Advertizing is pretty much evil. Selling things to maximise profits only is a net loss for humanity. I feel differently about technology though. Technology can feed us, keep us warm and let us share information and culture. Maybe just get out of advertizing and do anything where you make valuable and useful things? So many options really. It doesn't matter if the bosses make more than you as long as the things the company does are decent.

> I want to do something in my life that truly benefits humanity.

Please rethink your goals and how you will have impact. Unless you run a non-profit, people are in the business to make money. Let me tell you that I had the reverse experience earlier in my adulthood. I described a bit in a thread recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41598911

In my late teens and early 20s, I rejected big corps. I rejected standard job search and interview practices because people seemed fake. I wanted to stay away from making products that can do bad things (very broad!). I stayed away from business-y courses and topics because people with money seemed greedy. Fortunately, I found a workplace that satisfied my beliefs. I made an intern's salary in the area as a full time employee. Salary increase was almost non-existent. Work was very chill. I lived paycheque to paycheque and never travelled, but being poor was ok being in my 20s.

The last straw came when the company was sold. The early employees had a windfall. Some folks, who were in their 40s, retired or became an angel investor. Some kept their job and bought "adult toys" (Example: Classic cars). I got $0 because I had no stock. I turned 30. I had no money to replace even my personal computer and bought old parts to keep my computer going. That's my wake-up call.

I began to network and learned the reality of the industry. I learned to interview for jobs. I learned that a degree wasn't as valuable as my parents said in the 1980s. The company I ended with had some controversies, but there were a lot of smart folks who were eager to learn. There was no lacking of recruiters reaching out when and after working there. Start saving money in my 30s still wasn't too late!

If I had a sizable trust fund and just needed something to occupy my mind during the day, the non-evil-corp would be perfect.

Since you know the ads surveillance Borg so well you are uniquely positioned to understand how to solve the problems it has created for everyone. Spend a lot of time thinking about why your past work doesn't sit right with you and the conditions that caused you to be paid to do it. Then consider what could be changed that would make these conditions slightly better. That will help you find other groups whose work you value or come up with your own ideas to pursue.

There are extremely obvious problems in energy and biotech that everyone wants solved but they are harder to break into with your background. However it's probably not truly that hard to contribute in a software capacity if your horizon is a few years.

I've bounced in and out of advertising tech, and I can tell you that this isn't unique to that business space. No matter what space you land in, try to establish yourself as someone who is self-driven and can define and tackle your own problems. And then find problems that you want to fix.

I'm back in the ad space at the moment (any port in a storm), and the project I'm working on addresses one of our viewers' and customers' biggest pain points. When it's ready for launch I'll p-hack the numbers to show that it's a win for the company too. And then I can sit back and know that I've actually made things better for people.

> I want to do something in my life that truly benefits humanity.

> Something that helps save our planet.

I would advise you to rethink setting such big goals and start really small. It looks like you're burned out working for an finance oriented industry that does not have such goals in mind, and trying to compensate that with a swing in completely different direction. Jump the whole scale so to say. And that might be an impossible task. As an engineer I would decompose such a big goal in to smaller steps and try to move towards the goal.

If Elon with all his billions barely can make a dent in saving a planet, you should expect less from yourself. Just do your part whichever small it is.

This might be unrelated but I read an article from the founder who found value in the organization called Tugboat Institute. Which promotes sustainable growth of the business. Not sure it's 100% of what you looking for but worth exploring.

I felt the same way a few years ago and found that almost no non profits had any use for a computer programmer. I occasionally help one NGO that I'm passionate about update their website, but that gives me maybe 30mins of work per year. The reality is that the vast majority of technology doesn't make the world a better place, it just makes it a more efficient place. Software exists almost exclusively to cut costs and make more money. If you want to make the world a better place, you probably need to find a job doing something unrelated to technology and just do your coding on the weekends. Most tech doesn't make the world better

I recently took a very hard turn from coding to building things: PCBs, MCUs, CAD, CNC, PnP. All of the acronyms.

Lower case engineering means that we can shift from building SaaS apps that won't exist in three years to prototyping solutions to real problems. To me, this is the place to start.

I worked a lot on advertising/marketing related software. And had very similar feelings.

Only until I've resolved my main personal psy issues.

Since then I don't care. Job is just a mean to an end. As long as I don't do anything illegal - i'm fine. If I don't like it - I change it to something I like more.

I don't give a single duck how others make money or how much they make. Also I know that there are as many assholes hiding behind noble "missiona" as there are among entrepreneurs just trying to make good money.

I work as long as it is valuable for me and my goals.

Sounds like you've been unfortunate and have spent all your time with financially driven people. A bunch of that might from from working in advertising. I can assure you that there are founders and companies that are ethical and moral, though they may be rare. My point being that you might want to focus on changing the type of people you work with as much as the topic and market segment. Certainly you will find a higher percentage of people motivated to do good for the world in the nonprofit sector, for example.

>wasted over 20 years of my life developing services and solutions in the advertising and web industry

Why did you stay in the business if you knew it was problematic?

You might find academic or medical IT more rewarding. Academic will likely be lower pay but there are many jobs in the HPC space that could use your linux background.

> I didn't really have a choice because in the heavily contested agency business you have to be thankful to find any clients at all

Over 20 years and you never had a choice?

Maybe, do something like https://www.village.one/ does?

take a deep breath. go for a walk. exercise. look at the clouds and wonder why they make the shapes they do. start conversations with people you don't know. clean up trash from the street. send a letter to a friend. record the sounds of birds. draw a picture or make a comic book about how you feel and mail it to yourself. dig a hole and then look at the dirt with a macro lens. try to get really good at making noodles. volunteer at a school, teach programming to kids. make a robot that draws a picture and mail it to your mom. get a job at the library. make friends with a crow. set a long term, 1000 year vision for your life. smile at your heart and be kind to yourself. pour yourself a cup of tea, smoke some hash. get good at making pickles. champion biodiversity. fill in the cracks with gold. wave to strangers in a heartfelt way. forgive yourself because you are good enough.

I would also like to continue working with computers and the internet

That ain't changing anything. Good luck.

Bible. Open random page, the verse that you spot first is your answer.

Try this once a week.