The Only in the Room: Nodding in U.S. Tech Culture As 0.001% of the Industry

On times I've chosen to dance.

I've been in a Zoom breakout room with Jack for ten seconds, and he's already talking about how dangerous Colombia is. This started right after I introduced myself as Nicolás, from Colombia. "I love your country, Nicholas, just wish it was safer for people like us," he says.

Jack lifts his index finger and tells me about Connor. They met at Y Combinator, the startup mentorship program every founder wants to attend. In 2022, Connor and eight of his buddies flew to Medellín for Wyatt's bachelor party. Now they return every three months for the food, the women, the weather, the girls, the nature, and the ladies. "I always chicken out at the last minute," Jack adds.

I asked Garrett, a friend from New York, if it would've been okay to ask Jack if he was from the same US where my aunt has dealt with three school shooter alarms in a decade of teaching K-12, where she's had to assess whether Jacob truly wants to kill Colin or if the "you're dead m8" message is too vague for police standards. "You could've said that," Garret replies. But I had a hunch it might be a bit inappropriate. The best next choice seemed to be faking a blackout, but I couldn't have done that, not with Jack. Jack's tweets revealed he'd lived between Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Nosara for a year after Stanford, preaching that every human is equal. These, and his penchant for cold plunges, are often signs of a potential client who'll pay me the same as a US contractor. So when Jack asks if Medellín is truly like Netflix's Narcos, I just nod.

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After Jack, there was Luke, a rising figure in the space with whom I wanted to be associated. We talked about hatha yoga and stoicism, not once about rock climbing over Zoom. After eight years in accounting, Luke switched to marketing when affiliate commissions from his evening blog replaced half his daytime salary.

Luke was developing a different marketing service for startups, one that didn't attract clients by bombarding them with reminders of what's wrong in their lives through tweets, LinkedIn carousels, and Google Ads until they purchased a $9-a-month productivity app. He charged $15,000, and I executed it for $2,000. I was 22, living with my parents, working for a prestigious US marketing agency. The math mathed.

Luke sent me one or two projects a week for about 14 months, even when Ryan, his younger son, got a cold in the 12th month. Over these two months, we went from Zoom to Google Sheets. He included the company name, the project deadline, and a recording of the sales calls in the "Projects" Sheet. I completed the project within eight hours, added a link to the PDF deliverable, and awaited his "Great work!" email.

The cycle stopped when his third son fell ill, and I couldn't "understand" how Luke could make sales calls from 1 to 7 but not pay me for two months' worth of projects. I must have said something because I got $18,000 and an email from Luke about the numbers in column A12 of the client table needing to be centered. Others could center the numbers for less, for $5 or $4 if you count the platform's commission. Why couldn't I do it?

Luke knew the stress of a sick family member, a boy or three, or a 51-year-old mother diagnosed last week with cancer. I'd get used to it by the next project and not affect work. I tried to verify if he did understand—over email, voice note, Zoom invites—but I never found out if he did.

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It's been two years. I'm now rejecting contracts because the client's values don't align with mine. My essay against tech bros flying to Medellín to hook up with teenagers has reached 100,000 readers. I told a California surfer to fuck off the other day.

I'm telling my best friend about this and about how awkward it was when I publicly called out Bradley for leaving me off the project check-in calls but not my colleagues, and I'm also telling her about Brett, and how he's always saying, "I love your work, Nicholas," and then tells our coworkers how much he despises what I do, and how I'm here because the CEO pities my mom's passing, and how, in his ten years of work, he has never wanted to work less with someone, with me, "Nikolas," and I'm telling my best friend about how I saved Slack messages, Zoom recordings, and transcripts of Brett mocking my work, the same work I have successfully done for at least forty clients, the nerve of this guy, of Brett, and how I feel shitty to tell on him, but I have to, for me, my mom, and life, and how I even reached out to Susan, a lawyer, you know, to prepare, because I already went through this with Jack, Luke, and Bradley, and now know better, and how I already set up a call with the Caucasian CEO, the blonde CFO, and the Swiss COO, and how I even got a whole Google Slides presentation, and how they all compete to ask about who can ask about the weather first, and how I just nod.