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Businesses are acting fast to adopt agentic AIartificial intelligence systems that work without human guidancebut have been much slower to put governance in place to oversee them, a new survey shows. That mismatch is a major source of risk in AI adoption. In my view, its also a business opportunity. Im a professor of management information systems at Drexel Universitys LeBow College of Business, which recently surveyed more than 500 data professionals through its Center for Applied AI and Business Analytics. We found that 41% of organizations are using agentic AI in their daily operations. These arent just pilot projects or one-off tests. Theyre part of regular workflows. At the same time, governance is lagging. Only 27% of organizations say their governance frameworks are mature enough to monitor and manage these systems effectively. In this context, governance is not about regulation or unnecessary rules. It means having policies and practices that let people clearly influence how autonomous systems work, including who is responsible for decisions, how behavior is checked, and when humans should get involved. This mismatch can become a problem when autonomous systems act in real situations before anyone can intervene. For example, during a recent power outage in San Francisco, autonomous robotaxis got stuck at intersections, blocking emergency vehicles and confusing other drivers. The situation showed that even when autonomous systems behave as designed, unexpected conditions can lead to undesirable outcomes. This raises a big question: When something goes wrong with AI, who is responsibleand who can intervene? Why governance matters When AI systems act on their own, responsibility no longer lies where organizations expect it. Decisions still happen, but ownership is harder to trace. For instance, in financial services, fraud detection systems increasingly act in real time to block suspicious activity before a human ever reviews the case. Customers often only find out when their card is declined. So, what if your card is mistakenly declined by an AI system? In that situation, the problem isnt with the technology itselfits working as it was designedbut with accountability. Research on human-AI governance shows that problems happen when organizations dont clearly define how people and autonomous systems should work together. This lack of clarity makes it hard to know who is responsible and when they should step in. Without governance designed for autonomy, small issues can quietly snowball. Oversight becomes sporadic and trust weakens, not because systems fail outright, but because people struggle to explain or stand behind what the systems do. When humans enter the loop too late In many organizations, humans are technically in the loop, but only after autonomous systems have already acted. People tend to get involved once a problem becomes visiblewhen a price looks wrong, a transaction is flagged, or a customer complains. By that point, the system has already been decided, and human review becomes corrective rather than supervisory. Late intervention can limit the fallout from individual decisions, but it rarely clarifies who is accountable. Outcomes may be corrected, yet responsibility remains unclear. Recent guidance shows that when authority is unclear, human oversight becomes informal and inconsistent. The problem is not human involvement, but timing. Without governance designed upfront, people act as a safety valve rather than as accountable decision-makers. How governance determines who moves ahead Agentic AI often brings fast, early results, especially when tasks are first automated. Our survey found that many companies see these early benefits. But as autonomous systems grow, organizations often add manual checks and approval steps to manage risk. Over time, what was once simple slowly becomes more complicated. Decision-making slows down, work-arounds increase, and the benefits of automation fade. This happens not because the technology stops working, but because people never fully trust autonomous systems. This slowdown doesnt have to happen. Our survey shows a clear difference: Many organizations see early gains from autonomous AI, but those with stronger governance are much more likely to turn those gains into long-term results, such as greater efficiency and revenue growth. The key difference isnt ambition or technical skills, but being prepared. Good governance does not limit autonomy. It makes it workable by clarifying who owns decisions, how systems function is monitored, and when people should intervene. International guidance from the OECDthe Organization for Economic Cooperation and Developmentemphasizes this point: Accountability and human oversight need to be designed into AI systems from the start, not added later. Rather than slowing innovation, governance creates the confidence organizations need to extend autonomy instead of quietly pulling it back. The next advantage is smarter governance The next competitive advantage in AI will not come from faster adoption, but from smarter governance. As autonomous systems take on more responsibility, success will belong to organizations that clearly define ownership, oversight, and intervention from the start. In the era of agentic AI, confidence will accrue to the organizations that govern best, not simply those that adopt first. Murugan Anandarajan is a professor of decision sciences and management information systems at Drexel University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
