Big Tech’s Threat to Fashion

The Business of Fashion Podcast

The Business of Fashion

Fashion & Beauty, Business, Arts

4.6 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2021

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s hard to imagine running a successful brand in 2021 without advertising on Instagram, buying search ads on Google or selling on Amazon. At BoF VOICES, H&M’s Christopher Wylie and venture capitalist Roger McNamee talked about why that’s probably not a good thing — and how the industry can reduce its reliance on tech giants. Before the pandemic, social media and e-commerce giants like Facebook and Amazon were ascendant. The physical isolation caused by the ongoing global health crisis has only consolidated their power. Nevertheless, fashion brands can’t rely on a handful of Silicon Valley firms to run their businesses, venture capitalist Roger McNamee said at BoF’s VOICES. In an interview with Christopher Wylie, who blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica’s improper use of Facebook user data during the 2016 election, McNamee outlined how big tech has touched off a “cascading series of catastrophes going from the online world into the real world.” In fashion, Facebook, Amazon and Google have inserted themselves between brands and their customers. Though they offer unparalleled marketing and commerce capabilities, McNamee noted their clients pay a steep price in the long run by ceding control of such crucial elements of their businesses. But all is not lost. “The fashion industry has a superpower,” he said. “You’re actually connected to culture, so people care what you have to say. You have to recognise as an industry that these guys are changing the rules and you have to fight back.” Find out more about #BoFVOICES here. To contact The Business of Fashion with comments, questions or speaker ideas please email [email protected]. Sign up for BoF’s Daily Digest newsletter. Ready to become a BoF Professional? For a limited time, enjoy 25% discount on an annual membership, exclusively for podcast listeners. Simply, click here, select the Annual Package and use code PODCASTPRO at the checkout. For all sponsorship enquiries, it’s: [email protected].

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The culture of Silicon Valley isn't optimized on consumer choice.
0:07.0	It's not about making us better. It's about efficiency. Their profit comes from getting all of us to do what they want.
0:14.0	Facebook says, well, we don't actually profit from hates. This is not what we're about.
0:19.0	Do you think that this quote unquote tech lash is forming
0:22.4	part of a cultural moment or this was just another excuse for big companies to woke wash and
0:27.8	make a false stand for something to gain activist support? I think it's really easy to miss what
0:34.4	matters about 2020. The pandemic triggered lots of issues,
0:39.3	and our ability to respond to it has been undermined.
0:43.0	And the murder of George Floyd, again, with everybody at home in quarantine watching,
0:47.3	revealed how the role that Facebook in particular plays in amplifying hate,
0:53.3	particularly white supremacist hate.
0:59.2	Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion, and welcome to the
1:04.1	POF podcast. Back at Voices 2020, we invited the Cambridge Analytical whistleblower Christopher
1:09.9	Wiley to have a conversation with Roger McNamee,
1:13.0	one of the earliest investors in Facebook
1:15.0	and a mentor to Mark Zuckerberg
1:17.3	to talk about the future of big technology companies.
1:20.3	Only last week, the social media industry found itself
1:22.9	in a hugely controversial moment
1:25.1	as Donald Trump was using various platforms to incite violence that
1:29.4	ultimately resulted in the insurrection at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
1:34.3	In this conversation, Christopher and Roger talk through some of the implications for big tech
	...

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