Does the Tech Industry Need a Reboot?

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Although we’ve seen great successes come out of the technology sector in recent decades, many critics — and even some insiders — say it’s due for an overhaul. As a longtime Silicon Valley engineer and executive and cofounder of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference, Telle Whitney argues that tech culture is still too closed-off and unwelcoming to different points of view, which leads to products and services that aren’t as good as they could be — for consumers and society. She thinks the industry — and corporate tech departments — can stay innovative while also becoming more inclusive and shares her advice for leaders who want to help. Whitney is the author of the new book Rebooting Tech Culture: How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Amy Bernstein, HBR's editor-in-chief.
0:04.0	And I'm Amy Gallo, a long-time contributing editor to HBR.
0:07.7	Along with Amy B, I host our Women at Work podcast, which now releases episodes every other Monday year-round.
0:14.2	That means more practical advice and more insights to make you feel seen and supported in your career.
0:20.7	Subscribe to Women at Work wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:38.3	I'm Alison Beard. And I'm Adi Ignatius and this is the HBR Idea cast.
0:45.3	So Adi, we're going to be talking about the tech industry today.
0:52.3	Obviously it has been responsible for some amazing
0:55.8	innovation over the past few decades. It has also come under a lot of criticism for, you know,
1:00.9	some of the negative consequences of its business practices, you know, whether that's the extreme
1:06.3	polarization or mental health challenges that we've seen as a result of social media, or now
1:12.0	the human and environmental impacts of new tech like AI. Yeah, I think it's built into the culture.
1:18.2	I mean, you know, I remember Mark Zuckerberg expressing the sort of surprise that somehow people
1:24.3	were using the Facebook platform in negative ways or in political ways.
1:30.2	And, you know, of course, it was obvious to the rest of us.
1:32.3	And I think that is the culture.
1:34.2	You just accelerate, you push forward, and then you try to limit the damage you've created
1:40.0	afterwards.
1:41.2	Yeah, move fast and break things.
1:43.1	Our guest today, Telly Whitney, she has worked in Silicon Valley for her whole career, but
1:48.0	she argues, as do many others, that tech culture, both there and around the world, needs
1:53.5	a reboot right now.
	...

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