Co-founder of PayPal: technicians must attack the morality of their creations

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The latest to talk about the lack of foresight on the part of technology is the seasoned entrepreneur and investor Max Levchin, best known as co-founder and former chief technology officer of PayPal. According to Levchin, at the beginning of the construction of the online payment system, created in 1998, the founders mainly thought of the benefits it would bring.

"I remember having built PayPal, we were filled with ideals libertarians.We thought it would be great to give the world a new currency," he said at the time. an interview with CNN Business at the Collision Technical Conference in Toronto this week. "We did not really ask the question: is it good for humanity?"

Most technology entrepreneurs were ideally focused on developing their products at all costs, and the hype around their services centered on the promise of doing something good. Facebook and Twitter, for example, have insisted on their intention to connect the world and allow freedom of expression, respectively. But these same services have been used to corrupt democracies, spread misinformation and to mistreat and harass individuals, for example. Google, which had for 18 years included in its code of conduct a clause "do not be diabolical", has been in the spotlight on various ethical concerns, including its canceled collaboration with the "Project Maven" with the Pentagon.
Some names from Silicon Valley met last year to launch the Center for Humane Technology, a nonprofit, including Roger McNamee. Technology investor and former advisor Mark Zuckerberg has been a virulent critic for two years, challenging Facebook's business models and other technology giants and their focus on advertising dollars. Other former Facebook executives have also questioned the company's ethic.

The emergence of new technologies, such as Amazon's facial recognition software, Rekognition, is causing more and more concern, which, in the opinion of critics, could have repercussions potential for civil and human rights.

Ev Williams, former CEO and co-founder of Twitter, said Twitter have Previously, he had invested more heavily in abuses and had "personally underestimated the problem that arose during my brief term as CEO".
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Today's entrepreneurs should be ready to provide nuanced answers to questions of morality, said Levchin, currently president and CEO of the financial services startup Affirm, which he co-founded, as well as president and co-founder of the Glow app. He said entrepreneurs should have tough discussions from the start and be ready to weigh all their weight behind their moral positions.

"You have to defend something and respect that position, and any company in Silicon Valley that wants to achieve a real and significant size needs to take an extremely moral view, be able to stand up for their actions and be able to defend themselves at the same time. the only way for Silicon Valley to build that trust is to actively talk about these issues and respond with concrete actions. "

He says that at the foundation of Affirm in 2013, morality was a central issue. The company wants to offer a credit card alternative by offering loans for purchases, especially for people who may not be approved by traditional banks. Loans come with a simple interest rate and no late fees. He says that he does not sell or share user data with third parties.

Levchin left the Soviet Union to settle in Chicago in 1991, when he was only 16 years old. His family had "only a few hundred dollars in our name". He said that he had "refused more credit cards than I can remember" because he had no credit history at the university. He says he was financially responsible, but no bank would risk his luck.
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"We can choose to refuse a loan application if it concerns an article that we do not support," Levchin said, adding that debt was "a very heavy and morality-focused issue." He asks: "Is it good to borrow money? I think so, if you invest in a better version of your future."

While critics continue to ask questions about the ethics and morals of technology platforms, entrepreneurs may need to be more realistic about the benevolence and malice of their services. Meanwhile, some people are tired of the often-quoted notion that technology is amoral and that people make it bad or bad.

"If we keep saying …" we build devices, they are used for good and for bad. This is not really our concern. "I think that's exactly what brought us to this stage," added Levchin.

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