TBD: Technology By Design

How do organizations create a healthy culture? Mike Rognlien, a founding member of Facebook’s Learning and Development team, shares the lessons he learned from building and teaching culture at Facebook. After leaving Facebook, Mike wrote a book, This Is Now Your Company, that focuses on how people can take ownership in the workplace.  He also started his own consulting agency, Multiple Hats Management, where he provides coaching and learning to organizations, including training on implicit race and gender bias. In this episode, Mike talks about the frustrations of his departure from Facebook, how he runs his business, and the shift towards more flexibility in HR. Listen in.

Tech policy discussions about privacy, competition, and speech often center on benefitting the consumer - but which policies actually do it? Adam Kovacevich is the Founder and CEO of the Chamber of Progress, a new center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future. Adam previously worked at Lime, where he was the head of government relations and public affairs for North America and Asia Pacific.  Before that, he was a senior director on Google’s public policy team. In this episode of TBD, Adam and Matt discuss Section 230, competition policy, business models, Democratic values, and the role of industry in policy development. Listen in.

Debates in tech policy are often dominated by a focus on a small handful of companies, but the tech sector encompasses a far broader group of companies of all sizes.  Kate Tummarello is the Executive Director of Engine, a nonprofit organization that works with a community of thousands of high-tech, growth-oriented startups across the nation to support technology entrepreneurship.  Kate is focused on ensuring that the voices of these startups are included in tech policy debates on issues like Section 230, antitrust, and diversity and inclusion. In this episode, Kate and Matt discuss Engine’s role in the tech sector, how startups view key issues like content moderation and antitrust, and the tactics Engine uses to lift up the voices of startups.

It’s daunting to leave behind the perks, resources, and stability of a steady job. But Nancy Scola, a former senior technology reporter at POLITICO, took a leap to pursue more independent and entrepreneurial projects. She currently publishes “Slow Build”, a newsletter exploring the intersection of technology and society, on Substack and teaches digital journalism at Georgetown University. In this episode, Nancy talks about what led her to her decision, how it gave her an opportunity to look at tech issues through a different lens, and how journalists cover the tech sector. Listen in.

Barry Lynn is the director of the Open Markets Institute, which aims to “address threats to our democracy, individual liberties, and our national security from today’s unprecedented levels of corporate concentration and monopoly power.” Barry has worked in this field for many years, but is probably best known for his work on concentration in the tech sector. In this episode of TBD, he and Matt discuss his new book, (Liberty from All Masters: The New American Autocracy vs. the Will of the People) his advice for running advocacy campaigns, and how he views his role as a mentor to the new generation of antitrust scholars. Listen in.  

Cheetie Kumar is a musician and a chef, and she owns the Raleigh-based restaurant Garland, the music venue Kings, and the cocktail bar Neptunes. In this episode of TBD, she and Matt sit down to talk about how she innovated as a chef and business owner to keep her businesses alive during COVID. As restaurants faced shutdowns, declining revenue, and health risks to their employees, Cheetie joined with other chefs to create the Independent Restaurant Coalition and advocate with policymakers for relief grants for small restaurants.  Congress eventually passed a relief package that included a $28 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund.  Listen in.

When people think about tech policy, they typically think about Washington or Silicon Valley.  But Victoria McCullough has spent the pandemic working on tech policy from her family’s beef cattle farm in Tennessee. Formerly, she served as the Director of Social Impact and Public Policy at Tumblr, and she recently started a new role at TikTok as the Head of Outreach and Partnerships for Trust and Safety in the Americas. In this episode, she and Matt discuss what it’s like doing tech policy work from rural Tennessee, how her surroundings have kept her “zen” over the past year, and what the shift into her new role has been like. Listen in.  

Suzan DelBene represents Washington’s 1st Congressional District. First sworn into the House of Representatives in November 2012, Suzan brings a unique voice to Congress with over two decades of experience in the tech industry. In March of this year, Representative DelBene introduced the Information Transparency and Personal Data Control Act, legislation that would create a national data privacy standard. In this episode of TBD, she discusses the story behind this legislation, how her background in tech has influenced her work in Congress, and how the pandemic has affected work for members of Congress.  Listen in. 

Jeff Farrah is the general counsel of the National Venture Capital Association.  He’s tracking this policy debate closely because he believes it could have a significant impact on the startups and venture capitalists he represents.  He came on the podcast to discuss the evolving debate about merger and acquisition policy, how the recent proposals in Congress could affect startups, and what he’s doing to make his case in DC.  Listen in. 

The Social Dilemma is a Netflix film about how technology is designed and regulated, and the implications of those design and regulation decisions on our lives and our choices. Jeff Orlowski directed the film, devoting several years to talking with people throughout the tech sector about the design of products and business models. In this episode, we talk about The Social Dilemma, what we can do to address the challenges it raises, and how making the film changed Orlowski's own relationship with technology.  Listen in.