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Trampled by Unicorns Lib/E: Big Tech's Empathy Problem and How to Fix It
A Wall Street Journal Bestseller
An insider’s revealing and in-depth examination of Big Tech’s failure to keep its foundational promises and the steps the industry can take to course-correct in order to make a positive impact on the world. Trampled by Big Tech’s Empathy Problem and How to Fix It explores how technology has progressed humanity’s most noble pursuits, while also grappling with the origins of the industry’s destructive empathy deficit and the practical measures Big Tech can take to self-regulate and make it right again. Author Maëlle Gavet examines the tendency for many of Big Tech’s stars to stray from their user-first ideals and make products that actually profoundly damage their customers and ultimately society. Offering an account of the world of tech startups in the United States and Europe—from Amazon, Google, and Facebook to Twitter, Airbnb, and Uber (to name a few)— Trampled by Unicorns argues that the causes and consequences of Big Tech’s failures originate from four main the Valley’s cultural insularity, the hyper-growth business model, the sector’s stunning lack of diversity, and a dangerous self-sustaining ecosystem. However, the book is not just an account of how an industry came off the rails, but also a passionate call to action on how to get it back on track. Gavet, a leading technology executive and former CEO of Ozon, an executive vice president at Priceline Group, and chief operating officer of Compass, formulates a clear call to action for industry leaders, board members, employees, and consumers/users to drive the change necessary to create better, more sustainable businesses—and the steps Western governments are likely to take should tech leaders fail to do so. Steps that include reformed tax codes, reclassification of platforms as information companies, new labor laws, and algorithmic transparency and oversight. Trampled by Unicorns’ exploration of the promise and dangers of technology is perfect for anyone with an interest in entrepreneurship, tech, and global commerce, and a hope of technology’s all-empowering prospect. An illuminating book full of insights, Trampled by Unicorns describes a realistic path forward, even as it uncovers and explains the errors of the past. As Gavet puts it, “we don’t need less tech, we need more empathetic tech.” And how that crucial distinction can be achieved by the tech companies themselves, driving change as governments actively pave the road ahead.
An insider’s revealing and in-depth examination of Big Tech’s failure to keep its foundational promises and the steps the industry can take to course-correct in order to make a positive impact on the world. Trampled by Big Tech’s Empathy Problem and How to Fix It explores how technology has progressed humanity’s most noble pursuits, while also grappling with the origins of the industry’s destructive empathy deficit and the practical measures Big Tech can take to self-regulate and make it right again. Author Maëlle Gavet examines the tendency for many of Big Tech’s stars to stray from their user-first ideals and make products that actually profoundly damage their customers and ultimately society. Offering an account of the world of tech startups in the United States and Europe—from Amazon, Google, and Facebook to Twitter, Airbnb, and Uber (to name a few)— Trampled by Unicorns argues that the causes and consequences of Big Tech’s failures originate from four main the Valley’s cultural insularity, the hyper-growth business model, the sector’s stunning lack of diversity, and a dangerous self-sustaining ecosystem. However, the book is not just an account of how an industry came off the rails, but also a passionate call to action on how to get it back on track. Gavet, a leading technology executive and former CEO of Ozon, an executive vice president at Priceline Group, and chief operating officer of Compass, formulates a clear call to action for industry leaders, board members, employees, and consumers/users to drive the change necessary to create better, more sustainable businesses—and the steps Western governments are likely to take should tech leaders fail to do so. Steps that include reformed tax codes, reclassification of platforms as information companies, new labor laws, and algorithmic transparency and oversight. Trampled by Unicorns’ exploration of the promise and dangers of technology is perfect for anyone with an interest in entrepreneurship, tech, and global commerce, and a hope of technology’s all-empowering prospect. An illuminating book full of insights, Trampled by Unicorns describes a realistic path forward, even as it uncovers and explains the errors of the past. As Gavet puts it, “we don’t need less tech, we need more empathetic tech.” And how that crucial distinction can be achieved by the tech companies themselves, driving change as governments actively pave the road ahead.
