Blind Ambition

In a thread where users discuss the diminishing value of referrals when people simply refer strangers, one user rebuffs: “Referrals are the best thing on [B]lind. They give a shot for anyone to interview anywhere.” Applying for a role at a big tech company is generally competitive. In 2019, Google received 3.3 million applications with a hiring rat... See more

When everyone has similar stories, they all seem to collapse into one Big Tech Company. Across companies worth billions, with salaries many multiples of the national average, employees are facing the same isolation, burnout, and professional disenchantment that seems pervasive across the entire economy. One is unequivocally better than the other—bu... See more

Blind touts this kind of opportunity for job seekers in its mission: “Blind is a platform for change. Our mission towards transparency breaks down professional barriers—empowering informed decisions and inspiring productive change in the workplace.”

The technology industry is a vehicle for individual wealth generation like few other industries are, with possibilities including an acquisition exit, an IPO, or RSUs. A large contingent of users on Blind view tech as a game to be won: witness a discussion on how to get to $1 million in total compensation or a polls on the highest-paying FAANGs. Th... See more

But some feel the app is not representative of big tech overall. “It is a loud minority who participates on those platforms. 85% of actual employees don’t care about it, and for the most part love their job for the pay to work-life balance ratio,” says Lenny Bogdonoff, the Founder of Y-Combinator backed Milk Studio and a former UX Engineer at Googl... See more

For this subset of people, conversations can certainly veer away from the professional, occasionally landing in a territory that explains why some refer to Blind as the “4chan of tech.” Across the app, disturbing discussions around topics like race and gender are not a mainstay, but do occur—in a March 2022 thread, a Meta employee started a convers... See more

The app has categories of conversations including “Return to Office,” “Work From Home,” “COVID-19,” “Layoffs,” and “Job Openings.” A March 2020 post at the start of the pandemic titled “Companies NOT doing WFH” asks users to “name and shame” companies without a work from home policy, garnering 58,400 views and 1,449 comments. Two years later, coinc... See more