I still can’t see myself in role models or dream jobs.

A growing number of tech educational programs don’t center our lived experiences or the things that motivate us as learners.

Two ideas conspire to drive underrepresented groups from the field: the belief that innate ability and brilliance are required to succeed; and the belief that certain groups of people do not have that innate brilliance.

I look around and I see my friends building technologies that make life easier for abusers. I am overwhelmingly sad thinking of all the people whose lives have been made orders of magnitude more hellish carrying ever-connected computers on their bodies.

How did we become so invisible, irrecoverable stats in dreary headline after dreary headline? And what would be possible if we weren’t?

If you’re someone who identifies strongly with the techie stereotype, then all of these myths about the tech industry and its predictable culture make it sound like a promised land that was built just for you.