The people who understand humans best

I don't think this is a hot take anymore. For years, “mental health” in tech became part of the recruiting pitch — wellness pages, awareness weeks, executive talking points. The cynical response was always, “Yeah… obviously it's PR.” I mostly said “duh” right along with everyone else.

Lately, though — at least in big tech — I've started wondering if we've moved from performative support into something worse. Worse, meaning the vulnerability people were once encouraged to “bring to work” now quietly reads like a liability someone's keeping score of. If we're treating people who've been open about depression, anxiety, burnout — or whatever their weather is — as higher-risk hires, then we're filtering out many of the exact qualities we claim to value. I hope I'm wrong. I don't think I'm entirely wrong.

Here's the shittiest part, if any of it's even partially true. Some of the most impressive people I've worked with have carried invisible weight. And they didn't just carry it — they did the work. Therapy, reflection, medication, lifestyle changes, learning healthier ways to communicate and lead. That isn't weakness. That's some of the hardest personal work there is.

Those same people have often been the most self-aware. The most thoughtful communicators. The ones who ask sharper questions because they've spent years asking hard questions of themselves. The ones with extraordinary empathy because they've lived through things they wouldn't wish on anyone else. The strongest perseverers because they've had to be. And it's almost line for line the list of what modern tech companies need the most.

The tools can do more of the tactical work now — coding, drafting, analyzing, even parts of designing. That's either sad or amazing depending on which side of that reality you're standing on. But as AI absorbs more of that work, the differentiators become more human, not less — judgment, empathy, perspective, communication, the ability to understand another person's lived experience and build for it. No model grows those qualities on its own. People do — and very often, the people who've had to intentionally do that work on themselves.

So if a company is using vulnerability as a reason to avoid someone, instead of recognizing it as evidence that they've done some of the hardest work a person can do, then it's operating as a hypocrite and optimizing for exactly the wrong future. That self-awareness is the precise asset you're trying to design with as you build for the people you're hoping to serve.

The tools will keep scaling the work. People will still decide whether it mattered. And you can't build products for humans while quietly selecting against some of the people who understand humans best.