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Introductory Note
Recently, a viral interview with a young entrepreneur in Turkey sparked a heated nationwide debate on the term “Utopia.” The entrepreneur used the term to describe a highly mechanized, high-pressure, and “unfiltered capitalism” business model, claiming it was an ideal state. This piece is a response to that discourse—a reflection from someone who challenged the cold, “robotic” corporate world long before it was trendy, only to build a true, human-centered “Utopia” in a garage.
I am a little angry.
A little sad.
My emotions are tangled.
From 2011 to 2016, I worked relentlessly. Not just “hard“—it was a grind that consumed my mornings and swallowed my nights. There were holidays when I was the one on duty at the office. Sudden returns from funerals. Being late to a friend’s birthday.
The days I spent working at my computer on my own birthday…
I was being pulled away from the life that nurtured me, and they tried to convince me that this was just “part of the natural process.”
There were periods when I held two jobs at once.
Because I needed to. I had to work.
In 2016, I reached a breaking point—spiritually.
I was tired, exhausted, and disillusioned.
I couldn’t make sense of the “corporate life.”
Back then, they called it “Utopia.” I wasn’t aware of the trend at the time; I didn’t know what was being whispered behind closed doors. But something felt fundamentally wrong. Buildings devoid of any human trace, rooms within those buildings—sometimes open spaces—but no soul. Everything was sleek and modern, but there was no room for emotion. It was a system where we checked our humanity at the door, swiping our badges like cards in a machine.
No sadness, no sincerity, no conscience.
Just a race. Blood, sweat, and effort with very little in return.
Places designed for humans, yet containing nothing human.
I was writing exactly these things back then, too. I spoke about it in every environment I entered. I fought battles with people much more senior than me. I heard things I never deserved to hear.
The summary was always: “If you don’t like it, the door is right there. This is how it is.” Is everywhere like this?
“Everywhere is like this.”
So, I opened my own office. I had no budget. I turned the family garage into an office. I’d start the day with music. During meetings, I offered homemade cakes and cookies. It evolved into a space where meetings ceased to feel like “meetings”—a place where people didn’t want to leave. Young people started coming over with their laptops or homework just to work there.
Kids would say, “I want to do business like you.”
Why?
Because it was sincere. Because there was a human being there.
We laughed, we thought, we cried, we shouted, we rejoiced, and we danced.
That was my utopia.
Outsiders—the ones coming from the “corporate utopias” of the time—would say to my face: “You’ll just stay in this garage forever,” or “Of course, your business isn’t very professional…” I looked them in the eye and said: “I won’t stay here, but this is my definition of professional.” Still, it hurt. They brought their own unhappiness to my doorstep. They belittled my efforts, treated my work as if it wasn’t “official”—whether it was product promotion or brand advertising.
I sold content abroad through my own blog. I prepared content for many firms.
And I invoiced every single one of them.
When I started the business, I landed a contract with a firm in Germany. They wanted to publish content and asked for a yearly agreement. My accountant and I researched how to issue an international invoice. I’ll never forget that day. A new law had just passed—think of it like an “Influencer” tax law—but it didn’t even have a name yet. I was selling content and invoicing a foreign entity every month. I couldn’t find answers at the tax office; we spent days studying business interest codes. Eventually, we found it.
I had one rule: “Everything will be official.” I didn’t care how others did it; I wouldn’t cut corners. There would be rules. I would follow the legal calendar to the letter. Many told me not to start a company. I said, “I will. I will do this by the book.” “What anyone else does doesn’t interest me.”
That’s the key sentence. If you do what everyone else does, you get dragged along with them. I don’t understand that “everyone” bubble. I wonder who that “first everyone” was.
Anyway.
I don’t like off-the-record business. Everything had to follow procedure. “Corporate structure” would only exist in that administrative sense. But anyone entering my office had to leave their “utopian” corporate mask at the door.
Now, I don’t understand why they are criticizing.
That robotic world wasn’t utopian; it was the harsh reality of an era.
The “utopian” one was mine.
And I am still a utopian.
Lately, I’ve been meeting people who knew of my office back then but didn’t know me. They told me they thought I was an architect. Apparently, someone dealing with technical work “couldn’t be like that.”
Why? Because they never spoke about their vulnerabilities—their families, their lives. In corporate life, those things are used against you. They are used as leverage. They were always being hunted.
I love design and objects—especially design without rigid rules. I never shy away from showing the things that make me who I am. Because of that, they thought I designed that space just to “trick” people.
It wasn’t.
It was me.
It was about me.
It was a bit messy, a bit dark, a place where you needed the lights on even during the day.
In that place they thought was an “architectural office,” I launched websites and prepared reports. In essence, I was designing. That is also design.
A space must inspire you.
To me, design is this: “Whatever you design, it must be according to the field of movement.”
Think about it.
An empty plot of land. Look around. Where does the sun come from? Where does the wind blow? Walk through that land step by step. Where do you want to look while cooking? Where do you want to look when you wake up, or when you work?
I designed my office, my room, and my business exactly like that.
What do I want to read, hear, see, and—at the end of these senses—what do I want to feel?
That is the real question.
Ask this question in every area of your life.
Humans are like this, too.
If I had heard that recent interview back then, I would have been the first to criticize it.
A “Utopia” cannot be attributed to a mechanical system.
A Utopia is spiritual; it is bound to imagination.
It is not a place of rigid rules and harsh management.
What is the Etymology of “Utopia”?
Thomas More introduced this word to literature in 1516 with his book of the same name. He created a pun using two Greek roots:
- Ou-topos: Means “no place” or “nowhere.”
- Eu-topos: Means “good place.”
Was corporate life like that back then? What did they even mean by “Utopia”?