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Published December 17, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
July 21, 2021
In the book Trampled by Unicorns, I found the “Steve Jobs Syndrome” interesting, where many have associated him with a belief that his undoubted genius excused any kind of behavior and his legacy has cultivated an indelible association between being a jerk and a genius, which has ballooned to the point where many people believe that a founder-CEO actually has to be a jerk to be a genius. This has helped cultivate the myth of “exceptionalism,” in which unicorn founders, execs, early hires, and certain VCs, who have all drunk deeply from the Kool-Aid, believe that because the world is a meritocratic place, they and they alone are responsible for their success, due to the fact that they are smarter and work harder than anyone else.
The book references the latest Pew Research Center survey conducted in January 2020 that found that “nearly three-quarters of Americans (74 percent) express little or no confidence in technology companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to prevent the misuse of their platforms to influence the 2020 presidential election [...] At the same time, 78 percent say these companies have a responsibility to prevent such misuse.”
Maëlle Gavet proposes that the underlying system of venture funding helps to drive a common culture of seeking hypergrowth (usually defined as 40 percent average annual growth maintained for more than a year), sometimes at any cost and without regard for the consequences. And manic drive for growth contributes to the lack of empathy and some of the biggest ethical and moral lapses in the industry.
Venture firms channel pools of money given to them by wealthy investors looking for outsized returns, usually charging them between 2 and 2.5 percent of the money invested for the privilege. In addition, in return for funding a company, VC firms get a share of the profits generated by their investments, often in the range of 20 to 30 percent. This only gets paid off at the exit.
When the latter pays off, it is both game-changing and name-making for a firm and more than makes up for the investments that never make it, which is the majority. For example, Sequoia saw its $60 million investment in WhatsApp turn into $3 billion. This race to maximum payoff gets supercharged by other factors that result in even more disproportionate weight placed on hypergrowth at (almost) any cost.
The size and certainty of the management fees, combined with the relative ease with which VC firms can raise large sums of money for new funds, have led VCs to increase the size of their new funds. The median fund size increased to $78.5 million in 2019, the highest in the past decade.
Meanwhile, each new, eye-popping valuation creates priceless hype and buzz around a company, which helps its chances of getting more money later at more inflated valuations, and confers credibility on its VC backers, who are looking to raise more cash to deploy. And so, growth becomes even more critical to help justify the hype.
One of the dirty secrets of venture funding is that a company’s valuation has often little or nothing to do with its performance as a business.
The book’s author Gavet suggests there are six actionable, high-impact things CEOs can quickly put into action:
• Hire an executive coach focused on helping them develop their empathy skills.
• Make it a personal goal to hire and promote a critical mass of empathetic people, starting with their immediate teams.
• Ensure that performance is measured both on achieved results and on behavior.
• Build empathy into core processes.
• Stop delegating empathy to other people.
• Launch an annual employee survey about the CEO’s performance, including questions measuring his or her empathy, and make the results public.
Also, consider building empathy into the product development process itself.
I’ve also found these suggests from Gavet important to consider:
There are a few things stock exchanges and the Securities and Exchange Commission could do to improve corporate governance in tech:
• Make it mandatory to have a majority of independent directors on the board, even if the company is considered a “controlled company.”
• Be stricter around multiple class shares or supermajority requirements for key corporate decisions.
• Introduce the compulsory separation of the CEO and chairman roles.
• Limit CEOs’ tenure in the same way that there is a limit on board member tenure in Europe, where the European Commission has said that an appropriate maximum tenure for a director is three terms, or 12 years.
The last section of the book titled People Power provides some good pragmatic things we all individually can do to balance convenience and privacy.
The book references the latest Pew Research Center survey conducted in January 2020 that found that “nearly three-quarters of Americans (74 percent) express little or no confidence in technology companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to prevent the misuse of their platforms to influence the 2020 presidential election [...] At the same time, 78 percent say these companies have a responsibility to prevent such misuse.”
