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Silicon Valley’s Empathy Vacuum
In a recent podcast, Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky said that startups and founders jump into the fray and desire to do the impossible but overlook one small thing — empathy. I have talked about the need for empathy for more than a decade now — in 2013, 2014, 2016, and then in 2017. I am glad Scott is taking up the issue.
“What should have driven you instead is empathy for the customer and their problem. What should have driven you instead is empathy for the customer and their problem. You should’ve gone shoulder to shoulder with them to identify this problem first before crafting your vision. Yes, the cheat code of course is to solve your own problem, like many successful founders do. You’re the customer so you collapse the stack of empathy.”
I believe Scott’s prescription is very narrow. It highlights the bigger problem we have around these parts. We think of products, technologies and their impacts in isolation.
In my books, empathy goes beyond all that. It is about the impact of what our product does and how it makes people feel that defines empathy. I have made this argument enough times and eventually stopped because around here in Silicon Valley, having empathy is viewed as a sign of weakness.
Here is what I wrote in my 2016 piece for The New Yorker, Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum”:
It’s hard to think about the human consequences of technology as a founder of a startup racing to prove itself or as a chief executive who is worried about achieving the incessant growth that keeps investors happy. However, when you are a data-driven oligarchy like Facebook, Google, Amazon, or Uber, you can’t really wash your hands of the impact of your algorithms and your ability to shape popular sentiment in our society.
It has only gotten worse since then — and the latest onslaught of AI-inspired fears only reinforces the empathy vacuum.
May 27, 2024. San Francisco
4 thoughts on this post
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Thank you for writing about this.
The really frustrating thing is that the cheat code isn’t “solve your own problem”. It’s “go out and talk to people” and “take the time to understand your customers as human beings”.
I think The Lean Startup did a lot of damage here: lots of emphasis on fake doors and guerrilla statistical testing when what’s really effective is stories and understanding.
Of course people in the Valley aren’t aware of the impact of their work. If you go out and solve your own problem well, the community impact is “I got rich”. If you go out and really understand someone else’s community and the stories behind it, the true impact becomes something you by necessity have to really care about.
Ben
The funny thing is impact is also on the good side and the bad side. I wrote about this in another piece — our complicated relationship with technology. India works on Whatsapp, and then we also have Whatsapp fake news and Facebook. I could go on and on, but reality is that SV’s one true mantra is “move fast, break things, move fast, win.” That isn’t changing anytime soon.
Interesting that I see several folks talking about similar things. Immediately after reading your thoughtful essay I read “Hijacking Empathy” by Lili Saintcrow (https://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/2024/05/hijacking-empathy/) and earlier this morning Cory Doctorow’s daily piece “Against Lore” (https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/27/cmon-do-it-again/#better_to_remain_silent_and_be_thought_a_fool_than_to_speak_and_remove_all_doubt) that was kind of an intersection of the two.
Robert,
Thanks for sharing this links. Sadly, I missed them. Anyway, my opinion hasn’t changed about how it is difficult to even think about “empathy” in the very real reality of highly competitive tech industry. Empathy, at best is a talking point.