Vice has an interview with Oakland photographer Matt Takaichi, whose recent photo series Developers shows a less celebrated side of Silicon Valley: the incredible boredom and alienation of the tech industry’s endless conferences, meetings, and “networking events”:
So what’s the overall intent with these photos?
My initial intent was to make photos visualizing the opportunist aspect of tech, the attitude that drove the immense influx of wealth and the eventual displacement of an existing population. These can best be seen in the images with aggressive networking attempts, brand promotion, and handshakes. I personally encountered the attitude, too. When asked what I do, I just told everyone I was an event photographer—which wasn’t a lie. It was funny to see how, often, I could just see the calculation running in someone’s head of how I was immediately devalued since I wasn’t a programmer they could poach. They would leave the conversation shortly after. Though, some were more interested to speak to me because I was a break from whatever industry related conversation they were having all day.
Is that what are you trying to portray from this world?
Not exactly. You see, then I started noticing people at all of these often seemed really bored. It makes sense. Many of the people flew across the country to San Francisco on red-eye flights and they’re not doing anything there besides attending the conference. I walked by stressed parents on phone calls to their families at home. It was common to see people passed out throughout the halls. At the same time, there’s people at company booths doing poor imitations of a hype man to mildly amused attendees. Everything trying to counter the fatigue came off as trying too hard. I wanted to expand my initial intent with images showing how the tech industry can be shitty and alienating for lots of people. It’s not hard to have empathy with someone bored at their job.
Image by Matt Takaichi, via Vice