Mom, We’re Living in a Different Tech Era

I have a very visible, very loud generational gap in my family when it comes to tech. And I wonder if you have something like that too.

In my family, when you say SaaS, they hear something simple. Build an app, release it once, sit back at home, and money just starts appearing. No updates. No maintenance. No stress. No constant thinking about whether the product is still relevant tomorrow. Almost like once it exists, it’s done forever.

But the reality we live in could not be further from that.

In tech, nothing stays still. If you blink, you get eaten. If you pause too long, someone else has already built faster, shipped better, iterated harder. Everything is moving at a pace that feels like it has no brakes. What worked yesterday is already slightly outdated today, and tomorrow it might not matter at all.

And I try to explain this sometimes.

I try to explain the chaos of building something while also maintaining it, growing it, fixing it, scaling it, hiring for it, and still somehow staying sane through it all. I try to explain that “we’re hiring” does not mean things are broken or out of control, it means things are growing. It means something is actually working enough that more hands are needed to keep it alive.

But I can see it in their faces before I even finish the sentence.

That look.

That quiet judgment mixed with confusion. Like why do you need more people to sit on a computer and call it work. Why isn’t it just done already. Why isn’t it simple.

And I feel this strange mix of emotions every time. Frustration. Sadness. A little embarrassment I don’t want to admit. And underneath all of it, this deep urge to prove myself. Not just that I am working, but that what I am doing actually matters.

But then I pause and ask myself, who am I even trying to prove this to?

Because the truth is, they are not really trying to understand it. Not because they are incapable, but because they are anchored in a completely different world. A world where work was visible, physical, predictable. You went somewhere. You did a thing. You came back. You could see the effort in a tangible way.

So when I talk about building products that live in the cloud, scaling systems that change daily, or hiring people across different time zones to support something that never sleeps, it probably sounds abstract. Maybe even unnecessary.

And yet I still catch myself trying to explain it again and again, as if the next sentence will finally make it click.

Sometimes it feels like I am speaking two different languages in the same room.

What makes it harder is that I care what they think. I wish I didn’t, but I do. There is something about wanting approval from the people who raised you that never fully disappears. Even when you know you are building something completely different from what they understand, you still want them to see it and say yes, this is real, this is valid, this matters.

Instead, I get the quiet doubt. The raised eyebrow. The subtle tone that suggests I could be doing something more stable, more normal, more certain.

And I have my own reactions too.

I have my own loud eye rolls when I hear how things “should” be done. I push back. I dismiss. I insist that the world does not operate the way it used to. That we are not in the 1940s. That industries evolve, and so do the ways we work in them. I argue my point with confidence, because I know I am right in this context.

But then I realize something uncomfortable.

We are all doing the same thing.

They are protecting their worldview. I am protecting mine. They are holding on to what made sense in their time. I am building something that only makes sense in this one.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, we misunderstand each other.

It is not really about SaaS or apps or hiring or work culture. It is about change. About how hard it is to watch someone operate in a system you do not recognize anymore. And how exhausting it is to constantly feel like you need to justify your existence inside that system.

Some days it gets to me more than I want to admit.

On those days, I question myself in quieter ways. Am I overcomplicating things. Am I actually building something meaningful or just convincing myself that I am. Why does it feel like I am always explaining instead of just being understood.

But then I go back to the work.

And the work does not lie.

Products grow. Users come in. Problems get solved. Teams expand. Systems hold under pressure. Things move forward, even when no one outside fully sees what it takes to keep them moving.

And slowly I am learning something I wish I had understood earlier.

I do not need to be understood by everyone.

Especially not by people who are looking at a completely different version of reality.

What I do need is to trust what I am building when no one else gets it yet. To stop measuring validity by how easily it translates to someone else’s world. To accept that not every gap needs to be closed, and not every opinion needs to be converted.

But still, I am human.

So yes, sometimes I will still try to explain it at the dinner table. Sometimes I will still feel that sting when it is met with confusion or doubt. And sometimes I will still roll my eyes right back.

But underneath all of that, there is something steady growing in me.

A quiet confidence that does not need permission.

Because the work is real, even when it is misunderstood.

And maybe that is the part they will never fully see.

Not yet anyway.