Let me set a scene for you: A manager at a tech company pings his team at 6:01 p.m., asking for a quick favor before morning? The millennial responds instantly with Sure, give me a sec while texting their partner to warn they will be late for their kids game. The Gen X employee gives a thumbs-up emoji and plans to do the work after the kids are asleep. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/Girl-Li.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/souter.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/subscribe","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91457710,"imageMobileId":91457711,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} The Gen Z parent has a different vibe altogether, responding, Im offline for day care pickup and will handle in the morning, then logging off. Its a move that likely stuns most millennial and Gen X colleagues, but this is what happens when boundary-setting appears in a workplace built around people sacrificing their personal lives for the bottom line. As Gen Zers become parents, they are shifting workplace expectations. Why the Old Playbook Isnt Working For generations, we have struggled in a culture that requires both intensive parenting and the always-available ideal worker. Is it any wonder that burnout has become a status symbol? Millennials and Gen X have tried to lean in, then had kids, and then hit a wallhard. The pandemic provided some relief by normalizing flexibility and paying more attention to the mental health crisis in this country. All of this had given rise to the first generation of truly anti-burnout parents. They were raised on mantras like Do what you love and Find your passion, but student loan debt and massive layoffs killed that dream for most. So the pressure to find a dream job was replaced with landing a job with boundaries that enables them to have friends, hobbies, and relationships. Work is just part of a full life, as opposed to a defining characteristic. What they do has nothing to do with who they are. Its a stark contrast to Gen X, whose careers symbolized how hard they worked or how important they were in the cultural ecosystem. While hustle culture turned exhaustion into a statement of how dedicated you are, Gen Z saw it as outright exploitation. Being busy is no longer a bragging right, and all-nighters arent a badge of honor. They dont buy into the notion that being overloaded signifies ambition. This doesnt mean that Gen Z lacks ambition. They just reject the idea that ambition requires the erasure of self-care. They want promotions, not burnout. They want leadership, not a cutthroat or desperate ladder-climbing personality. They want financial stability, not status for appearances. The bottom line is Gen Z wants power; they just dont want to bleed for it. What Gen Z Is Teaching the Rest of Us Its a hard pill to swallow for boomers and Gen X, who have that we paid our dues energy. These boundaries can come off like entitlement, demanding, and unrealistic. But those older generations came of age when housing was cheaper, childcare was cheaper, college cost less, and a family could survive on a single income. That world doesnt exist anymore. A shift could be good for everyone. Gen Z parents I have spoken with demand infrastructure changes, like paid leave, mental health coverage, flexibility, and pay transparency. They are proving that you dont have to white-knuckle your way to a promotion for it to count, and mental well-being is just as important as the bottom line. They are also rejecting the idea that parenting should not interfere with work. When childcare falls through, it impacts work, and they are not hiding it. Family life is a priority rather than a source of guilt. Instead of asking, How do I survive this? theyre asking, Why is the system built this way? That shift in mindset could potentially change everything. The Future of Work Its a profound rebellion: closing laptops at 6, taking time away without apology, refusing to live perpetually exhausted. So what happens when these workers start running departments, companies, or entire industries? Leadership styles soften and reviews focus less on face time and more on output. The ideal worker stops being the person who never logs off. And these changes wont just benefit new parents. Everyone wins when the culture stops worshipping burnout. Perhaps the most ambitious thing we can do going forward isnt to work ourselves into the ground but rather to build a life worth protecting. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/Girl-Li.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/souter.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/subscribe","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91457710,"imageMobileId":91457711,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
