Robin P. Zander

Anil Dash and the Quest to…

I’m really excited for this interview with Anil Dash, which was recorded in front of a live audience at the 2nd Annual Responsive Conference in September 2017.

Anil Dash is an entrepreneur, activist and writer recognized as one of the most prominent advocates for a more humane, inclusive and ethical tech industry. He is the CEO of Fog Creek Software, an independent New York City tech incubator, which created startups like Trello, Stack Overflow, and Glitch.

Anil has been working to make technology more ethical and humane for a long time. He has been:
  • On the Internet since before the web.
  • On social media before that was a phrase.
  • Blogging since before the word blogging. He’s been blogging at AnilDash.com since 1999.

He’s very active on Twitter and is the only Twitter account to have been retweeted by:

  • White House
  • Prince
  • Bill Gates

This interview gets pretty intense very quickly, as we explore how technology companies are not humane or ethical, and what can be done about that.

Anil has served as an advisor to the Obama White House’s Office of Digital Strategy, and today he advises major startups and non-profits including Medium and DonorsChoose.

Enjoy!

 

Show Notes

3:00 Introduction
4:00 Commodore 64
7:30 Anil’s childhood
10:00 Culture and politics
14:00 Anil’s experiences at the airport
18:00 How to show people you are safe
21:00 Self reflection
24:30 Tech industry on race and inclusion
29:30 Implications of misrepresentation in tech
31:00 How tech is disrupting the taxi industry
39:00 Silicon Valley is developing a bad name for tech
46:00 Facebook on diversity and spending money
49:30 CEOs being held accountable for ethics
52:00 Different models for funding technology
56:00 Surveillance from data sets and advertising
1:03:00 Ethics within computer science
1:07:00 Where To From Here?

—

If you have enjoyed The Robin Zander Show – which just passed 50 episodes! – or benefited from any of the work I’ve done over the last several years, take a look at my new book Responsive: What It Takes To Create A Thriving Organization. It is out today on Amazon. I’m extremely proud of this book, and it’d mean the world to me if you’d check it out!

Also, if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m hosting a free event with Adam Pisoni at Robin’s Cafe.

Join us for the conversation and book launch at 7:30pm tonight, Nov. 2, 2017!

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