Hello, ETL fans. I'm Stanford Entrepreneurship Professor Tom Byers, and I'm here to reflect

for a moment on what's been a truly unique year for ETL. 2020 has defied all our expectations

and brought its share of challenges for sure. But amid all the challenges of 2020, the entrepreneurs

and innovators who visit the ETL this year

also brought us weekly lessons and how to find agency and act with principles in times of crisis and uncertainty.

Today, I'm sharing my key takeaway from our 2020 ETL talks.

If entrepreneurs take away one lesson from this year, it's that entrepreneurs

have a responsibility to consider the implications and consequences of their technology and ideas

on society. Anne Miracow, who co-founded the venture capital firm Floodgate and lectures at Stanford,

talked about teaching ethics when she joined us

for an ETL earlier this year.

Here's Anne speaking in August of 2020.

The best entrepreneurs aren't just forecasting the future.

They aren't just saying, hey, this is where we are today.

And incrementally, if things continue in the direction

that we see, then it will become this. Rather, the best founders are creating a future. They're

building it and they're designing it. And so as an investor, one of the rules that I believe we play is really thinking through,

is this a future that I want to see?

Is it a future that is desirable?

Not only for me, but for society.

And so those are obligations that I think we ought to take seriously.

And one of the ways that I think about it is in terms of the you know, the future and if you're, if you're designing

...