It was mid-morning when Nadine Jones got the daycare call every working mother dreadsher son spiked a fever and needed to be picked up. Jones, a senior associate at a big D.C. law firm, newly divorced with full custody of her 14-month-old son, knew what that call meant: her day was about to unravel. At the daycare, another single mother pulled Jones aside. Dont you have to work? she asked. Yes, Jones replied. Okay, this is what you do, the woman said, Tomorrow, just before you drop him off, youre gonna give him childrens Tylenol. Thats gonna bring his fever down and give you two or three hours at work. Then youll have another hour or two before they confirm its back up. Dont you need those five hours? Jones did. Working parents often scramble to stay employed while caring for their families. Cold and flu season can be especially brutal for caregivers, and this season weve had the highest number of cases in 30 years. But cold and flu season isnt just making us sickit’s disproportionately pushing working mothers to make impossible choices: either compromise their childs care or face lasting career consequences, such as stalled advancement and burnout. Or, in Joness case, send her sick child to daycare, and risk infecting everyone elseall for the sake of a partial day at work. The double load: breadwinner and on-call nurse Working mothers are facing a twofold problem. First, sexism is deeply entrenched in society so they end up doing most of the caregiving. Second, many companies dont take kindly to employees using PTO, or dont provide enough for caregivers with children. The result is a double whammy that forces mothers like Jones to make impossible choices. To the first point, women are doing the bulk of childcare. A study of 2,217 mothers by BabyCenter.com, a website with resources for parents, found that 82% handle the majority of childcare logistics. They are also twice as likely as fathers to take time off to care for a sick child. Similarly, a Pew Research Center survey of 5,152 U.S. adults found even when a heterosexual woman earns as much or more than her husband, she does more at home. On average, these women spend two hours a week more on caregiving and 2.5 hours more on housework, while their husbands have 3.5 more hours a week for leisure activities. Pews research also found that the majority of Americans say society values mens contributions at work more than their contributions at home, showing how gender bias is still a deeply entrenched part of our culture. Stephanie Steele-Wren is a licensed psychologist who runs her own practice. Even though she and her husband make roughly the same income, his work schedule is less flexible, so she does most of the sick-day caretaking for their one-year-old daughter. With a six-month waitlist for her practice, she does everything possible to avoid canceling patients, including once taking a client call from her car outside the hospital where her child was in surgery. The biggest emotional piece for me is feeling like I have to maintain my professionalism while Im just feeling so scattered and overwhelmed and overstimulated, she shares. Caregiving vs. career growth Many mothers also feel that caretaking responsibilities directly affects their career progression, with two out of three in the BabyCenter.com survey fearing they appear unprofessional and unreliable. The survey also found that 70% of moms pass up additional opportunities at work to avoid possible conflicts. Steele-Wren knows this feeling well. Since having a child, Steele-Wren has scaled back her business. There are no days off with being a business owner and self-employed. And there are absolutely no days off with being a mom. As a small business owner, taking time off to care for a sick child means lost income. But even caregivers with generous PTO banks often feel they cant actually use it. Companies may offer unlimited paid time off and family-friendly policies,” but often working mothers are penalized for using these benefits. This includes receiving poor reviews on their annual evaluations, not receiving promotions, or feeling pressure not to be perceived as a burden, shares Lacey Kaelani, CEO of Metaintro, a job search engine that runs on open-source data processing over 600 million jobs in near real time. You can have policies on paper, adds employee-law attorney Pam Howland, but if the culture rewards attendance and productivity above all else, it doesnt really matter what the policy says. In fact, in 2025, a record number of working mothers quit their jobs. Joe Mull, a consultant who specializes in increasing employee commitent, points out that the paradigm of mothers like Nadine Jones worrying about taking time off points to a bad system. If your team can’t absorb someone stepping away for a day without that person having to work overtime to recover, your staffing model