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Businesses Technology

Will the Pandemic Inspire Silicon Valley to Do Good? (seattletimes.com) 49

Posted by EditorDavid from the here-to-help dept.
The global pandemic "has stirred up a missionary zeal throughout Silicon Valley," writes Bloomberg: Apple and Google put aside a decadelong rivalry to form an alliance to track the spread of infections. Facebook and Salesforce.com are procuring millions of masks for health care workers. Jeff Bezos is donating $100 million and Jack Dorsey $1 billion. In other corners of the Valley, people are developing test kits and possible vaccines, as well as software to treat the social and economic maladies of the pandemic. Smaller companies have created entirely new business models in response to the virus. The projects can be as simple as an app reminding people to wash their hands or one that connects users with barbers in Brooklyn for lessons on how to cut their hair at home.

There's a feeling among some technologists that some of their work in recent years had become mercenary or frivolous — attempts to capitalize on a prolonged tech boom with apps that cater to the whims of wealthy coastal elites, rather than meeting the urgent needs of the rest of the world. "Facebook, Snapchat and the last decade of tech has brought us together in some ways but has also pushed us further away from real life," said Lu, a former creative director at venture capital firm 500 Startups. "The virus is a warning for people in the Bay Area that we can't just come here and take and take. We have to give, too."

Tech companies aren't spared from the crisis. Some are cutting jobs and wages, and startups are struggling to raise funds and keep the lights on. But many tech workers can afford to take the hit and see an opportunity to do good — or at least, virtue signal to their peers... One project that raised $1.6 million started with a request to buy dinner for hospital workers. Frank Barbieri, president of Walmart's Art.com, said a friend at UCSF Medical Center asked him and Ryan Sarver, a venture capitalist, to buy pizzas for hospital staff. That quickly morphed into a widely shared Google document where hospital workers could request meals from volunteers. By the end of March, the project attracted 200 software designers and engineers who turned it into a nationwide network called Frontline Foods.

Many of these projects offer an antidote to the helplessness people are experiencing, Barbieri said. "We've tapped into this feeling of 'there's nothing I can do to be productive and useful,'" he said. "Well, here's something you can do."
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Will the Pandemic Inspire Silicon Valley to Do Good? More

Will the Pandemic Inspire Silicon Valley to Do Good?

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  • No (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lessSockMorePuppet ( 6778792 ) on Sunday April 19, 2020 @05:51PM (#59966240) Homepage

    They're pretty obviously out to maximize their profits and dig in their claws.

    • I would speculate that Betteridge's law of headlines might apply here.

      More likely, though, is that it is stimulating Silicon Valley to do what they see as good, but Silicon Valley is so weirdly isolated in their own separate reality that we can't trust that what they think is good is what we will think is good.

      "Move fast and break things" is not really a good motto in most of the world, where you have to live with the stuff you broke.

      • More likely, though, is that it is stimulating Silicon Valley to do what they see as good, but Silicon Valley is so weirdly isolated in their own separate reality that we can't trust that what they think is good is what we will think is good.

        It's really hard to come to an agreement on what "good" means.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sabri ( 584428 )

        I would speculate that Betteridge's law of headlines might apply here.

        No. I think it is the Communist Party's polit buro that's at work here.

        It's pretty clear that nowadays /. is less about "news for nerds" than "how to promote the communist welfare state".

        Just look at the post about oil prices. What the F does that have to do with tech?

        Right. Nothing.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Yes but they will consider digging in their claws as the ethical thing to do. They'll do good, it's just that they'll be the ones defining good. If you think China's bad, wait till you see silicon valley doing good.

    • Yes. They've been doing good for their entire existence. Or do you really think you would be putting your comments up for the world to see without them?

      I've got a dozen or so devices around the house that didn't even exist (and mostly weren't even conceived of) when I was born (rather before Gagarin went into space). Collectively, those devices make my life better. Could I live without them? Maybe, but it's likely that covid-19 would be MUCH worse without computers (yeah, try doing DNA sequencing with

  • There 's a law against it.

    The law of headlines with a question mark.

  • Is there money in it? What are the margins?
  • That was a trick question!

  • Oh wait. You're serious? Let me laugh even harder. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19, 2020 @06:38PM (#59966400)
    fer fuck's sake.

  • No. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Sunday April 19, 2020 @06:53PM (#59966436)

    The liberal arrogance of Silicon Valley is still there - "we know better than you do, therefore you need to do what we say. And if you do not like it, we will find ways to censor you."

    Look at software that controls what you do, who you meet with, and ever increasing invasiveness into your medical history at the expense of your privacy and personal liberties.

