Silicon Valley revolt: meet the tech workers fighting their bosses over Ice, censorship and racism

The next day at the Slack office, people were quite literally sobbing in the cafeteria. I was mostly keeping my shit together until my parents called from Canada. I went into one of the little phone booths and just sobbed on the phone. It took a bit of time to grieve, but then you also have to act. The space that Maciej1 created in Tech Solidarity was incredibly important. To show up at that first meeting at the Stripe offices and see hundreds of other people who are figuring out what the hell to do next was incredibly gratifying. "Oh, Joe who works over at the security team at a text-editor company actually cares about the fate of Muslim people in America." There were lots of pleasant surprises like that. I think one of the things that Tech Solidarity got really right was: "Don't show up at these organizations offering to make an app for them that you're going to abandon. Show up and help them fix their printer. Show up and just give them money. You made a lot of money on the IPO or whatever. Just give them your money." It was after the first meeting that I thought about the pledge.