Uber debuted below its IPO price ($45) on Friday and ended up down -7.62%. Lesson learnt from this incident, is quite interesting. Because, Tech industry seems to be going through a phase of serious introspection.
Tech leaders like Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff have started to talk about and fund solutions to societal problems like homelessness. Entrepreneurs, investors and academics are having substantive conversations about artificial intelligence and its possible effects on society now, while the technology is still in its early stages.
Employees at major tech companies like Google are pushing back against leadership decisions they don’t agree with, like walking out over revelations that the company paid millions to executives accused of sexual improprieties and protesting the company’s exploratory plans to build a censored search engine for China. It’s gotten easier for companies with meaningful missions to recruit from the tech giants, as employees look for more than a paycheck.
Funding for gig-economy start-ups that serve mostly to replace the parents of young tech workers has faded, while more money has been flowing into start-ups trying to solve ambitious problems like fixing health care or revolutionizing agriculture.
Right now, I'm writing it from Silicon Valley, which has been the most innovative place in U.S. industry for the better part of 70 years. That innovation can serve the broader needs of society, rather than existing in an isolated bubble apart from them. But only if the people participating in the industry want it to go that way.
