Ep. 17 Jeremiah Owyang - The Future of Platforms in the midst of Silicon Valley's moral reckoning

Boundaryless Conversations Podcast

Today we’re speaking to Jeremiah Owyang, founding partner of the San Francisco based research firm Kaleido Insights, where he focuses on how disruptive technologies—such as social media, collaborative economy, autonomous world, blockchain and more— impact the relevance of corporations.

Jeremiah is well recognized by both the tech industry and the media for his grounded approach to deriving insights through rigorous research.and is frequently quoted in top-tier publications, has given a TED talk and was featured in the “Who’s Who” in the Silicon Valley Business Journal. His Twitter feed was named one of the top feeds by Time. He is also the Founder of Crowd Companies, an innovation club for Fortune 500 companies.

In our conversation with Jeremiah, we explore some of the pre-existing conditions in the world - always through a tech lens - that have been amplified by the pandemic and other recent disruptive events, leading to some sort of awakening in Silicon Valley about the moral duties of tech companies and more in general what companies are actually supposed to produce for the world.

Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication. https://medium.com/@meedabyte/4142f4870d14?source=friends_link&sk=c285582c50ac503b4ae7005a14d8e4d9

Here are some important links from the conversation

Find out more about Jeremiah’s work:

> Jeremiah’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jowyang

> Kaleido Insights, “Applying Covid-19 Urgencies to Kaleido Insights’ Five Research Themes”: https://www.kaleidoinsights.com/applying-covid-19-urgencies-to-kaleido-insights-five-research-themes/

Other references and mentions:

> The Verge, “Amazon bans police from using its facial recognition technology for the next year”:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/10/21287101/amazon-rekognition-facial-recognition-police-ban-one-year-ai-racial-bias

> Ben Evans, presentation at the WEF 2020 and an update June 2020: https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations

> Participatory City, http://www.participatorycity.org/the-illustrated-guide

> Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture:

https://www.amazon.com/Unsettling-America-Culture-Agriculture/dp/0871568772

> Reporting 3.0: https://www.r3-0.org/

> Wisdo: https://wisdo.com/index.html

> Clubhouse: https://www.joinclubhouse.com/, https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-clubhouse-why-does-silicon-valley-care/

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music

Recorded on June 19th 2020