is broken, he says. Managers are the first line of defense Interpreting company policy often comes down to managers, who can be the difference between staying or leaving for moms with kids. Your entire corporate experience hinges on who your boss is, period. Thats it, especially for working mothers, says Nadine Jones. Jones shares how in some of her most challenging years as a parent, she had a boss who created a safe environment to be vulnerable and to have a family that didnt always, you know, fall into line. She says the psychological safety and scheduling accommodations allowed her to do her best work for the organization while being present for her son. Having an understanding boss can mean everything to a caregiver. Research even shows that a manager has more influence on an employee’s mental health than a therapist and that a compassionate manager creates more loyal employees. However, few managers are getting this right. One study of over 3,700 parents (97% of whom were women) found that fewer than 4% of moms feel comfortable asking managers for what they need. Flexibility ranked among their top desires. Many managers are promoted for performance, not people skills, notes Howland. Thats why its essential to train them to understand discretion, flexibility, and the human side of policy enforcement. Turnover is expensive. Howland cautionsdo you really want to lose talent because managers were too stringent on PTO or sick-care policies? The companies who get it right There are a few companies who are managing to create a culture that allows working mothers to take time off for caregiving or designing systems that create less discrimination. For example, Vanguard, one of the worlds largest investment companies with more than 20,000 employees and at least 9,000 caregivers has an attrition rate of roughly 8%, about half the industry standard. Kathryn Larkin, Vanguard’s Head of Global Benefits, says employees actually take advantage of their time-off benefits because they’ve seen those who have gone before them continue with great careers. And so when you see that in practice, you have the confidence that if that is me, I can take the leave and I won’t be punished . . . it’s culturally appropriate, it’s accepted, it’s encouraged. Meanwhile, Workforce platform Deputy, which designs scheduling tools for shift-based workers, says sick season forces companies to rethink flexibility for roles that require coverage. Internally, Deputy emphasizes proactive manager planning and allows their workforce of around 400 global employees to take care of their loved ones, such as sick children. Those insights have informed product features like real-time shift swaps and instant time-off requests intended to reduce worker stress, Deputys CEO Silvija Martincevic, tells Fast Company. In their recent engagement survey, 94% of Deputys employees agreed with the statement, Im able to work in a way that works for me, citing flexible work hours and supportive management. What working mothers can do However, for mothers who arent at forward-thinking companies or dont have understanding managers, Mel Goodman, a career strategist for working moms and founder of WorkMom, a collective for working mothers, offers the following advice: At work, she notes, many high-achieving moms tend to protect their teams outcomes at the expense of their personal boundaries. Its better to understand that sick days are not normal work days and should not be treated as such. She informs caregivers that its better to communicate their availability windows rather than apologize for interruptions, to be upfront about slower response times, and to choose one or two meaningful outputs instead of tackling a full to-do list. On the home front, clear communication also helps. Its best when parenting is framed as a shared responsibility, not as helping mom, Goodman says. Instead of blaming partners for not helping enough, focus on making the invisible work visible, advises Goodman. Eve Rodskys Fair Play cards are a helpful tool for dividing household responsibilities. Often, caretaking isnt a true 50/50 split, as one partners job may carry more economic or professional risk. Focus on equity instead. What matters is that the arrangement is intentional, agreed upon, and revisited over time, says Goodman. At the end of the day, company policy can only go so far if a woman is in an unbalanced relationship. If one partner consistently resists stepping up, the issue is rarely logistics. It is usually a values conversation about respect, fairness, and whether both people truly believe that both careers and both well-being matter, adds Goodman. Finally, she advises, on high-demand days, try to carve out moments for personal care too10 minutes of walking, exercising, or meditatingthat can reset the nervous system. And dont be afraid to cancel or simplify weekend plans as a recovery strategy, she says. Even the most prepared caregivers can end up overwhelmed and exhausted this time of yearevidence that sick-child policies and flexible work practices are essential for real-life employees.
