There's nothing wrong with making people rich in exchange for money they give you. That's how jobs work. Making someone else rich is something to be proud of and aspire to. Not as cool as making yourself rich, but still good.
I don't mind if my boss or the CEO of the company gets rich, I think they're good guys. I'm just worried they would sell out instead of keeping the company private.
Take Tumblr for example - they sold to Yahoo. Verizon bought Yahoo. If I was an engineer at Tumblr I'd be pissed that an evil monopoly like Verizon that's fighting against net neutrality is suddenly using my code.
I'm more humble now than I was in my 20s, and I don't think my code is anything special, but I still fear that the private company I work for will sell everything I built to someone I consider evil. If I have no control and no equity I'm going to act like a mercenary... I'll do the job efficiently and according to specifications, but they don't get anything extra. If they have an idea and have me build something that gets them rich that's great - but I'm not going to be like the guy who built GMail on the side at Google... I just do the job they tell me.
You're afraid the code you write for an employer might be used by an evil company. We could apply the same argument to taxes. The taxes you pay may help fund actions that you believe are morally reprehensible. To a large extent, these things are beyond your control, and by overanalyzing you're simply limiting yourself.
So what I am saying is at this point, do not worry about all these things. Keep up the side-projects, and if you do that over the long-term, you may one day find yourself in a situation where you have the freedom to dedicate your efforts to what you find meaningful.
> Take Tumblr for example - they sold to Yahoo. Verizon bought Yahoo. If I was an engineer at Tumblr I'd be pissed that an evil monopoly like Verizon that's fighting against net neutrality is suddenly using my code.
But wouldn't you be happy that all your fellow coworkers also probably got to benefit from the sale? If you or your coworkers got rich enough then you could all just focus on doing things that you think matter or better the world!
