The Existential Crisis of Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is going through an existential crisis that the recent troubles with Facebook exemplify. On the one hand, there have been important technical developments that allow companies to scale revenues and grow at a historically fast pace. On the other hand, companies are struggling to find meaning and purpose that have a positive effect on the human condition. Often, these two forces are at odds with one another.

Facebook embodies this existential struggle, and they have lost the moral authority. As it has scaled to reach nearly one-third of humanity, Facebook has exploited digital addiction and other weaknesses of humanity, fostering a world of disconnectedness, narcissism, extremism and hatred. Instead of bringing people together on a platform to share and grow, we now have a world of vanity metrics and extreme views.

The troubles of Facebook are now being confronted by many leaders in Silicon Valley. People are realizing that belief in a mission that advances the human condition is more important than scale and is also the new metric of true success. When all of the stakeholders, from the team to the customers, believe in the mission of a business, both scale and success can be achieved. A quest for purpose and belief is being discussed and pursued within the largest enterprises and the smallest startups across Silicon Valley today, and this will ultimately benefit all of humanity.