Growth: What is it Good For?

By Keith Teare • Issue #277 • View online

The Facebook whistleblower accused the company of putting growth and profit before everything. So, is growth bad? Is it incompatible with human good? Or is it the essence of progress?

Contents

• Innovation and Growth
• Hot Air
• Regulation Fallout
• Venture Trends
• Innovation for Employees & Creators
• Africa Rises
• Startup of the Week
• Tweet of the Week

Editorial

It’s obvious, right? This week we should focus on Facebook? Well, yes and no. We certainly should focus on the issues raised by the whistleblower Frances Haugen and her testimony to Congress. But that testimony is about a lot more than Facebook. It goes to the heart of ideas that have formed our views of civilization since the enlightenment. Is growth good? Does it serve humanity? Is it compatible with our deepest needs?

At the heart of the testimony was a concern that Facebook put “its own” interests ahead of those of “us”. From 60 Minutes:

“The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and…