I am very angry.
I experienced the bullying of my peers and my seniors in the professional world to the core. They drew such a surreal portrait of success… and as I insisted it wasn’t like that, they crushed me and discredited my work. To them, I was just “Alice in Wonderland.”
But during that time, I landed massive projects. They were shocked. Huge firms opened their doors. They said, “We’ve never seen professional work like this.” I was outranking giant media sites in search results. They called me. They invited me. They offered a lot of money, but they said, “Sell your soul.” They said, “If a human can produce 100 pieces of content a month, we need 400 from you.” I said no.
I said no because my utopia didn’t include:
No fakeness, no ridiculous corporate jargon. I could say, “I can’t do that much, I don’t have the team for it.” There were realistic timelines. Because I am human, and the people I work with are human. I am talking about timeframes where a person can actually make time for themselves while working.
No one believed me when I started. I made friends without knowing “who was who.” I talked to everyone.
In 2020, I walked away from it all.
Why?
It all became too much. Because I fought so hard. I tried so hard to explain. You cannot imagine the struggle. I was fighting against an unrealistic system—their “utopias”—being compared, mocked, and belittled. They didn’t believe in what I could do; there was always something I had to prove.
I got tired.
I quit.
Many complained. They were sad to see the office go, sad to see me leave the business. But I was worn out. Even without being inside those “utopias,” I was exhausted by their fakery.
What’s the point of criticizing “that girl” now?
It’s not her fault.
How did they get the investment?
They got it because investors believed people like them, not realists like me. That was the narrative of the time.
I see so many people criticizing her now. Are they being sincere with themselves? I was writing about this back then. I was saying, “Business doesn’t work like this, business is about the human.” They would glare at me and say, “These sentences are very far from professional.” Because they were “professionals” and I was the “clown.”
Now, the very people who laughed at me then are criticizing her today.
Let me ask on her behalf:
If you were so just, if you were so conscientious, why didn’t you applaud people like me instead of her back then?
Wrestle with that question for a bit.
When you value something, when you exalt it, think first.
Is it for money? Is it for value?
What are you exalting it for?
One day, I just said, “You can’t push a human being this much,” and I quit.
And today?
Someone—people I couldn’t say no to—pushed me. They said, “Get up. Go back. Don’t withdraw.” So I got up.
Not people from Turkey, but people from thousands of miles away.
Real people.
We drew a world far from those “utopias.” I am being shown the tolerance I was never shown here; I feel like a human being.
No lies, no cruelty, no fakeness. No masks.
Just humanity.
There are excuses, there is pain, there is joy, and there are goals.
But they are all very real.
There is compassion. There is conscience. There is understanding.
We meet every month under the name of a “meeting,” but we talk about life.
Go and read what a true Utopia is now. Their explanation was wrong. But having that much investment behind you makes you say those things. It’s like saying, “This is my version of capitalism.” Is that even a thing? That system has rules. There is no such thing as “my version.”
And that is not what Utopia means.
As an International Relations graduate, “Utopia” has always been a term that inspired me. It felt like a “truth above truth.” To whoever reads this: Utopia is not easy. Being utopian is hard. I am still struggling.
I didn’t “just arrive”; I came back. All my traumas were triggered. Thinking about those times touched my very nerves.
I always wrote; my old readers know. My voice was loud back then too. They laughed, they made fun.
Don’t ask “Why did you write this now?” I always wrote. I always criticized.
I criticized their speeches, their working conditions, their lives. I clashed with the system they built. I had heated arguments; I walked out of meetings with people much older than me because my nerves snapped. Because where respect ends, my respect ends too.
People experiencing problems because of these systems came to me; we talked. I held their hands then.
And I still will.
I drew the real utopia for the youth.
But the others just kept laughing.
Because they embraced that fakeness so much, and gained so much profit and status from it, that if I were taken seriously, their entire foundation would have shaken.
Now, everyone is attacking them. This is even more ridiculous. I feel sorry for them. Their mistake was not choosing to be themselves. No person who listens to their own soul could have that mindset or structure. The system made them speak like that.
That “virtual reality” they call Utopia—which has nothing to do with the real thing—creates victims like this.
Perhaps those shouting the loudest today were the ones trying the hardest yesterday to find a place within that very system.
What happens now?
A human will experience this in every struggle where they oppose their own nature just for the sake of profit.
Soul!
May you have spaces where you exist without losing your soul.
Because that is what Utopia means.
How did Thomas More describe Utopia?
In More’s work, Utopia is a fictional island located in the Southern Hemisphere. The order on this island was presented as a critique of the social problems in Europe (especially England) at that time. Here are some key features of this ideal order:
- Absence of Private Property: Everything is communal. Inequality and theft vanish when money is removed.
- Work Schedule: Everyone works only 6 hours a day. The rest is for art, science, and intellect. No laziness, but no overworking either.
- Egalitarian City Planning: 54 identical cities. To see one is to see all, symbolizing the end of class differences.
- Religious Tolerance: Different beliefs are allowed; no one is punished for their faith.
- Anti-War: Utopians hate war, engaging only in self-defense or to liberate the oppressed.
Why did he choose the name “Utopia”?
Thomas More used this name with a conscious sense of irony. The book is narrated by a sailor named Raphael Hythlodaeus (a name that means “speaker of nonsense” in Greek).
More wanted to harshly criticize the political and economic system of his time, but doing so directly was dangerous. By using the name “Utopia,” he emphasized that this perfect world was “nowhere,” highlighting both the ideal and the impossibility of achieving it within current human nature and political structures with a touch of dark humor.
Utopia was mine, not theirs.
Best regards,
Sevgi Müge Keçeci
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