Emerging in the tech world this week is a story about Google firing Timnit Gebru and providing a pretty bad excuse for doing so. This is the kind of stuff that makes me very angry.
During my teen years, I’d look up to a company like Google or Facebook as the kind of company I wanted to be part of or create someday. I often thought they were innovative and made great products, but my respect for these companies, especially for Google and Facebook, has exponentially diminished over the years. It’s becoming increasingly crystal clear to me that Big Tech will pretty much compromise on everything to increase their bottom line and remove anything that could potentially get in their way of achieving the highest amount of profit quarter-after-quarter.
Companies are built by people coming together to achieve a shared goal. A company is a set of filters to look at the future in a particular way. And if your only filter is basically profit, then be honest about that, instead of deceiving people that you’re in it for the greater good.
I believe that entrepreneurs, founders and investors or pretty much everyone in the tech industry should take note that how Big Tech has been operating this last decade is the incorrect way to build sustainable, lasting companies. This is also absolutely not how you make the world a better place. These companies need to stop misleading people that they’re doing good for everyone when all their actions suggest that they’re only concerned with making themselves richer (but not the people who use their products). It’s totally ok to do things to make more money for yourself, but be honest about it.
Here’s my message to Big Tech: Write it in your company values that you value profit over everything else. If you’re failing at making your company diverse, publicly admit as a company, as CEO or Chairman, that you’re failing and you’re trying to fix it and give people who are trying to fix it power and influence in your company instead of firing them. Honesty is the only real way to get people to trust you. But this kind of silencing which we are seeing again and again of the good people speaking up is what will be the reason of your undoing. It will be a slow undoing, but over time, people will realize that the products you make are shit, that your values are a bunch of lies and that there is a much better world that we all could live in. Much better companies we could build and be part of.
Some of the most intelligent engineers (and also kind, good-hearted people) I’ve met in my life work at Google and other Big Tech, but unfortunately they are being misled into believing that every single day the work they’re doing is making the world a better place — it’s not. The work they’re doing is basically only increasing the company’s profits, which does not equate to making the world a better place.
If you want to make the world a better place through a for-profit company, you have to build a company that values purpose over the profits and a lot of thought has to go into every initiative, every product to ensure that that core value is being upheld. You can’t be afraid of initiatives that cannibalize your existing products or a segment of your profits for the greater good.
Note: I haven’t written anything for almost 5 months on this blog. I wish I could make more mental space and time to write and publish. I would be delighted if I could write even 2x a month on meaningful topics and publish it here, even if no one really reads it.