The good despot: Technology firms’ interventions in the public sphere

We examine how the technology industry intervenes in social domains not directly tied to its products, services, and immediate commercial concerns. We intend to develop a framework for considering the ways technology and the technology industry reshape these domains in ways both intended and unintended. Drawing on sociologies of knowledge and technology and a set of 20 semi-structured interviews with technology workers and HR professionals working in the Israeli facilities of two large multi-national technology firms, we find evidence that the intervention allows the industry to re-purpose public education as a means of nurturing a firm’s workforce with the goal of remaining competitive in a tight labor market both nationally and globally. In parallel, the programs allow workers to experience satisfying and pleasant interactions. These re-purposing interventions might aggravate existing education inequality while further cementing the legitimacy of a dominant industry as a model for an idealized commercial society.