On February 2, 2025 I founded a software company. For these sorts of things, you are advised to have
a
product first, and I did not. My point in founding my company is to develop a software business that
supports software engineering, not to take advantage of its existence. In the years leading up to
this
choice, I have been afforded many unique experiences (inside and outside of the software sector) to
gain
insight into how the industry works. Thus, my aim for a general pursuit of the right stuff
in
the
profession of software writing. This three-part essay is about one observation while on this
journey.
Before all of this, when I first started looking for a job or internship, it was before my first
start-up, and I swore to myself I will not aid in making tools of war.
While being
undergraduate
at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, my friends and I would joke outside of the career
fair,
dressed to
impress the recruiters, about being forced to work for those DoD contractor companies. Like how the
Mechanical Engineering majors were tasked during their studies with story problems involving lost
hikers
in the hill side that would be provided an air-dropped care package
by a plane
going
hundreds
of kilometers an hour. I wanted a job that improved the world in general, not sell myself on false
dreams.
So my first startup was involved in campus-based security platforms because I was interested in understanding how to build Platforms as a software engineer, and thought at the age of 22 that this was a worthwhile problem to solve. Having grown up with Facebook being known as a “social media platform,” the allure of understanding how to construct such a massive service made me curious about how to prevent active shooter episodes or other mass emergencies for a community. Unfortunately, the company had difficulty taking off and I continued my career with a variety of jobs in the video game industry.
It is important to plan and to stick to a plan. For The Trojan Software Company, not
only
are our
principles about building technology that is maintainable and that grows alongside you, it is about
cultivating the right
set of products for others to enjoy. It is very tempting to
agree to
any old
project with a client, so I went about defining broad product and customer profiles. So, this last
year
has been market research into understanding the software business ecosystem in what not to
produce. Like
my desire to not support the creation of weapons in college, I do not wish to create software for
weapons. Naturally a screwdriver can be used to make a warhead, but you have less guilt than the
sheet
metal producer who makes custom nose-cones.
Prior to 2024, I stopped logging into Facebook (Meta Inc.) because I did not find the practice useful or constructive to my life and my pursuits (I admit: I did log in once and contributed to some community discourse). Which drives back to the point of why I'm writing this Preface before a blog post because it is related: growing up I learned a mark of a good business was to sell a good product or service. Full Stop. A good product or service that someone could purchase on a whim or consider over a period of time. Something that you can proudly say you were a part of the manufacturing process. Not tools for harm. If you are trying to take advantage of your customer, that notoriety will catch up with you.
I'm not trying to make this about Meta or Mark Zuckerberg directly, but rather comment
on
the collection
of behaviors, relationships, and actions that result in a platform phenomena that I've coined
Weapons
of Mass Detraction.
At first, circa early-December 2025, I was reading the
New York
Times and began
tracking the antitrust trial progress around Facebook that were happening. The typical argument
against
the accusation is We are not a monopoly, we have competition: Youtube Shorts, and
TikTok.
So, I
took
them at their word and tried to understand how these three platforms are related.
I've never used TikTok and have only seen a two or three YouTube Shorts. They seem like Instagram reels but are a bit shorter. I'm definitely aware of the larger mechanics from reviewers and other internet personalities. While observing and noting these behaviors, I also made note of how the language around these platforms evolved, and how we contort ourselves in the usage of our phones to use these software apps and their language. Lastly I tried to think about how we got here in a political-business history sense: what other companies or corporations have existed in our 250 year old republic that have shaped the laws. During my time in grad school, I was introduced to Intellectual Property Law and how the definition of it has changed over the decades in response to technological evolutions.
I've been writing different versions of this three-part blog post for a couple months now. It's been
a
bit difficult because once I feel like I've reached the conclusion, I've recognized something new in
the
landscape of what is happening. At first the title was Weapons of Mass
Destruction
as a cheeky play on
words when the news broke of President Trump kidnapping the President of Venezuela which was
happening
concurrently with the Meta Anti-Trust trials. During that time period I was meditating on the
anti-trust
cases against Big Tobacco in how their company exploits the marketing of an addictive substance to
the
youth. For me, the concept of Attention is core to this species of commercial exchange
that Big Tobacco
and Meta, ByteDance, and Alphabet implement.
Then I settled on Weapons of Mass Distraction
as a nod to the trend people talk
about related to the
phone obsession people have observed with the adolescence, and as a gesture towards con artists who
deploy the art of misdirection, a type of attention manipulation. It was early January and I had
just
received a letter in the mail about Troy's lead pipe crisis. The Mayor has promised us this will be
rectified by 2028 but I have my doubts. When I spoke to my city council members, I was shocked to
learn
that
over 3000 pipes had yet to be replaced while only 200 had been done in 2024. I asked why could the
Mayor
not prioritize this incredibly important issue for the city's water. I was told she just wasn't
interested, that she had higher priorities, and she just does not care: if she is not elected it is
the
next person's problem, and she'll run on finishing
the job if she does get elected. Catch-22
local
politics.
There is something revealing about knowing that someone in a public position does not give a damn
about
something you, a constituent, care deeply about, but this is further grating because it is the
simple
human need of accessible and safe water. This ability to reject others and feel no shame. While
working
through professional letters to the City Council, I pondered this affect of rejection, like the
opposite
of
attraction. So I settled on Weapons of Mass Detraction.
The usage of the word Detraction is a play on words: the opposite of attraction, or the removal of it, that is done by Social Media through its encouragement of public conflict; and the Christian sin of detraction of unsubstantiated rumors (for those Old Testament heads: that's "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness"). A 16th Century Catholic priest by the name of Saint Philip Neri gave a woman who had confessed to spreading gossip the penance of retrieving feathers that had been scattered on the wind— a task as impossible as undoing the damage she had done. Which I’m coming to believe is the situation these Silicon Valley companies have authored.