tech bro

US/ˈtɛk.bɹoʊ̯/US, Multicultural London English/ˈtɛkbɹow/British, Southern, Standard/ˈtɛkbɹəw/

noun

A hypermasculine man employed in the tech industry and stereotypically located in Silicon Valley.

Meanings

nountech bro (plural tech bros)

plural tech bros · alternative tech-bro · alternative techbro

  1. derogatoryinformalneologismsometimesA hypermasculine man employed in the tech industry and stereotypically located in Silicon Valley.

    Are Tech Bros, as one Redditor claimed, members of a “hyper technocratic, libertarian…boys club”?

    2019 October, James Ross Gardner, “Who will mourn the tech bro?”, in Seattle Met
    4 more examples

    Fort Mason, a renovated military post on the bay, has been nicknamed “Frat Mason” for the 20-something “tech bros” — tech company salespeople, marketing employees and start-up founders — who have moved into luxury apartments there and play bocce on the great lawn.

    2013 November 24, Erica Goode, Claire Cain Miller, “Backlash by the Bay”, in New York Times

    “U.S.S. Callister” inverts this idea by having its tech-bro channel his resentment into fashioning his own personal matrix.

    2017 December 30, James Poniewozik, “Free Your Mind? ‘Black Mirror’ Isn’t Too Hopeful”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

    A term that once mocked a particular Bay Area cultural phenomenon has become an all-purpose epithet. In the process, it has lost whatever analytic value and rhetorical punch it once had. If tech bros are everywhere, then they are nowhere.

    2021 January 27, Gilad Edelman, “Stop calling everyone a tech bro”, in Wired

    No, Virginia, the combination of Trump’s tax cuts and tariffs don’t help and, yes, when the AI investment bubble pops GDP growth will drop making the deficit/GDP ratio worse, unless you believe the tech bros hype about AI suddenly delivering universal nirvana.

    2026 January 24, Michael Pascoe, “America’s mighty economic power has feet of clay”, in Michael West Media

Origin

From tech + bro (“a frat boy or someone that espouses the fraternity bro culture”). Attested from the 2010s (see quotations below).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

tech bro. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tech%20bro

MLA

“tech bro.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tech%20bro. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tech bro,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tech%20bro.

Source: tech bro on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.