Roger’s $0.02 - The Amoral Tech Company

One of the more quixotic ideas behind the early 2000s startup frenzy was that companies could — and should — be moral. The belief that a company could be more than just profits and shareholder value. A company can represent an idealized vision of the future and create a template for how to get there. And it wasn’t just companies that pushed that idea. Popular culture also reinforced the notion that there existed two types of companies in the world: ethical companies and immoral ones. But if history has taught us anything, real life is filled with a boundless grey zone where clear-cut distinctions don’t exist.

When Google became synonymous with web search, it incorporated the "Don't Be Evil" phrase into the company's prospectus for its 2004 IPO. Eventually, it made its way into the company’s code of conduct, albeit it was moved from the preface to the final sentence in mid-2018. But as the years have passed, the idea that Google was a different type of company has faded and been replaced with cynicism most have for large corporations. Even Apple’s attempt to showcase itself as a different type of computer company ran headlong into the realities of the marketplace, from using a manufacturer with significant labor disputes to monopolistic digital store practices. Being good is easier when you don’t have to meet investor expectations or face their wrath when they aren’t being met.

When Texas's restrictive abortion laws came into effect, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff offered employees and their families the option to relocate out of the state.  Many believed in Marc Benioff’s public persona as a more compassionate and in-touch type of CEO. But just days ago, Salesforce laid off 262 workers in San Francisco after Benioff extolled the virtues of AI. It came as a shock to many who had difficulty reconciling the two behaviors from the same person.

As we’ve seen with the rise of AI investment and their about-face on corporate policy around social inequality, companies are inherently amoral. Not immoral, which suggests a level of malevolence and ill intent, but rather a behavior that secures and rewards benefits for the company. A lack of an intrinsic moral compass allows a company or corporation to dodge or at least deflect the opprobrium of whatever the social zeitgeist considers bad. Critics would call it a cynical play on contemporary social mores and use terms like greenwashing or social washing, where companies portray themselves as in touch and thoughtful constructive members of the community. Supporters of the approach would call it “reading the room”.

At the end of the day, it's about survival. Their survival. It's why people shouldn’t place deep faith in the tech industry's ability to self-regulate their behavior. It’s also why I feel people placing faith in a business entity that makes decisions based on fiduciary responsibilities “to do the right thing” seems incredibly naive and worse, a lazy way of pawning off civic and social responsibility to a faceless entity. When I see social media posts disparaging a tech company for not placing the welfare concerns of users higher up on the list of priorities, my immediate response is, “Why would they be?” Tech companies may make high-minded comments about their goals and responsibilities to better society, but really, they’re about what every company is about. Making a profit. Even a humble garage startup will eventually morph into that role. As it was so eloquently said by Aaron Eckhart’s character, Harvey Dent, in the movie ‘The Dark Knight’, "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain". When you see a tech company or its executives extol the virtues of humanity, understand they do so because they have the luxury of doing so. When market forces put the squeeze on them, they’ll do what’s best for the bottom line.