to enjoy some fireworks and great food 🎆 🥘!

Here’s what our alum have been up to recently:

🥳 👶 Congratulations Randall!

Randall (h’11) recently had a baby! Congratulations 🎊 👶 🥺!

❗📖 Against Tech Oligarchy

JS (h’14) has a book coming out soon! Please read below for more information (also posted in #2-general):

Hello I’m JS, class of 14, paired with Buzzfeed (RIP). I wanted to share with everyone that I have a book coming out soon on September 15th!! The book is called Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World’s Most Powerful Industry—it’s about the rise of the tech worker movement and labor politics of the tech industry; and its now available for pre-order!

This book, in some ways, grew out of my fellowship at HackNY over a decade ago. HackNY provided my first experience working in tech and it made me see the industry through somewhat of a rosy lens. However, as I stayed on in the industry, my high expectations for the industry—which I had developed from being part of this community—began to break: it was clear that the industry was starting to use tech to build weapons, to accelerate fossil fuel extraction, to empower organizations like ICE. At that point, myself and many others working in the industry decided to push back against these decisions, organizing open letters, walk outs, and eventually also unions. This book tells the story of that uprising, and how it was that this group of tech workers came to change the labor politics of the industry, one that has, especially in recent years, changed for the worse.

With power evermore concentrated into the hands of a few tech billionaires (and now also a trillionaire), many of whom have allied with an administration hellbent on attacking progressive values—DEI, gender equality, immigrant rights—the need for a counter power is more urgent than ever. And so, part of what I’m hoping to do with this book is to get it to as many people working in the tech industry as possible and to bring more awareness to struggles that tech workers have waged over the years.

If folks have ideas for how to widen the audience for this book (conferences, book clubs, etc), I’d love to chat! And, as part of our book tour, we’ve been chatting with a bunch of smaller groups of tech workers, groups like TWC, or the various unionized tech companies around the group- if you’re part of one that would like a preview of the book, DM me!

📆 Businesses, Hangouts and Gigs!

• 🐄 Wagyu: Matt (h’14) just launched a Wagyu import business! Read more here: https://x.com/1ofthemanymatts/status/2074973515954995477

  https://peakwagyu.com

• 🇧🇪 🇳🇱 Ray in Brussels/Amsterdam: Ray (h’18) will be in Brussels/Amsterdam from July 15 to 22 if anyone happens to be around and wants to say hi. This is after attending DwebCamp in Berlin!

• 🤟 Anti Sapien: Sam (h’14) is performing in a matinee show at Goldsounds in Brooklyn on August 1 as a member of the band Anti-Sapien, the band he just toured Korea and Japan with in May.

  

Jobs

• Elbow Grease: Elbow Grease is a 10-week, in-person startup accelerator in NYC for founders building early-stage companies. Please click here for more information and to apply: http://elbowgrease.gutter.cc/

• Princeton Cloud Engineer: Chris (h’-1) has been an advisor to this group for several years so the person filling this role would work closely with him. Please apply via this link and/or share it for those who may be interested! https://main-princeton.icims.com/jobs/21970/cloud-engineer/job?mode=view&mobile=false&width=1905&height=500&bga=true&needsRedirect=false&jan1offset=-300&jun1offset=-240
  

That’s it for now! As always, if you want your cool things to be on the next newsletter, share them with us via Slack. Have a wonderful day, hackNY!

Cheers,

Gloria 🏖️ 🎆 ❤️‍🔥