Ethics Have Become Optional in Big Tech. We Can Do Better. (with Alex Komoroske)

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Alex Komoroske spent over a decade at Google overseeing key initiatives for ads, Chrome, and Maps, before running Corporate Strategy at Stripe. At heart, he's a champion for the open web.
Today, as the CEO and co-founder of Common Tools, Alex says technologists must lean into ethics and away from short-term results. "We're in the late stage of this extractive kind of thing, where we're all just trying to wring more out of these walled gardens," Alex adds.
"And what bothers me is that all of us seem to have forgotten that. And everyone's like, in this zombie state: 'Well, the thing says make number go up.
'" Today on Revolution.Social, Alex and Rabble talk about the challenges of maintaining interoperability in an era of proprietary lock-in; the difference between "hollow" vs. "resonant" tech experiences; and the Resonant Computing Manifesto, which Alex co-drafted last year.
They also discuss the rightward political shift of Silicon Valley, Alex's Lord of the Rings-inspired archetypes for understanding builders, and how to curate cozy offline communities.
In this episode
- 0:00Introduction
- 5:24The "Slime Mold" Theory of Organizations
- 10:53The Fallacy of Measurement and KPIs
- 15:49Christopher Alexander and Pattern Language
- 17:51The Resonant Computing Manifesto
- 21:06Chatbots vs. Agentic LLMs
- 26:54Saruman vs. Radagast
- 31:53Power Dynamics and "Money Disease"
- 38:45How LLMs Change Software
- 42:52The History of the Luddite Movement
- 47:54APIs as Public Infrastructure
- 52:48Lessons from the Open Web and Chrome
- 59:43App Stores vs. The Web Sandbox
- 1:04:42Balancing Open Systems with Speed
- 1:09:09User-Driven Innovation at Twitter
- 1:10:53Cloud Security Tiers and Data Privacy
- 1:16:44The Power of Physical Salons and Curation
- 1:22:47Hypersituated Software and Local Community