Former Amazon executive Maren Costa spent more than a decade inside Big Tech’s inner sanctum, close enough to watch billionaires remake themselves as gods. Now she’s arguing that the climate crisis, extreme inequality, and democratic collapse aren’t separate disasters, they’re symptoms of a single pathology designed to concentrate absolute power in the hands of the few.
From my earliest memories, my twin sister and I spent every available moment in the small forest near our home. This woodland sanctuary constituted our entire universe. We knew precisely when the wildflowers would emerge, when the robins would flock southward for winter, and when the little creek would begin its spring flow. Each summer witnessed the expansion of our small world as our parents packed a modest tent trailer and took us camping for months across North America. At every destination, we would leap from the car and race into the woods. Nature served as our second home, our sanctuary, our very soul. That early intimacy with the natural world instilled a truth I still carry: humanity represents merely one unlikely leaf among billions clinging to the universal tree of life, and we ought to remain awestruck each day simply to exist here.
My passion for immersing myself in new worlds naturally led me to study and travel abroad. I lived for extended periods in cities such as Cairo, Bangalore, Taipei, and Kyoto. These countries and cultures differed in countless ways, yet one constant remained. Wealth and power were systematically funnelled upward to an extraordinarily small, predominantly male elite, creating not merely a gap but a veritable chasm between the ultrarich 0.001% and the remainder of humanity. To contextualise this chasm, if we represented the average wealth of the 99.999% as one metre, the wealth required to enter the richest 0.01% would span 5,000 metres, a distance one could comfortably jog during a morning run. Yet the wealth of the world’s richest individual, Elon Musk, extends beyond 72 million metres, sufficient to circumnavigate the Earth twice.
This very realisation led me to study ecofeminism, which exposed the nested systems underlying that chasm: patriarchy, white supremacy, colonialism, and neoliberal capitalism. These systems of domination employ “supremacy” to justify the oppression and exploitation of anyone or anything deemed inferior. The notion that humans should exercise dominion over nature, or men over women, one race over another, the wealthy over the impoverished, contradicted everything I had ever felt to be true.
I resolved to combat these systems through whatever means available. I began by co-founding a non-profit collective supporting women and girls. Subsequently, in 2002, a friend persuaded me to join her at—what was then—a modest company called Amazon. The corporate realm was hardly my natural habitat, yet I intended to enter the belly of the beast for two years, understand its mechanisms, then utilise that knowledge to challenge it from without.
Once inside, I discovered much to appreciate; the spirit of innovation, the willingness to embrace risk, the appetite for questioning established rules. I ascended to become Amazon’s first Principal User Experience Designer, leading teams, earning patents, and collaborating regularly with Jeff Bezos. I succeeded in making Amazon more inclusive and more humane, and I cherished the sensation that my work could instantaneously touch millions worldwide. During those early days, e-commerce was even promoted as a more environmentally conscious alternative to traditional retail.
However, Amazon also functioned as an exclusive club that perpetually tested you without ever granting full membership. Like many others, I found myself compelled to prove my toughness, my intelligence, my worthiness of belonging. That fear of being perpetually insufficient created a craving for more patents, promotions, and approval. It remains sobering to observe how swiftly that fear can distance you from your fundamental values.
Being a woman in Big Tech proved challenging. Being a mother in Big Tech proved considerably more so. Amazon’s culture normalised ruthless competition, demanded near-total allegiance, treated employees as dispensable, and regarded children as liabilities. I recall working and responding to emails from my team late into the night, mere hours before giving birth to my second child. By the time my babies had grown sufficiently for me to emerge from survival mode, Amazon itself had evolved into something far more powerful and perilous. It had become a consumption-addiction machine, devouring small businesses and exploiting vulnerable customers. Low prices and expedited shipping concealed extensive harm to workers, the Global South, our planet, and our collective future.
I assumed Jeff Bezos possessed a blind spot, that he simply failed to recognise the scale of damage or the urgency of the climate crisis. I believed I could persuade him to transform Amazon into a leader in sustainability, equity, and circularity. I could not have been more mistaken.
