Has public opinion of the tech industry changed?

Between the never-ending software updates, data breaches, and the threat of being tagged in an embarrassing Facebook photo, people’s tolerance of technology may be wearing thin.

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But while public opinion of the tech industry changes are those who work in the industry aware of it?

Erin Griffith with Wired says the sentiment toward the tech industry and innovation on the business side has been positive. However, she says the tide may be turning, “even if it’s difficult for people in the industry to hear.”

Griffith says people are finally realizing that big tech companies have large amounts of data on everyone who uses their services. She writes that the public is becoming wary of tech startups — some of which exist only to fix a problem that another tech company created.

She writes:

In 2008, it was Wall Street bankers. In 2017, tech workers are the world’s villain.

And that may be hard for some to digest because for so long people in the tech industry were thought of as heroes. They were solving the world’s problems through innovation. But that was before companies faced what Griffith calls “a moral reckoning.”

Now is the time, perhaps, for startup companies to focus on sustainability and ethics, rather than simply trying to crush the competition in a campaign of world domination.

“And actually do good in the world,” as Griffith put it.

The question becomes, does the tech industry care?

Listen to the entire conversation here.

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