Maëlle Gavet proposes that the underlying system of venture funding helps to drive a common culture of seeking hypergrowth (usually defined as 40 percent average annual growth maintained for more than a year), sometimes at any cost and without regard for the consequences. And manic drive for growth contributes to the lack of empathy and some of the biggest ethical and moral lapses in the industry.
Venture firms channel pools of money given to them by wealthy investors looking for outsized returns, usually charging them between 2 and 2.5 percent of the money invested for the privilege. In addition, in return for funding a company, VC firms get a share of the profits generated by their investments, often in the range of 20 to 30 percent. This only gets paid off at the exit.
When the latter pays off, it is both game-changing and name-making for a firm and more than makes up for the investments that never make it, which is the majority. For example, Sequoia saw its $60 million investment in WhatsApp turn into $3 billion. This race to maximum payoff gets supercharged by other factors that result in even more disproportionate weight placed on hypergrowth at (almost) any cost.
The size and certainty of the management fees, combined with the relative ease with which VC firms can raise large sums of money for new funds, have led VCs to increase the size of their new funds. The median fund size increased to $78.5 million in 2019, the highest in the past decade.
Meanwhile, each new, eye-popping valuation creates priceless hype and buzz around a company, which helps its chances of getting more money later at more inflated valuations, and confers credibility on its VC backers, who are looking to raise more cash to deploy. And so, growth becomes even more critical to help justify the hype.
One of the dirty secrets of venture funding is that a company’s valuation has often little or nothing to do with its performance as a business.
The book’s author Gavet suggests there are six actionable, high-impact things CEOs can quickly put into action:
• Hire an executive coach focused on helping them develop their empathy skills.
• Make it a personal goal to hire and promote a critical mass of empathetic people, starting with their immediate teams.
• Ensure that performance is measured both on achieved results and on behavior.
• Build empathy into core processes.
• Stop delegating empathy to other people.
• Launch an annual employee survey about the CEO’s performance, including questions measuring his or her empathy, and make the results public.
Also, consider building empathy into the product development process itself.
I’ve also found these suggests from Gavet important to consider:
There are a few things stock exchanges and the Securities and Exchange Commission could do to improve corporate governance in tech:
• Make it mandatory to have a majority of independent directors on the board, even if the company is considered a “controlled company.”
• Be stricter around multiple class shares or supermajority requirements for key corporate decisions.
• Introduce the compulsory separation of the CEO and chairman roles.
• Limit CEOs’ tenure in the same way that there is a limit on board member tenure in Europe, where the European Commission has said that an appropriate maximum tenure for a director is three terms, or 12 years.
The last section of the book titled People Power provides some good pragmatic things we all individually can do to balance convenience and privacy.
April 5, 2021
Didn’t love this book. I agree with a lot of her perspective but found the tone quite preachy.
Read
December 19, 2021The author, Maelle Gavet was CEO of an online marketplace site that dominated Russian tech industry, and she is also now CEO of Techstars, so it is worthy to read her thoughts. In this book she diagnoses the following as some of the maladaptive dimensions of the tech industry:
- the likelihood that technology would be welded as a tool to surveil people and control their behavior in such ways as the dystopian social-credit monitoring system of China,
- tech industry's 'fortress mentality' wherein its employees live and work in an insular bubble that doesn't integrate with surrounding cities or communities that host it,
-eruptions of immature bro culture, and the glorification and hero-worship of the megalomaniac or psychopathic CEO or venture capitalist
-the lack of inhibitions or regulations on the tech industry because people in government are leagues behind in understanding it
-the embrace of the gig industry even though the majority of workers in the gig industry are underpaid, overwhelmed, financially insecure, and erstwhile compensations of employment, such as benefits and retirement support, are outsourced to the government or society's social services as additional load
-legal processes that allow tech firms to avoid paying rightful contributions to taxes, through methods such as: paying into a different arm of the same umbrella company to claim no profits, moving money transfers to tax havens such as Ireland or Luxembourg, accepting vast amounts of government subsidies while rejecting to pay tax, using accounting deductions to claim tax rebates to the tune of 129 million$ (as Amazon did) while simultaneously paying lower tax percentages than regular businesses, and forcing cities to compete for the benefit of hosting a new headquarter or fulfillment center with subsidies and benefits for negligible returns
-chaotic mismanagement of social platforms that have become petri dishes for radicalized political discourse
-dismissive attitude towards struggling workers whose industries have been disrupted or displaced by automation and technology, even as they indulge in messianic, extravagant rhetoric about 'making the world a better place'
It's a good book to think about but it may be hard to fine-tune solutions for such global problems.
