Why Google workers rejected Silicon Valley individualism in walkout

For decades, Silicon Valley has been ground zero for a vaguely utopian form of individualism - the idea that a single engineer with a laptop and an internet connection could change the world

The most remarkable aspect of the walkout at Google last week may not have been that an estimated 20,000 people participated or that it had global reach, or even that it came together in less than a week. It was the way the organizers identified their action with a broader worker struggle, using language almost unheard-of among affluent tech employees.

“This is part of a growing movement,” the organizers wrote in a news release, “not just in tech, but across the country, including teachers, fast-food workers and others who are using their strength in numbers to make real