Medium writer Gloria Liou is born-and-bred Silicon Valley. She describes her home as an idyllic location where” …people feast on $15 sushirritos and $6 Blue Bottle coffees. The streets are filled with Teslas and self-driving cars.” However…

Liou also reveals the more harmful side of Silicon Valley: perfectionism, suicide, lack of diversity, and substance abuse. She also touches on the worrying rise of Silicon Valley tech developers prioritising quick wins and fast money – when their skills could instead be used for the greater good of humanity. “In Silicon Valley, few people find things like climate change important enough to talk about at length, and even fewer find it important enough to work on. It’s not where the money is at. It’s not where “success” is at. And it’s certainly not where the industry is at,” writes Liou.

“Instead, money comes from changing a button from green to blue, from making yet another food delivery app, and from getting more clicks on ads. That’s just how the Valley and the tech industry are set up. As Jeffrey Hammerbacher, a former Facebook executive, told Bloomberg, “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.” This is Silicon Valley.”

This isn't just Silicon Valley though, is it? It's a global issue. I share Gloria's frustration: it seems like so many of the tech industry's greatest thinkers are consumed with gadgets, and not concerned with creating a better world for the future. Could a global ethics council steer development in a better, and more useful, direction?

You can read the full article, here.