- the likelihood that technology would be welded as a tool to surveil people and control their behavior in such ways as the dystopian social-credit monitoring system of China,
- tech industry's 'fortress mentality' wherein its employees live and work in an insular bubble that doesn't integrate with surrounding cities or communities that host it,
-eruptions of immature bro culture, and the glorification and hero-worship of the megalomaniac or psychopathic CEO or venture capitalist
-the lack of inhibitions or regulations on the tech industry because people in government are leagues behind in understanding it
-the embrace of the gig industry even though the majority of workers in the gig industry are underpaid, overwhelmed, financially insecure, and erstwhile compensations of employment, such as benefits and retirement support, are outsourced to the government or society's social services as additional load
-legal processes that allow tech firms to avoid paying rightful contributions to taxes, through methods such as: paying into a different arm of the same umbrella company to claim no profits, moving money transfers to tax havens such as Ireland or Luxembourg, accepting vast amounts of government subsidies while rejecting to pay tax, using accounting deductions to claim tax rebates to the tune of 129 million$ (as Amazon did) while simultaneously paying lower tax percentages than regular businesses, and forcing cities to compete for the benefit of hosting a new headquarter or fulfillment center with subsidies and benefits for negligible returns
-chaotic mismanagement of social platforms that have become petri dishes for radicalized political discourse
-dismissive attitude towards struggling workers whose industries have been disrupted or displaced by automation and technology, even as they indulge in messianic, extravagant rhetoric about 'making the world a better place'
It's a good book to think about but it may be hard to fine-tune solutions for such global problems.
April 15, 2021
If you’re a believer in European-style socialism, you’ll agree with much of this book. If you’re an American-style capitalist, there will be a few good points and pages and pages of groan-inducing content. I agree with the author that we have entered a realm with big tech that is undesirable and will ultimately be harmful to society and values we want to enhance. I entirely disagree with the author (who NOTES the absurd lack of technical understanding on the part of lawmakers and then goes on to assert) that regulation and government oversight is the way to solve these problems.
Government is slow to adapt, slow to change, and populated with minds that categorically did not go into tech. Those who did will predominantly be faster, more innovative, and ahead of any regulation.
Admittedly, I got through 80% of the book and couldn't stand another absurd argument following the assertion that there should be no freelance or gig work that is paid below minimum wage (because: how on earth could we let people who have chosen work-freedom to choose what is best for themselves??).
With that, perhaps the author finally acknowledged the elephant in the room: why all the big tech companies she laments were formed in American-style capitalist America and not under the bureaucratic auspices of European-style socialism. Maybe (just maybe) the regulation she suggests is the very reason Europe has less innovation than the U.S., thus rendering her arguments useless.
Government is slow to adapt, slow to change, and populated with minds that categorically did not go into tech. Those who did will predominantly be faster, more innovative, and ahead of any regulation.
Admittedly, I got through 80% of the book and couldn't stand another absurd argument following the assertion that there should be no freelance or gig work that is paid below minimum wage (because: how on earth could we let people who have chosen work-freedom to choose what is best for themselves??).
