Tech Industry Grapples With Growing Inequality and Ethical Responsibility
Harvard and MIT humanist chaplain Greg Epstein launches a new ethics series by interviewing prominent inequality critic Anand Giridharadas about the tech industry's role in modern capitalism.
TechCrunch launches a new ethics series exploring the moral responsibilities of the technology industry, featuring interviews by Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard and MIT. Epstein transitions his focus from studying religion to examining the "religion of tech," questioning how human values shape the technology we create and how that technology in turn shapes our values.
The inaugural interview features Anand Giridharadas, a prominent critic of contemporary capitalism and author of "Winners Take All." Giridharadas argues that the current economic structure allows elites to maintain a charade of changing the world while actually preserving the systems that generate extreme inequality.
This deep conversation takes place as Epstein presents Giridharadas with the Rushdie Award for his humanist achievements ahead of a keynote at Harvard's Social Enterprise Conference. The interview pushes the tech industry to confront its outsized power and demands that Silicon Valley match its immense influence with genuine ethical accountability.