Category:
E-Commerce
For a generation, the smartest people I knew dreamed of moving to America. They took uninspiring jobs, learned to wait through endless paperwork, and believed that one visa stamp could change their lives. That belief built an empire of talent that powered some of the worlds most iconic companies. And now, that same empire is dying, or at the very least, dreaming of moving elsewhere. Talent is now voting with its feet. As someone born in the USSR, a few years before its collapse, who grew up in Kazakhstan and Russia and later lived in several different countries, I remember friends who spent five or six years working for EPAM, an outsourcing firm that became a bridge to something better. EPAMs real perk wasnt salary or prestige. What drew people to it was the promise of relocation. If you endured the dull projects long enough, youd earn your way to a U.S. office. That quiet deal between ambition and patience fueled a whole ecosystem. People didnt work for EPAM. They worked for the dream of getting out. The same pattern was evident elsewhere. From Warsaw, Poland to Bangalore, India young engineers took mediocre jobs for one simple reason: making it to the United States. If you could make it there, your life would change. And if you were lucky, you could even stay forever. For decades, this desire was Americas greatest competitive advantage. I moved to the U.S. in 2015 with my first startup. Our goal was to use the U.S. as a launchpad for global expansion. At the time, the prevailing view was that a companys HQ had to be in the United States. You would relocate your key employees there (highest salaries, best talent, and, for the U.S., the highest taxes) from your offices around the world. And the employees wanted this too, because it represented the American Dream. That dream doesnt work anymore. The price of the American dream Today, Im witnessing with horror how the current administration is aiming to charge up to $100,000 for new petitions for H-1B visas. Consider that Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai of Google, Eric Yuan of Zoom, and even Elon Musk of X and SpaceX were at some point on an H-1B. These rising figures will make it prohibitive for many startups to hire global talent. And even for those who manage to get through the system, the path keeps getting narrower. The waiting lists for permanent residency stretch on for years, and there are no guarantees anymore. I know brilliant graduates from India who studied at Harvard and work for peanuts just to keep a sponsor. They call it the treadmill. When the visa expires, so does the dream. It used to be that a companys success was measured by how many jobs it created. A visa approved represented a job created, too. That job brought tax revenue, talent, and loyalty to the country. But now, that social contract is broken, and the message to global talent has changed from come build with us to prove you deserve to stay. And the rest of the world has noticed. Where talent is going instead Countries like the UAE are now offering golden visas for founders, investors, and skilled professionals. Saudi Arabia is rolling out special residency programs for tech and creative workers. Singapores Tech.Pass makes it possible to relocate in weeks, not years. And for those who travel, Spain, Norway, and many others now have digital nomad visas. At the top of the list is Chinas new K visa, which is aimed specifically at foreign scientists and innovators. It is a bold signal from Beijing that the country is now open to talented individuals from around the globe. This has had an impact on my circle. Ive watched talented colleagues move to Dubai, UAE; Shenzhen, China; or Singapore and never look back. When you remove barriers, talent flows like water. America used to be the open floodgate. Now, it looks like a dam. The U.K. is making the same mistake The same story is beginning to unfold in the U.K. London could be the global capital of flexible work and innovation, but as the anti-immigration sentiment keeps rising, and the government keeps aiming to appease the hardliners, it could be repeating Americas mistake. Every time a government adds friction to who can stay or build there, the message to founders is simple: Take your innovation somewhere else. Talented individuals who move fast wont wait for paperwork, they will move wherever opportunity is easiest. The real story is an innovation story The irony is that this goes beyond immigration. In reality, it is an innovation story. When you lock out ambitious people, you export your own future. The next unicorns, the next breakthroughs, the next Silicon Valley wont emerge from a single place. Theyll emerge from a network, composed of founders in Dubai; engineers in Tbilisi, Georgia; designers in Bali, Indonesia; and investors on flights between Singapore and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The future of innovation is borderless because the best people already are. Can talented individuals still believe in America? I say this as someone who once believed deeply in the American Dream. It was the North Star for millions of us. You didnt have to be born into privilege because you could earn your way into it. But somewhere along the way, the belief that held it all together cracked. It applies to Americans, too. Many of my U.S.-born friends are now leaving the country in search of the same freedom they once symbolized. The political division has made it even uncomfortable to live there, and as they search for new horizons, they amplify a talent drain that, when we least expect it, could leave the country in dire straits. The truth is that Americas greatest strength was never an economic indicator despite its prominent standing. It was belief. The shared idea that if you worked hard enough, you could belong and have a good life. That belief built companies, cities, and entire industries. But this belief is now breaking down under the pressure of two trends. The U.S. economy itself is going through a difficult period (marked by rising uncertainty, higher taxes, and tariffs) which naturally makes life harder for businesses. At the same time, other countries have begun to compete with the U.S. on very concrete dimensions: the UAE as a place to live for high-net-wrth individuals; China as a source of technological innovation (and a place where businesses can grow by orders of magnitude); Portugal as a competitor to Florida, targeting retirees with savings; Spain as a digital nomad hub for those who value a calmer lifestyle; and the U.K., especially London, as a digital-nomad hub for those who thrive on intensity and movement. The worlds best talent is no longer asking, “how do I get to America?” Instead, theyre looking at all of their optionscountries who are actively trying to woo them and will welcome their contributions with open arms.
