If you’ve watched the Social Dilemma or know Silicon Valley, I’m sure you’re aware of the toxic culture it creates, pumping out startups without acknowledging of the damage they’re creating.
In 2020, 804,398 businesses were created in the United States alone. That’s an incredibly high amount. Technology has told us to increase engagement, revenue, and keep users hooked with no discussions on the destruction these technologies are creating, as seen in leading companies Meta, TikTok, and Google (ads). The pressure to create startups is so immense and the easiest way to make them successful is by prioritizing profits over a human life.
Not only is this creating damage to consumers, but also to founders.
Founders of startups are more likely to suffer from mental health conditions has a result of creating a startup. In a study it was reported that entrepreneurs are 50 percent more likely to report having a mental health condition : they are two times more likely to suffer from depression and three times more likely to suffer from substance abuse. This comes from the stress and possibility of failure in their startup. The chance of a startup failing is incredibly high at 90%: 21.5% fail in their first year to 70% failing in their 10th. It’s so sad to see. But it’s even sadder to see this isn’t unique to the Bay Area.
Here at USC, entrepreneurship clubs and building orgs create startups within a semester.
The idea of creating something and taking ownership of it has been fantasized. How is one supposed to create something of meaning and impact in a couple months? Even further, these clubs expect you to create a startup before coming in and learning how to. I moved all the way to San Diego to escape the Bay Area culture (not really but just to be dramatic I’ll say that) just to be running behind two teenagers deeply discussing their startup idea. The fundamental principles and limitations of what deserves to be built is not established, leaving us with an abundance of startups that negatively impact human life without the intentions to.
This push for startups leads to creating new technologies without discussing their ethical implications. As stated in an article by Vox, technologists explain their new creations such as facial negotiation, advanced doorbells that lead to a whole bunch of privacy violation issues, and Alexa smart speakers as inevitable and evolutionary. For healthcare and biological technologies we have a whole list of approvals to get through, FDA, USDA, but we don’t have the same for technologies that abuse the human mind through their algorithms. The amount of times I’ve heard and read “if we weren’t the ones to create it someone else would,” is terrifyingly high. This “evolutionary” push for technology startups is unhealthy and needs to be stopped by having discussions on the ethical implications of our newest innovations.