Can Big Tech Reform Itself?

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

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4.3 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 September 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mehran Sahami, a Stanford professor and former Google employee, wants to see a reset from the technology industry. For the past few decades, the world's technologists (many of whom become its corporate executives and venture capitalists) have been taught to prioritize optimization and efficiency without thinking a whole lot about ethics. The result has been stunning corporate success but significant costs to society. Sahami argues that regulation can certainly help right the balance. But he also believes that tech company leaders and employees can shift their mindsets and practices to ensure they're serving the greater good, not just themselves. He's the coauthor, along with Rob Reich and Jeremy Weinstein, of "System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot."

Transcript

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0:00.0	So you got the job. Now what? Join me, Eleni Mata, on HBR's new original podcast, New
0:08.1	Here, the Young Professionals Guide to Work, and how to make it work for you. Listen for
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0:30.0	Welcome to the HBR Idea Cows from Harvard Business Review. I'm Allison Beard.
0:41.3	In the past decade, the Big Five Tech companies, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google,
0:53.0	Slash off a bed, have extended their reach and revenues in amazing ways. They brought us lots
0:57.9	of useful products and services, and they dominate various segments of their industry. They're
1:02.6	also great businesses. In 2020, they collectively earned income of nearly $200 billion. But these
1:08.8	tech giants and their leaders are also facing a lot of criticism for the negative impact they have
1:13.2	on society, for the misinformation and vitriol spread online, for invading our privacy, for
1:19.3	quashing competition, and for avoiding taxes in a way that allows them to pile up cash, while a lot
1:24.8	of the people whose personal data they profit from are struggling. Is it possible to keep the good
1:30.0	that Big Tech and all the smaller companies in the industry have created while getting rid of the
1:34.2	bad? Our guest today has some ideas. Maron Sahami is a professor at Stanford and a former Google
1:40.1	employee. Along with Stanford colleagues Rob Reesh and Jeremy Weinstein, he's the author of System
1:46.0	Error, where Big Tech went wrong and how we can reboot. Maron, thanks so much for speaking with me.
1:52.0	Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
2:00.7	So the first question is pretty obvious. Where exactly did Big Tech go wrong? You know, Facebook
2:06.8	is used to be a connector of people. Now it's a killer of democracy. Google was a search engine. Now
2:12.4	it's a privacy invader. Amazon is a shopping platform that's, you know, busting unions and small
2:17.9	businesses. So how do we get here? That's a great question. And part of the way we have to think
2:23.3	about how we got here is the mindset of the people who've created these products. Now if you think
	...

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