While the COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the US economy, the tech industry remains its most profitable sector. While government institutions responded clumsily to the crisis, tech companies, large and small, offered convenience to consumers and employers alike. Tech companies have continued to extend their reach into our lives at work and at home.

There’s a bright spot to be found, however, in the continued progress that tech workers have made over the last year in organizing to put Silicon Valley founders in check. The research project Collective Action in Tech documented more than one hundred workplace actions in 2020 alone, despite the interruption of a global pandemic, along with a multitude of preexisting challenges.

The rapid growth of this movement over just a few years has far exceeded the expectations of even the most hopeful organizers and activists. The disenchantment with the supposedly noble principle to “do no evil” fueled high-profile protests against the moral bankruptcy of tech employers, which in turn gave way to greater skepticism and anger over an often exploitative and discriminatory workplace culture.