With that, perhaps the author finally acknowledged the elephant in the room: why all the big tech companies she laments were formed in American-style capitalist America and not under the bureaucratic auspices of European-style socialism. Maybe (just maybe) the regulation she suggests is the very reason Europe has less innovation than the U.S., thus rendering her arguments useless.
December 3, 2021
I wanted to love this book. I liked parts of it.
The first half, which focuses on presenting the problem of a lack of empathy within big tech, felt too one sided. The high level premise was easy to get behind, ie there is a significant lack of empathy in the growth-oriented, "big tech", VC-backed business world. It was good to learn more about where empathy applies in business. The arguments felt too much like they were positioning companies and leaders as empathy deficient based on focusing on specific instances where they showed low empathy. It felt like the message was "this company/person does not have empathy" when the examples were more of "this is an example of this company/person not showing empathy in this scenario".
The second half of the book was focused on what we could do about the issue of a lack of empathy. I wanted to connect with this, so that I could take it back into my work, which happens to be in VC-backed tech companies. What I heard was advice for CEOs and suggestions for changes to policy and regulation. Near the end, there was one section that talked about things I might be able to apply, which I appreciated.
I think the message in this book is a good one. We need to be thinking of others as we build companies and products. I would suggest you read a summary, unless you are interested in focusing on grander policy changes.
The first half, which focuses on presenting the problem of a lack of empathy within big tech, felt too one sided. The high level premise was easy to get behind, ie there is a significant lack of empathy in the growth-oriented, "big tech", VC-backed business world. It was good to learn more about where empathy applies in business. The arguments felt too much like they were positioning companies and leaders as empathy deficient based on focusing on specific instances where they showed low empathy. It felt like the message was "this company/person does not have empathy" when the examples were more of "this is an example of this company/person not showing empathy in this scenario".
The second half of the book was focused on what we could do about the issue of a lack of empathy. I wanted to connect with this, so that I could take it back into my work, which happens to be in VC-backed tech companies. What I heard was advice for CEOs and suggestions for changes to policy and regulation. Near the end, there was one section that talked about things I might be able to apply, which I appreciated.
I think the message in this book is a good one. We need to be thinking of others as we build companies and products. I would suggest you read a summary, unless you are interested in focusing on grander policy changes.
May 10, 2021
El libros está dividida en 2 partes.
La 1ra la cuenta nos cuenta todo lo que hacen mal las grandes empresas tecnológicas desde manipulación psicológica hasta explotación laboral y acoso sexual. Menciona muchas de las empresas más grandes como Facebook, Uber, Amazon y Google. La mayoría son americanas.
La 2da parte nos explica su forma o idea de cómo se podrían resolver estos problemas. Incluso, promociona sus servicios.
Sentí que la 2da parte perdió calidad y perdí el interés rápidamente. En parte es porque habla sobre regulaciones norteamericanas y yo no soy de ahí, además sentí que muchos de los consejos los repetía varias veces durante esta parte. Cerrando con un resumen del libro en un cuadro de Excel.
Recomiendo leer este libro si no sabes nada de empresas tecnológicas o quieres conocer el lado oscuro de ellas. Si ya estás metido, te vas a aburrir.
La 1ra la cuenta nos cuenta todo lo que hacen mal las grandes empresas tecnológicas desde manipulación psicológica hasta explotación laboral y acoso sexual. Menciona muchas de las empresas más grandes como Facebook, Uber, Amazon y Google. La mayoría son americanas.
La 2da parte nos explica su forma o idea de cómo se podrían resolver estos problemas. Incluso, promociona sus servicios.
Sentí que la 2da parte perdió calidad y perdí el interés rápidamente. En parte es porque habla sobre regulaciones norteamericanas y yo no soy de ahí, además sentí que muchos de los consejos los repetía varias veces durante esta parte. Cerrando con un resumen del libro en un cuadro de Excel.
Recomiendo leer este libro si no sabes nada de empresas tecnológicas o quieres conocer el lado oscuro de ellas. Si ya estás metido, te vas a aburrir.
