Service in an age of surveillance.

How are you feeling about Big Tech today?

If you ask me, Big Tech has failed to deliver on its promises

Around the early 2000s, I was really optimistic about where technology was moving and saw the value that it brought in connecting communities around the world. Here we are 20+ years later and some of that same technology is tearing our world apart. We concretely know that social media usage leads to poorer mental health outcomes.

Similar to then, we find ourselves on the dawn of an AI awakening. I myself have fallen into the AI hole. It’s a proper force multiplier. It’s pretty much consumed by pop culture and we now see it aggressively marketed in everything. We don’t know much about the unintended consequences of our interactions and reliance on it. Early reports acknowledge its ability to regurgitate information, but have found the humans that compiled the data had little to no recall of the subject matter.

Are we mistaking intelligence for wisdom?

I’m one of the 4 people on earth that share my name. My grandfather and namesake started his career in Chattanooga, Tn as a barber. His shop was an important hub of the community. Around my current age, he set out in a different direction and forged a new path. He used his 1-on-1 connections to become the longest serving County Clerk in Tennessee history. His office was the first in the state to allow the public to access services via the internet. He saw the value of technology and used it to drive better customer experiences for his neighbors.

My father followed a different path. He went to seminary and became a pastor. He spoke his truth, cared for his community, led mission trips to underserved communities, and ultimately taught me what I know of leadership today. Both him and my grandfather have chosen to be servant leaders. They felt a sense of right and wrong in the world and have worked to make it a better place.

I used to think Big Tech was making a better world, but they seem consumed with surveilling our activities, selling us things we don’t need, and driving us apart. All the while, engaging in a dangerous AI arms race to replace the need for humanity in the workforce. What’s funny is some of their products aren't really that good. Have you met anyone that really loved their management software?

What if instead of trying to dominate the market and collapse society, they had a different mission. What if they invested more in their customers, demonstrably cared about their customer’s experience, and had a more user-centric, ethical, and empathetic philosophy? What if they pursued Human-AI partnership? What if they really cared about us?

The reality is they can’t. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders.

So, what can we do?

Big Tech Can’t Start Over. We can.

I used to think I was normal.

However, as I reflect on my childhood and youth, or hear stories about myself, I’m pretty sure I’m not. My mom says I had certain “Sunday socks.“ Up until about 12-13, my favorite thing to do was build with legos in my room. At some age, my dad taught me the trick to building strong lego structures. Counterintuitively to me, you need to stagger the blocks. I clearly hadn’t yet thought about brick structures.

Another thing my dad taught me is carpentry.

I’ve fallen in love with it. I was building decks with my dad as a teen and being sent to finish out new builds a few years later. I gained so much experience in the world of structures. I’ve been into furniture making for the past 25+ years. I have kids now, so mostly I just dream of it. At some point, I made the connection that most woodworking is just riffing around the boundaries of a cube. House. Table. Chair. They all share a similar form. I’ll leave Plato right there.

I've spent the last 10 years building software. When I first had access to it, I got a little too obsessed with AI. But I realized something crucial: trying to add modern AI to most management software today is like trying to install a super-smart, voice-activated kitchen in a house with 100-year-old wiring. It’s buggy. The foundations are all wrong. Most companies' information is trapped in old, messy systems, like having important documents scattered in a dozen different locked filing cabinets. This broken foundation isn't just a technical problem; it's the reason the software you're forced to use at work is so clunky and infuriating. It's why nothing seems to talk to anything else.

In my last post, I wondered about what could be done about Big Tech’s grip on us all. At some point, my experiences with AI necessitated I reimagine the way I build software. If we’re being sold AI, they really need to move away from the legacy infrastructure and data architecture that fragments businesses data into non-standardized data silos. It’s created a whole industry that exists for standardizing our data to derive insights and analytics!

This is not a tragedy. It is a strategic opportunity. They are trapped on broken ground, fighting for the wrong prize. We must create a different battleground and occupy the high ground.

Big Tech can’t start over. We can.