Category:
E-Commerce
On the morning of January 24 in downtown Minneapolis, an ICE agent shot and killed protester Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at a local Veterans Affairs hospital. Just 2 miles away, on January 7, another ICE agent had shot and killed Nicole Renee Good, a mother. The deaths mark the first times during Donald Trumps second term that ICE agents have fired in anger and killed publicly verified U.S. citizens. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have so far said nothing on the matter. X CEO Elon Musk earlier tweeted that Renee Good had almost killed ICE agent Jonathan Ross before Ross shot and killed her on January 7. On the same day as Pretti’s fatal shooting on Saturday, January 24, Apple CEO Tim Cook attended a VIP screening of the new (Amazon-funded) Melania Trump documentary at the White House. Cook was silent about the shooting until Tuesday evening, when he reportedly sent a memo to Apple employees calling for de-escalation and saying that hed talked to Trump about the issue. Its become clear to many that Trumps ICE strategy is at least as much about intimidating citizens of blue cities as it is about removing illegal immigrants. The question is, and has always been: At what point will Trumps authoritarian urges become too much for the tech industry to stomach? UC San Diego political scientist and civil war expert Barbara F. Walter writes that historically, it is the business community that often heads off civil conflict by demanding a more stable and secure business environment. Indeed, tech leaders are credited with having persuaded the Trump administration to cancel plans to move ICE agents into San Francisco last October. AI leaders speak first Among tech leaders, it’s the heads of the leading artificial intelligence companies that have said the most about Minneapolis. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has been influential among members of Congress and people within the Trump administration, says he spoke to the president about Minneapolis on Monday, following Pretti’s death on Saturday. He wrote a Slack message to employees saying he believes the ICE shootings have gone too far. He didnt make these comments publicly, however. The memo, in which Altman called Trump a very strong leader, was leaked (intentionally or otherwise) to The New York Times, which published it. (OpenAI president and cofounder Greg Brockman has become a major Trump donor as well.) Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei did speak out publicly. We need to defend our own democratic values at home, and some of the things Ive seen during the last few days concern me about that, he said in a Monday night interview with Tom Llamas on NBC Nightly News. He added that Anthropic doesnt currently have contracts with ICE and that the shootings dont make him more enthusiastic about working with the agency. In his Slack memo, Altman spoke directly (if unclearly) to the issue of when OpenAI will, and will not, speak out on social and political issues. The company will not get blown around by changing fashions and will not make a lot of performative statements now about safety or politics, he wrote, but rather will engage with leaders and push for our values, and speak up clearly about it as needed. Amodei and Altman may have spoken out before leaders of bigger tech companies did for any of several reasons. The research culture within AI companies has closer ties to the academic community, so researchers are perhaps more apt to speak out on moral or political issues. The competition for talent in AI is also fierce, so AI company leaders may be quick to respond, fearing the loss of valuable employees. Also, AI companies are eager to project an image of social responsibility, which might reinforce the idea that theyll be careful stewards of the technology theyre developing. They also may have less to lose. OpenAI and Anthropic are not public companies, so they dont have to consider stockholder consensus when their leaders speak out about political issues. They are also smaller than firms like Google or Apple, and they dont rely as much on federal government contracts for revenuenot yet, anyway. Listening to tech workers The backlash against the fatal shootings of Good and Pretti started not with tech executives, but with employees. Several big-name researchers within AI companies denounced the ICE killings on X. Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean, Anthropic cofounder Chris Olah, former Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, and Microsoft chief scientific officer Eric Horvitz were among those who spoke out. Other researchers, including OpenAIs Michael Schade and theoretical computer scientist Boaz Barak, a member of OpenAIs technical staff, endorsed or shared the tweets. Tech super-investors Reid Hoffman, Vinod Khosla, and Paul Graham also condemned the murders and demanded accountability. (Business Insider has a fuller list.) They join a small number of tech workers who have gone public to pressure tech leaders. More than 800 of them signed an open letter, organized by a group called ICEOut.tech, that called for tech CEOs to demand that the Trump administration remove ICE agents from U.S. cities and to cancel their companies contracts with the agency. The signatories include names from some of the biggest tech and AI companies, including Apple, Google, Salesforce, Uber, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Big Techs alliance with Trump is paying dividends Only a half decade ago, during the first Trump term, tech companies spoke out loudly against the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, and then introduced broad new diversity policies and programs. Now that many of techs most influential leaderspeople like Musk and venture capitalists David Sacks and Marc Andreessenhave turned so enthusiastically pro-Trump, the tech industry has taken the approach of flattering, appeasing, and bankrolling Trump in his second term. A unified response to the recent events in Minnesota seems impossible. What changed? I doubt that the majority of tech industry has radically changed its political stripes on social issues like race and policing. Whats changed is AI. After the appearance of ChatGPT in 2022, tech leaders could very likely see the broad transition that AI might bring, and the massive and expensive infrastructure build-out that would be needed to support it. (Big Tech, AI, and cloud companies are now betting hundreds of billions of dollars on building new data centers to run AI models.) So tech leaders ecided to get behind the candidate most likely to enable it rather than regulate it. That was Trump, and they did so knowing that a lot of odious social policy would likely come with the deal. Big Tech leaders funded Trumps inauguration and his new White House ballroom. They visited him at Mar-a-Lago and at the White House to advise him on trade and tech policy. Some vigorously defended his policies on social media. And some took roles in his administration (Sacks became Trumps AI and crypto czar and Musk led DOGE, for example). And Trump has delivered. His administrationunder the influence of people like Sacks, Musk, and Andreessenhas made it a top priority to keep the federal government out of the way of the AI infrastructure build-out. The Trump administration has stifled any chance of any meaningful AI regulation (which most Americans favor) in Congress and has even attempted to preempt states from doing so. It has canceled federal investigations into tech companies and attempted to clear away red tape at the state and local levels that might slow data center builds. But the tech industrys alliance with the MAGA crowd has never faced a threat as serious as the one emerging from Minneapolis. Wondering how the eager tech enablers of this regime, including some of my former VC friends and partners, are rationalizing this atrocity, former Andreessen Horowitz partner John OFarrell posted on X. Just the latest in a year of horrors. Is all the crypto and AI money in the world really worth this? Rank-and-file tech workers may not be as ready to swallow their moral scruples as top management is. Theyre becoming more sensitized to Trumps ICE strategy and its consequences on the ground across the country. Every additional act of violence by ICE against American citizens could agitate workers exponentially more and further pressure company leaders to respond in meaningful ways. If Trump persists, tech companies may eventually have to choose between their alliance with Trump and the loyalty of their own employees.
Category:
E-Commerce
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