December 24, 2022
The author examines the tendency for many of Big Techs to stray from their user-first ideals, arguing that the causes and consequences of Big Tech’s failures originate from four main sources: the Valley’s cultural insularity, the hyper-growth business model, the sector’s lack of diversity, and a dangerous self-sustaining ecosystem.
Gavet formulates a call to action for industry leaders, board members, employees, and consumers/users to drive the change necessary to create better, more sustainable businesses, including reformed tax codes, reclassification of platforms as information companies, new labor laws, and algorithmic transparency and oversight.
I loved the author's saying that “we don’t need less tech, we need more empathetic tech.”
Gavet formulates a call to action for industry leaders, board members, employees, and consumers/users to drive the change necessary to create better, more sustainable businesses, including reformed tax codes, reclassification of platforms as information companies, new labor laws, and algorithmic transparency and oversight.
I loved the author's saying that “we don’t need less tech, we need more empathetic tech.”
April 8, 2021
This book was referenced in an article I read recently and the author sounded very interesting. A young female CEO recently named by a whole bunch of lists as like the next big important person in business. I’m interested in big tech right now and was particularly hungry for some editorial after my previous more traditional reporting reads. This was quick and had some interesting ideas. A fine first book. But nothing felt that fleshed out or all that unique to the author’s experience. Uncanny Valley tells almost the same story but with 100x the finesse.
January 26, 2022
This manifesto started out really interesting, but soon felt a bit too idealistic, and also got rather dry. I appreciated that at the end of the book, Gavet circled back to give extremely tactical examples of what needs to change, where the few chapters before that had felt more like rants than true problems / solutions. Although the first few chapters were fascinating, this unfortunately ended up losing my interest, and I found it took me weeks to force myself to finish the remaining chapters. I was glad I did, but overall, I can't say it was a compelling read.
January 27, 2021
Definitely an intriguing subject and well researched. My rating is mostly due to the writing style and finesse than content. Lots of problems outlined, along with solutions, some of which seem unrealistic. Thorough in laying out all considerations. I wished it ended with a bit more text instead of a bulleted list.
April 8, 2021
Maëlle Gavet was CEO of OZON.ru (Russia’s largest e-commerce site) and executive VP of Operations at Priceline Group. This is a breezy look at the well-documented issues surrounding big tech companies and suggests how to fix it (the most interesting being on taxation and privacy). Gavet emphasises “empathy” but doesn’t define it and given the demands of venture capital and shareholders, it’s not clear how it’s supposed to work in practice.
January 6, 2022
“We don’t need less tech - we need more empathetic tech.”
Very interesting read given the prevalence of misinformation and complete monopolies that large tech companies have been forming!
I thought the author was very thorough and explained wonderfully!
Very interesting read given the prevalence of misinformation and complete monopolies that large tech companies have been forming!
I thought the author was very thorough and explained wonderfully!
July 2, 2022
In the beginning, Gavet takes the reader on an incredible tour of the world of successful tech startups and exposes big tech's shortcomings.
Later in the book, she covers her analysis of what can be done to move the tech industry toward being more ethical and empathy-driven.
Later in the book, she covers her analysis of what can be done to move the tech industry toward being more ethical and empathy-driven.
October 28, 2020
Insightful
Excellent journey to the way big techs are taking over he Information Age and what can we do about. We can do more than we think.
Excellent journey to the way big techs are taking over he Information Age and what can we do about. We can do more than we think.
December 13, 2020
Incisive diagnosis and urgently needed proposals for cures to American democracy’s clear and present danger.
March 21, 2021
Interesting analysis of big tech's empathy problem. Very current and relevant, with some ideas for how we can do better.
April 20, 2021
Quite boring. But important in this age and food for thought. I might reconsider higher rating after pondering a few days.
June 19, 2025
I like the part where Maelle compares a company hierarchy with medieval feudalism because there's less people at the top like that's some kind of enlightened wisdom
December 3, 2023
Lived it
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews