My ethical stance

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I’m writing this post as a personal reminder, not to tell anyone what they should do, convince anybody of anything, impart moral lessons or grant any kind of “licenses”. Life is hard and I have enough on my plate with setting my own moral compass 🙏

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I’m currently looking for a new professional challenge, and this time actively and openly (you can find the details in my professional services). I first wrote this post in March 2024, during a much more “relaxed” search, and I keep updating it.

A job search is always a moment when I ask myself questions such as:

• What kind of industries do I feel specially motivated to join?
• What kind of industries or business models or organizational behaviour I don’t want to join?
• What are my “ethical red lines”? How big is the “grey area” to me?

This is not the first time that I pose myself this kind of questions. I remembered that Edu Ferro (a reference to me in so many ways) has his own “ethical stance” published here, so I thought it would be a perfect moment to write down mine. And I want to be so specific as possible; otherwise it would be useless for myself.

For different reasons (i.e. there are higher and lower levels of “criticality” in this list) and with no particular order and without this being an exhaustive list, I prefer not to work in:

• Fast fashion (and anything directly related)
• Traditional banks (especially those with proven record of abuses and illegalities)
• “Buy now, pay later” or any kind of “fast credit” business models
• Porn industry
• Military industry
• Any company directly or indirectly connected with any genocidal state (e.g. Israel)
• Casinos, gambling and bets (“been there, done that”)
• Any green-washing, or generally speaking, “ethical-washing” activity
• Crypto businesses and alike
• Activities where people can quickly lose a lot of money
• Delivery riders business models that often exploit riders, typically misclassified as “independent contractors”
• Business models whose main goal is encouraging wild consumerism of any kind
• Highly polluting activities
• Anything where there is no full transparency about the business model and how they earn money
• Any activity without “full honesty”: lying, cheating, hiding relevant information or “tricking” their users, providers, employees, etc.

And I write these words being fully conscious about my own incoherences: with the current complexity of the world and society, I don’t think that it’s possible to live on it being “fully coherent”. Sometimes I would even say that it isn’t “healthy”. Long life to the cognitive dissonances! 😆

Despite my efforts to minimize it, I’m acutely aware of being part of a global community that continuously exploits other regions and people. Shame on me. Shame on us.

Regarding some topics, my views have evolved in the past, and I hope they will continue to do so in the future. Still, I’m not always in peace with that, which I think is good 🙏