Ricky Mondello

I think that Ky Decker’s blog post about “AI” and burnout (https://ky.fyi/posts/ai-burnout ) is worth reading. I am experiencing a bunch of similar feelings, and the paragraph starting with, “I encountered each of these scenarios over the past few years”, is a description of a living nightmare.

I am thankful to work with skilled and thoughtful people who are grappling with these things, and luckily, my passion for helping people is, so far, catapulting me through the moral injury of “Claude said this” and “Claude did that”.

Funny enough, today also marks my 14th year of working at Apple, adjusted for when I started my internship. Despite the broader industry getting more morally perilous, more full of shit, and less fun, I’m far from done trying to make authentication technologies more usable, delightful, and secure. Onward.

Do I belong in tech anymore?

On quitting, the spread of AI, and the loss of an ideal.

Ky Decker
Apr 26 at 4:47pmWeb
Show threadZachary CutlipApr 26
@rmondello Fourteen *contiguous* years? That’s amazing.
Show threadAlex PadillaApr 26
@rmondello Thanks for fighting the good fight Ricky
Show threadSteven NovakovichApr 26
@rmondello Nice job! I’m a tech relic who mostly wrote lots of C and Perl code doing everything from ‘Systems’ level programming regarding various platforms to writing highly-specific software dealing with automation. Left tech due to burnout 9 years ago. Much happier now. Burnout is real and can literally kill you.
Show threadmauvedeityApr 27
@rmondello thanks for sharing. I feel something similar, and it’s awful. I hand-coded an app for my wife to use, and actually enjoyed creating something. But the rest of what I do feels similar. And I too am sad about how an industry I’ve worked in my whole life is turning into something else. Something without a space for me.
Show threadShankarApr 29
@rmondello thanks for sharing this. I feel exactly the same. The burnout is real. Ironically, the thing that was supposed to save time is actually burning tech people out. I wish I could take a long break but my situation doesn’t allow it.
Show threaddediApr 30
@rmondello I am in this picture and currently plotting my own exit strategy. The moral hazards have grown too great between AI and enabling the worst people in the world to cause harm. Some time off and some clutch healthcare to take care of and then goodbye. Maybe done with tech? I dunno but I need a deep soul cleanse before deciding.
Show threadNicolás AlvarezMay 16
@rmondello I've said before that the only useful thing I got out of LLMs was "Buttercup, Honeycrisp, Lotus, Orchid, Eclipse" 😉 It's crazy how Apple uses public LLM services for development despite their secrecy culture.