Get my company out of Russia: That’s the sentiment expressed by 64 percent of tech professionals responding to a survey conducted by Blind at the request of IEEE Spectrum. (Blind operates private social networks for verified tech employees.) Respondents in Europe were more likely to answer “Yes,” but many engineers at most companies surveyed supported an exit.
Exceptions included Meta (formerly Facebook), Spotify, Twitter, and ByteDance (owner of TikTok). (Some other exceptions, like Instacart, haven’t ever done business in Russia, so the question didn’t really apply.) See the chart below for company-by-company details.
Blind conducted this survey on its platform from 11 to 15 March 2022. It received responses from 7,948 tech professionals in the United States and 839 in Europe.
The survey also asked whether respondents had taken personal action in support of Ukraine, such as making a donation or participating in a demonstration. Here, the numbers were much higher in Europe than in the United States, with 56 percent of respondents in Europe taking action compared with 36 percent in the United States.
More than 2,600 respondents provided details on actions taken via a write-in response. Of those write-ins, the vast majority (77 percent) indicated that they had made a donation, including several donating entire paychecks. A number of respondents also indicated that they participated in demonstrations, provided direct support to Ukrainians, or booked Airbnbs in the Ukraine. These and others wrote that they have also been cooking for refugees, coordinating evacuations, housing refugees, creating informative websites, or helping with data transfer for Ukraine-based organizations. Others are flying the Ukrainian flag at their homes and painting it on rocks around their neighborhoods. Three respondents—two at Amazon and one at Microsoft—indicated that they had personally participated in cyberoperations or done computer hacking in support of Ukraine. And a Meta employee indicated that he has traveled to the Ukraine to directly assist.
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Tekla S. Perry is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., she's been covering the people, companies, and technology that make Silicon Valley a special place for more than 40 years. An IEEE member, she holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Michigan State University.
