New article: Against performance fetishization
Performance fetishization leads to burnout, dehumanization, and the emergence of what some call technofeudalism. A critical analysis on performance metrics and AI systems
Hey! This is my first newsletter for 2025, true to my word, this remains… scarce! Sharing an essay where I explore how tech's obsession with performance is breaking us all. This essay took me by the way, 2 months to write, going back and forth with myself, and the people I respect in order to shape it into what became this end result. I hope you enjoy it!
TLDR, in this piece, I dive into how "high-performance" culture and AI systems turn workplaces into digital fiefdoms. What started as simple performance reviews has morphed into an endless maze of metrics, frameworks, and measurements, where humans are just inefficiencies to be optimized away.
Now with AI, executives dream of peak productivity without pesky human needs. Meanwhile, tech workers build the very systems that might replace them. As Varoufakis puts it, we're entering "technofeudalism" - where we're all just cloud serfs generating value for our digital overlords.
But there's still hope, should we choose to reimagine things… Read more at Joint Frontiers
From the essay: “Constant performance monitoring has a serious negative psychological impact. Employees report feeling worried, burned out, and dehumanized. Most of all, they believe that companies do not trust them. As a result, their trust in those companies diminishes. And they’re not wrong. Constant monitoring, and being continuously under pressure to surpass arbitrary standards goes against human psychology and well-being.”