It's all a matter of context to me. "Without our geeks, we'd be out of business, so we give them fridays off" vs. "Hey geek, ever seen a breast that wasn't a jpeg?"

It is often used as an offense, but at least in my case, it's simply an insult backfire (thanks for the compliment). I assume it's the same way for quite a lot of other people.

I hate the assumption that an entire industry of people follow a narrow derogatory stereotype.

I find the word geek to be a compliment. Nerd sounds offensive though.