The Fish Cleaner

ow long has he been doing this. Pulling fish from a bucket. Killing it with a club to the head. Cleaning it with a knife. Keeping what remains for fish stock. Rinsing the rest away with small bowls of water and a scrub brush. Repeat.

There is honesty in work like this. I’m not sure I can say the same for a majority of the tech industry. This man is providing a good that will feed and nourish people. You could probably count on one hand the number of Silicon Valley companies that have even this small amount of integrity.

Uber could give a fuck about the industry they’re “disrupting”.

They could have built their business in such a way that respected the systems and people already in place and slowly moved the industry to be better. But you don’t make billions of dollars when you respect hardworking people as much as your venture capitalists.

When did we, as a human race, decide that money was worth more than integrity?

For me, I’m more interested in calling a fish cleaner my friend than someone like Thiel, Trump, Paul Graham, or Sam Altman. Maybe it’s the fish cleaner’s eyes, or his hands, or the humbleness of his work, I don’t know. But when I see this man, for just an infinitesimal shred of a moment, I remember my religious upbringing and can imagine what Peter must have been like when Jesus first found him and said follow me.

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