By that time, his wealth had propelled him into the 0.001%, and he had metamorphosed from a nerdy visionary into a ruthless oligarch, prioritising short-term profit above all else, including human lives.
The climate crisis, extreme inequality, worker exploitation, surveillance capitalism, and democratic erosion are not discrete problems. They constitute symptoms of the same pathology: global systems of domination engineered to concentrate wealth and power within the grasp of a minuscule, predominantly male elite, whilst treating everything else—nature, human labour, entire communities—as expendable. I have observed this elite at close quarters. Their companies possess valuations exceeding entire nations. Amazon’s worth surpasses Brazil’s GDP. They wield more unchecked, borderless power than most governments, and their influence now extends across technology, energy, finance, media, politics, and artificial intelligence. Many participate in a reckless race to construct Artificial General Intelligence, aspiring to create a “posthuman” super-race liberated from dependence upon air, water, food, or emotions, designed to colonise space. In their conception, preserving these hypothetical future beings justifies sacrificing eight billion imperfect ones on this planet. This explains their construction of luxury bunkers and rocket ships.
The turning point arrived when a forthright friend inquired: “Maren, how can you continue working there? You understand how they treat workers, you know their environmental impact.” Shortly thereafter, I co-founded Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ). We mobilised thousands of tech workers to sign petitions, speak out, and even strike, demanding climate action and justice for warehouse workers. We achieved significant victories, including the Climate Pledge, improved warehouse safety, and the $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund. Through collective action, we held one of the world’s most powerful companies and the world’s wealthiest individual accountable in ways that consumers, shareholders, and even politicians had failed to achieve.
Then the pandemic struck. Corporate staff received instructions to work from home. Warehouse workers were required to attend in person, without adequate protection. We organised a virtual town hall enabling warehouse workers to share their experiences with corporate colleagues. Within minutes, Amazon deleted the invitations, erased the calendar entries, and terminated my employment via a 30-second video call. My 12-year-old son overheard and asked whether it was “for the activism stuff.” Indeed. Any regrets? None whatsoever. I was acting for him, and for everything I cherish.
The retaliation did not deter us. Nine US senators penned an open letter to Bezos and the Amazon board condemning our dismissals. The US National Labor Relations Board pursued Amazon through the courts, and we prevailed: back wages, a company-wide notice that they would not retaliate against lawful organising, and most importantly, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice continues to thrive. Power retaliates when threatened, yet retaliation proves that your actions are effective.
Since then, I have fought from various positions, within Microsoft, on a city council campaign trail, in the Netflix documentary Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy. I have been dismissed, made redundant, and outspent by billionaires who can purchase elections as readily as shares. Through these experiences, I have learnt this: our crises are global, and our response must be equally global. Strategic, non-violent collective action represents our most powerful instrument for dismantling systems of domination, and when merely 10% of people actively engage, transformational change has never failed.
Ten per cent of eight billion equals 800 million people. That scale may sound impossible, and that is precisely what those in power wish us to believe. They maintain us distracted, deceived, and divided because unity constitutes our greatest strength. We, the 99.999%, share far more commonalities with each other than with the 0.001%. We all desire clean air and water, safety for our loved ones, and a liveable planet. We are already united by our shared struggle. Now we must unite in shared action.
Change will not emerge from symbolic gestures or modest adjustments. We cannot achieve victory gradually. We cannot merely treat symptoms whilst the disease spreads. We cannot place our faith in technology constructed by and for the elite, nor in political systems saturated with their money. Change will arise from solidarity that transcends industries, borders, and social divisions. From communities building resilience through connection. From leaders willing to accept genuine risks alongside citizens. From movements that refuse division along lines of race, gender, class, or nationality.
Moreover, resistance is not solely the act of refusal. It encompasses the creation of an affirmative vision worth defending: systems rooted in cooperation, equity, and sustainability, where progress is measured by how well we care for each other and the planet we share. The old world is dying, a new one is being born. It will be constructed by those who refuse to remain passive, because we have nothing, and everything, to lose.
Maren Costa is a leading climate justice and workers’ rights advocate, currently serving as the U.S. Advisor at WorkForClimate.org, where she empowers tech employees to organise and challenge the growing power of Big Tech oligarchs.