Communications of the ACM
Alphabet’s Chairman on Government, China, and Fake News
John L. Hennessy, former president of Stanford University, chairman of Google parent Alphabet Inc., and co-recipient of the ACM A.M. Turing Award for 2017, describes himself as a "technology optimist" who is hopeful technology companies can learn to gover
Credit: ACM
This week, President Donald Trump accused Google of bias against conservatives and suggested that government intervention might be necessary. Deflecting such criticisms is now part of the job for John L. Hennessy, who became chairman of Google parent company Alphabet Inc. six months ago.
Mr. Hennessy, a former president of Stanford University, will need to help guide Alphabet through a turbulent period of growth. He's heard from users worried about data privacy, regulators wondering how to hold the search engine's power in check and the company's own employees, many of whom are demanding more transparency on controversial projects, including a plan to develop a censored version of Google for China.
In response to Mr. Trump's accusations, Google said its search results do not reflect political ideology. Mr. Hennessy calls himself a "technology optimist" who is hopeful that tech companies can govern themselves. But he warns, "if the industry doesn't find a way to police itself, then inevitably government will police it."
At Stanford, Mr. Hennessy elevated the Palo Alto, Calif.-based school's storied computer-science program and fostered deep ties with the tech industry in its own backyard. Yahoo , Google, PayPal , Netflix and Instagram were all started by Stanford alumni.
Mr. Hennessy recently sat down with The Wall Street Journal in San Francisco to discuss his career and new book, "Leading Matters: Lessons From My Journey." Here are edited excerpts.
WSJ: Are you worried about the future that Silicon Valley is creating?
Mr. Hennessy: Given the prominence that technology has assumed in our world, I think it can be a force for bad in the hands of the wrong people. We've seen this with fake news. We'll have further challenges downstream with the rise of artificial intelligence, which is coming at a real clip.
Until the last few years, we probably didn't see ourselves playing as big a role in society as we've ended up playing. We thought, "Hey, we're building computers, we're making things for people," without thinking about some of the implications. I remain a technology optimist, but I also think that we have to acknowledge there are unintended consequences that can be equally devastating.
From The Wall Street Journal
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