    As horrible as this virus is, there will be many who will come in the name of angels, but have the agenda of the devil, so to speak.

    • we will find ways to censor you

      You're trying to make this about censorship? Let's see, pandemic-related censorship... There was that story recently about Facebook warning people who had "liked" various pandemic-related conspiracy theories and other misinformation. The example given was a story about how drinking bleach was a cure. I'm sure you've also heard about people attacking 5G towers, because someone told them that 5G towers were responsible for the pandemic.

      Maybe we'd all be better off if we let the nutters destroy all of our i

  • Not likely (Score:3)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Sunday April 19, 2020 @06:57PM (#59966446)
    The big tech companies are not in it for anyone but them.

    Remember when it comes to Facebook, Twitter and the like their business really is addition not much different from a drug pusher giving away free samples(free service/ vs pay services).

    Just my 2 cents ;)

  • Ahead awaits COVID recession, a depression, that will be a heavy lift for any country let alone just a small valley. BUT for Silicon Valley it must because they own the engine of the USA. WallSt. may hold the title but its Silicon Valley who has possession of the vehicle, keys and all to getting the economy humming again on all cylinders.

    Big3 aren't going to make cars out of the coming COVIDepression. SpaceX doesn't yet have a rocket big enough to launch an economy. But Silicon Valley? They alone have th

    • Re:Good? Do Gooder good? Silicon (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <.voyager529. .at. .yahoo.com.> on Sunday April 19, 2020 @08:07PM (#59966664)

      Silicon Valley owns this economy. Not its politics, not the moral high ground nor even democracy - the very fabric upon which the United States of America's capitalism is built. I'd give them a hand, lend a hand and hold their hand to get this beast they built back up and running before the next storm over the horizon.

      When you take away all of the data mining and E-mail traversing and and video distributing...Google is a marketing company. They could easily survive if you took away all their non-advertising revenue. They could not survive if you removed their ad revenue and left everything else.

      Facebook is also an advertising company. One could argue that they might be more of a 'marketing' company, but one could just as easily argue that it's a distinction without a difference. They wouldn't survive as a company without ad revenue.

      Twitter is an ad supported dumpster fire.

      Reddit is ad-supported Usenet.

      Oracle is a law firm that happens to sell licensing to a database product that loses relevance with every passing year.

      SAP is a consulting firm with cool Powerpoints and software that zero people have ever said has been implemented well.

      This leaves Microsoft, who ironically is probably doing a bit better this quarter due to the surge in PC sales and is doing pretty good with Azure subscriptions, and Apple, whose App Store is a solid cash cow but who had to partner with Goldman Sachs to keep growing, and who's big release this year was a budget iPhone.

      If tech companies - the majority of which are marketing firms with shiny replacements for magazine pages - are 'the very fabric upon which the USA's capitalism is built', then you're arguing that the fabric of which you speak is not product creation, but advertising. Staking our economy's future on companies primarily reliant on smaller companies buying ad space is a pretty bad bedrock upon which to recover from the CoviDepression.

      • Facebook is also an advertising company. One could argue that they might be more of a 'marketing' company, but one could just as easily argue that it's a distinction without a difference.

        A marketing company would design ad campaigns, right? Facebook is just an advertiser.

      • >When you take away all of the data mining and E-mail traversing and and video distributing...Google is a marketing company.

        GOOG ventured far from its creation myth of data mining search and email; free, as in beer. BUT the advertising strawman you stood up neglects that those elements remain " essential mojo" beneath the economy that GOOG helped erect. Advertising arrived post creation with that economy to lap at its foundations with money; free, as in speech. GOOG is simply enabling free speech with ad

      • When you take away all of the data mining and E-mail traversing and and video distributing...Google is a marketing company...

        You're not wrong with any of that. However, remember there are more companies in the valley than Facebook, Google, and Twitter (and Twitter's in San Francisco, not Silicon Valley but that's being pedantic of me).

        There are a zillion other companies, e.g. Zoom, which produce products people get value from every day, enough value that they're willing to shell out real cash for the privilege. Not everything is ad-supported media companies. In fact, I doubt it's most things.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday April 19, 2020 @07:09PM (#59966472)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • The trick is stopping them from doing "good" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Sunday April 19, 2020 @07:21PM (#59966518)

    The fact of the matter is that the worst oppression has come from righteous-minded peoples forcing their "good" on others. "I will use my powers of invention to make you happy!"
    I don't built-in contact tracking on my phone - even with all the "safety features" built-in. It's bad enough I'm carrying a tracking device with me - I don't need do-gooders expanding what they're tracking for "public health".
    It's SCARY that Google and Apple are turning over data about which towns are "obeying" stay at home laws and not moving by use of their phones. Some countries may adore that but in the US its anathema to the very concept of how government is structured. Some government leaders (who were democratically elected) are using that as evidence to issue more stringent orders to have the police crack down.
    NO government should have that much power over its citizens and Google and Apple are complicit in this "help'.

