The glow of the tech bro halo is fading, and by 2025, the glamor sheen of the IT industry will fade. continues to fadealso. While other STEM fields are making strides to expand participation in their workforces, year after year, computer science, a supposedly innovative field, fails to recruit, retain, and respect women and nonbinary workers. For example, precise questioning, abstraction, aggression, sexism, and disdain for altruism (serving the social good) are some of the core values that drive the culture in computing workplaces. These values and the ways they are policed through bias, discrimination, and harassment in high-tech companies form the “Bro Code.”
He Brother code life high tolerance of sexual harassment. It also contributes to the countryside’s failure to rectify its stark segregation. Only 21 percent of computer programming positions are occupied by women. Of that 21 percent, only 2 percent are African American and only 1 percent are Latina. While they are vastly underrepresented in the field at large, women are disproportionately affected during industry downsizing. For example, almost 70 percent of those laid off in the 2022 technology layoffs were women. This follows my experience at Big Tech. As soon as the company went public, shareholders demanded annual layoffs. For the first two years, the only people laid off in my department were women.
Furthermore, due to their enormous wealth and masterful mark, Bro Code bosses believe themselves to be magicians or priests. They lean toward authoritarianism, driven to suppress grievances and resistance. Some programmers imitate this behavior. For example, in 2023, tech bros harassed the Grace Hopper Celebrationthe world’s largest conference for women and non-binary tech workers. The female attendees I spoke to described men at the trade show simply barging in front of them in lines, and some said they were harassed and verbally assaulted.
In 2025, the march towards a future dictated by algorithmic overlords will falter. Coalitions between feminist movements and labor activism will increase public scrutiny of tech culture. These efforts will begin to crack the Bro Code. Bro Code bosses talk a lot about their socially revolutionary impact, but participants in my research were frustrated trying to use their technical skills to serve others. For example, Lynn reported that the eye-tracking device she developed to help people with disabilities was repurposed for marketing analytics; Shauna’s lab mates nicknamed her the “accessibility bitch” when she worked on projects to help those who were disenfranchised in computing.
As Big Tech companies continue to offer empty promises instead of solutions to social ills, while avoiding taxes, rolling back regulations, and fueling a yawning wage inequality gap, the public will continue to become increasingly disenchanted with the industry. In 2025, thwarted altruistic efforts like those of Shauna and Lynn will accelerate growing skepticism about computing’s service to humanity.
Disenfranchised tech workers will continue to help us hold Bro Code bosses accountable for not only failing to live up to their widely publicized altruism, but also for your efforts to hide social harm of their products. As recent organizational activities As tech workers show, strong coalitions among workers are what scare these reigning elites the most. For example, in 2018, more than 20,000 Google employees Around the world they organized a strike against sexual harassment and systemic racism in the company. By 2025, activism against militarization, racism, sexism, and economic exploitation in the tech industry will skyrocket more than the Bro Code bosses’ spaceplanes.