Once again, Hollywood is lecturing the rest of the U.S. economy on ethicsâfrom AI to labor to diversityâas if it has moral ground to stand on. But before taking lessons from Hollywood on how to build a just economy, it’s worth examining how it treats its own.
đ¤ Shared Success in Tech
In 1999, I worked at a startup that got acquired by a public company. I already held some stock options, but shortly after the acquisition talks became serious, the CEO called me into his office. He thanked me for my contributions and told me he was increasing my equity by $60,000 in 1999 dollars (about $110,000 in 2025 dollars).
There was no new funding round. The additional options came from his own stakeâa stark contrast to Hollywood, where a single star might earn $20â40 million while hundreds of crew struggle to make ends meet.
And I wasnât the only one. He did this for much of the teamâpossibly everyone for all I know. He could have taken far more. Instead, he capped his share at a life-changing amount and gave the rest to his team. No contract required. No performance bonus plan. Just a deliberate decision to reward the people who helped create the value.
This kind of behavior, while not universal in tech, is far from rare. ISVs (independent software vendors) often build on the idea that value should be sharedâthrough options, RSUs, or even discretionary grants. And while startup life can be brutal, thereâs at least a plausible mechanism for loyalty, impact, and ownership to align.
đ Extraction in Hollywood
Now compare that to a real-world scenario from Hollywood:
A highly skilled woman is the head of wardrobe for a major studio filmâletâs say a $100M+ production with major stars. Sheâs responsible for designing, sourcing, organizing, and managing a department that directly shapes the filmâs aesthetic, historical credibility, and even marketing image.
- She receives no ownership and no residuals.
- She likely worked unpaid or underpaid prep weeks.
- She is not covered by any meaningful bonus structure.
- If she complains or pushes back on exploitative demands, she risks being labeled “difficult”âa career killer.
- When the movie grosses $500M+, she sees no change in compensation.
In Hollywood, even high-performing department heads are treated as disposable labor, not stakeholders. The industry runs on prestige scarcity, weak labor protections (especially outside top unions), and the implicit message: âYouâre lucky to be here.â
đ§ Two Cultures
| Aspect | ISVs (Tech) | Hollywood |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | Often available to engineers, early hires, and even mid-level staff | Reserved for executives and stars only |
| Reward for Value | Can include equity grants, bonuses, promotions | Typically capped at day rate or negotiated fee |
| Mobility | Defined ladders, technical and managerial tracks | Heavily gatekept, opaque pathways, personal connections required |
| Abuse Protections | HR systems, whistleblower channels, internal mobility | Union protections help, but cultural power structures dominate |
| Transparency | Increasingly common due to laws and norms | Rare, often discouraged |
Hollywood wants to lecture tech about ethics.
Maybe it should clean up its own house first.
đ¤ The Silence of the Stars
SAG-AFTRA is deeply concerned about AI’s hypothetical threat to the often obscene incomes of its stars. But for decades, it has shown near-total indifference to the real, grinding poverty of below-the-line workersâpeople whose names scroll by in silence while the champagne flows at premieres. Contrast this with the tech startup that gave even the receptionistâwho mostly greeted the occasional visitorâstock options.
Stars routinely demand absurd perksâcolor-sorted M&Ms, personal gyms, private chefs. But how many have done what my startup CEO did (even though I was already receiving more than a living wage and full benefits)? How many have said: “Everyone working on a film I’m starring in must be paid a living wage for their locality and receive full benefits”?
The silence is deafening. Hollywood talks a lot about shared valueâbut it rarely shares any.
đŹ Can You Imagine Hollywood Doing This for a Crewmember?
In the tech industry, there are notable instances I’ve seen personally where companies have gone above and beyond to support their employees during challenging times:
- An employee, upon discovering a serious health issue shortly after retirement, was reinstated by their company into a nominal role. This move ensured they retained full health benefits during their treatment period.
- Another employee faced a prolonged family crisis due to a child’s life-threatening illness. The company allowed this individual to focus entirely on caregiving responsibilities for an extended period, without the pressure of work obligations.
These actions reflect a culture in tech that prioritizes employee well-being, recognizing the human element beyond just productivity metrics.
Contrast this with Hollywood, where such gestures of support are rare. The industry’s structure often lacks the flexibility or inclination to provide similar accommodations, especially for crew members who are vital to production but frequently overlooked.
These examples underscore the disparity in how different industries value and support their workforce, particularly during times of personal crisis.
𧹠Ritualized Subservience
And while weâre at it, letâs talk about Hollywoodâs warped formality. In 1996, when I joined my first public company, I called the CEO by his first nameâbecause thatâs what you do in tech. He also worked alongside his core team in Engineering. His one perk? A cubicle maybe four times the standard size. In Hollywood? In Hollywood, department heads are expected to call people âMr.â or âMs.ââa performative hierarchy straight out of 1953. Itâs not respect. Itâs ritualized subservience. And it tells you everything you need to know about who gets to own, and whoâs expected to obey.
đď¸ Hollywood, Heal Thyself
If you’re going to sell yourself as the conscience of the AI age, your output should reflect it. But instead, Hollywood regularly produces ethically bankrupt content: glorifying violence, trivializing human suffering, and normalizing sociopathy as entertainment. It trains audiences to be numb to crueltyâand then lectures the tech world about fairness.
I once read on the internet someone explain they’d rather let their kid watch a porn movie than a Hollywood movieâbecause in porn, nobody gets killed. That wasn’t a joke. It was a moral indictment.
Hollywood doesnât need another AI ethics panel. It needs to fix its own house before lecturing the tech sectorâbecause right now, it’s an institution with arguably lower ethics than the porn industry.