The tech world’s been buzzing this week with Sam Altman’s claim that Meta tried to poach OpenAI staff with signing bonuses as high as $100 million. One hundred million dollars. For a signing bonus. Let that sink in for a moment while I try to reconcile this with the fact that my daughter’s public school is still using textbooks from 2015.

Now, I’ll be honest - part of me wants to roll my eyes at the sheer audacity of it all. We’re talking about amounts of money that could fund entire infrastructure projects, solve homelessness in multiple cities, or revolutionise our education system. Instead, it’s being thrown around like confetti to convince brilliant minds to jump from one tech giant to another. It feels like watching billionaires play an expensive game of musical chairs while the rest of us wonder if we’ll ever afford a house deposit.

The tech world is buzzing with news that Oracle, the enterprise software giant, has been caught trying to sweep a serious data breach under the rug. Now the stolen data is up for sale, and their silence speaks volumes about corporate accountability – or rather, the lack thereof.

Working in DevOps, I’ve had my fair share of encounters with Oracle products, and this latest development doesn’t surprise me one bit. The company has built a reputation for being the playground bully of enterprise software, throwing its weight around with aggressive licensing terms and acquiring smaller companies only to suffocate their innovation.

Something feels eerily familiar about the recent Tesla all-hands meeting where employees were instructed to hold onto their plummeting stock. The echoes of similar corporate narratives from the past - Enron, Lehman Brothers, and countless others - are impossible to ignore.

The stock has dropped 50%, and management’s response is to tell employees not to worry and keep holding? That’s not just a red flag; it’s a crimson banner the size of the MCG. Board members and executives have reportedly sold hundreds of millions worth of shares in recent months, yet employees are being told to stay the course. The cognitive dissonance is staggering.

The recent news about healthcare insurance companies rushing to scrub their leadership pages from their websites would be almost comical if it weren’t so tragically emblematic of corporate America’s approach to problem-solving. Rather than addressing the underlying issues that led to this violent incident, they’re attempting to hide behind digital walls.

Working in tech, I’ve seen countless examples of security theater - implementing superficial measures that create an illusion of security without addressing core problems. Removing executive profiles from websites while their names remain readily available through SEC filings, LinkedIn profiles, and countless other public sources is exactly that - a performative gesture that solves nothing.

Looking at the recent news about Intel receiving nearly $8 billion in CHIPS Act funding, my thoughts drift to the fascinating paradox of modern corporate innovation. The figure is staggering – enough to build several world-class hospitals or fund countless research projects. Yet here we are, pouring it into semiconductor manufacturing.

The decision makes perfect sense from a national security perspective. Having worked in tech for over two decades, I’ve watched with growing concern as semiconductor manufacturing gradually shifted overseas. Sitting in my home office, surrounded by devices that all rely on these tiny chips, it’s sobering to realize how dependent we’ve become on foreign supply chains.