    • The fact of the matter is that the worst oppression has come from righteous-minded peoples forcing their "good" on others. "I will use my powers of invention to make you happy!"

      I don't think that Hitler meant to make the jews happy.

      • Shorter, you don't think. Hitler had the ambition to create a great and pure German state. I'm sure he considered that a good thing. And I'm pretty sure you can empathize with this kind of ambition.

    • ..."I will use my powers of invention to make you happy!"

      We can stop right there. No one can actually "make" another person be happy. There's a whole bookshelf at the library filled with books explaining why your happiness is your own responsibility and not caused by anyone else.

      At most, a company might think "if you use this product or service, we can help you feel happier." Or not. As an employee, i certainly don't want the responsibility of making you happy to fall on my shoulders.

      I don't [want] built-in contact tracking on my phone - even with all the "safety features" built-in. It's bad enough I'm carrying a tracking device with me - I don't need do-gooders expanding what they're tracking for "public health".

      To ask a probing question, then why would you do it? You have choices: no phone,

    • I don't built-in contact tracking on my phone - even with all the "safety features" built-in.

      Then you won't have it. The APIs will be there, but unless you install the app to use them they will do nothing. And the safety features in question are really good; they make it all but impossible for anyone to use them to track individual movements. Note, by the way, that Apple, Google and mobile phone carriers can already track the movements of phone users, by adding the contact tracing API they're removing the argument governments might use to demand broad access to that data. The contact tracing API

  • No one stepped up when it was easy to help people, now that it's hard, don't expect kindness.
    • Oh come on, people help the homeless all the time. I've seen it with my own eyes.

      BTW, have you talked to any Santa Clara homeless people lately? Their happiness level has jumped up. They have the streets to themselves, and no condescending eyes walking by them.

  • So they can recall all the good they did when they get back to business-as-usual.

  • It inspires them to further be that 'soft' power of censorship and market regulation that is illegal for governments to do.

    Once more again we have to live under their censorship.

    Fuck the valley.

  • users to comment on social media?
    Less censorship?
  • Jeff Bezos spending $100 million is literally equivalent to the average person spending $100. It's only 0.0001% of his net worth. I gave away a higher % of my net worth last year and my yearly salary is probably less than what he earns in an hour.

    • And his net worth has reportedly increased by 24 BILLION DOLLARS from this crisis. I had actually written "2.4 billion", because even that was an absurd amount of money, but I was out by an entire order of magnitude.

      https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]

      $100 million is just a meaningless pittance for him.

      If Silicon Valley wants to help, they'll help change the system to one where they pay a bigger share of taxes, where billionaires can't exist, and there's universal affordable healthcare. A few bucks here or the

    • Come on, your math is way out.

      Bezos is worth north of $100B, which is 1000 times as much as $100M - 1/1000 of his net worth, or 0.1%. If Dorsey is giving $1B, that's 25% of his $4B net worth.

    • Jeff Bezos spending $100 million is literally equivalent to the average person spending $100.

      And yet, $100 million is a lot of cash and is much more than I've actually spent. Shoot, I haven't actually donated $100 to anything (and this is a good reminder I should). Don't dis him because you think he could do more. Be grateful for what he has done.

      Personally, I'm even more grateful he helped create Amazon so we can get all sorts of stuff, like groceries, delivered to all our doors now that going to a store is problematic.

  • Want corporations to do good? Entrench good policies in law and enforce them.

    So long as corporations are not legally obligated to provide workers with a living wage, appropriate sick days, maternal/paternal leave, adequate health coverage at a reasonable price, etc., they're NOT going to do it. Make them legally obligated to provide such things, or stop complaining.

    • Want corporations to do good? Entrench good policies in law and enforce them.

      I think you're misguided on two points.

      First, corporation already do good: they produce great products which we willingly give up cash for. That's their raison d'être and something we frequently take for granted. Safeway is going tremendous amounts of good by having groceries on the shelf for us to buy. Is that not good enough?

      Second, you're going about it the hard way. We have a ton of experience showing it's really hard to make a group of people behave the way you believe they ought through legislati

  • Don't need to be inspired to do good.

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