What questions can tech CEOs be asked, to guage their moral trustworthiness? In light of the OpenAI shakeup, many here have pointed to Altman's goals with the project being ones most don't consider the most important (money, reckless use which many enhance government/powerful control), and a 'personality that is required for this kind of thing'. What questions or things can we talk about with tech CEOs (and others in decision-making positions, to get a grasp of their morality/personality? |
If they say anything positive, you know to run the other direction.
Good luck getting an answer though.
If anything, the OpenAI fiasco is more about the disconnect between boards and the companies they guide. It's not the first time I've seen a BoD take action based on information from the wrong people, but the fact that it has been so public makes it a great object lesson for founders and other leaders.
2. "Would you allow an employee who has acquired a concealed-carry license to arm herself on company property?"
3. "Do you donate to the Democrat party? How much? And what have you done to funnel company wealth to it?"
Rationale:
1. Coercing people to receive a medical treatment that they may not desire is a clear sign that the CEO lacks a moral compass - this is Nuremberg trials material. The groupthink in 2021 was: "the vaccines are effective and safe." Any skeptical CEO who resisted that groupthink, and respected an individual's right to remain in the control group for that medical experiment, demonstrated moral trustworthiness.
2. Respect for an individual's right to self defense is a clear sign of a moral compass. Individuals who have acquired CCLs must submit to background checks, complete a training course, and know the law on the use of lethal force in defending oneself - they as justified as police officers in carrying firearms. A CEO who has come to this understanding, and NOT established a policy contrary to it demonstrates moral trustworthiness.
3. The Democrat party has established itself as the party of moral erosion, for whom a consistent, universal morality does not exist. It is the party of moral relativism. And moral relativism is defined by it un-trustworthiness on morals. Soros and SBF are/were the two biggest donors to this party; they are walking examples of moral un-trustworthiness. We can probably nitpick, and ask a similar question about the Republican party, but those people are all about morality...right? That's a big reason why libs pick on them.
- "Should Palestine should be free?"
- "Do Black Lives Matter?"
People can present themselves differently than they are, and especially people with lower morales will have no problem presenting themselves differently if that is in their interest. Look at pretty much any big company CEO.
If you do need to gauge someone, look at their history, look at their actions, and look at their incentives. If they don't align with what they're saying you should not expect them to act any different than they did before.
This applies not only to CEOs but to every single human on the planet. One thing I have learned is that many people seem to be easily tricked by certain types of humans saying one thing and doing another (which is contradictory to the "said" thing). It is certainly frustrating to watch happen, when it involves people you care about.
Seems to me that almost everybody. And the ones not tricked just happened to be looking at a different place by chance, and won't replicate the same result a different time.
We definitively need some kind of tooling to deal with this.
That being said, asking a CEO to take responsibility for a mistake is a pretty good indicator.
If they own the mistake. That's good. If they own the mistake and try to fix it. That's better. If they own the mistake and ask the people wronged how to make amends. They're probably not a CEO.
You can't just say the magic incantation "I take full responsibility" and leave it at that.
A decent rule of thumb is that if someone has to overtly say "I take full responsibility", they aren't taking full responsibility.
What are your views on unionization? Would you voluntarily recognize an union formed by your employees?
Why don't our job postings have salary ranges?
Remote work?
Open-source?
Climate change?
How do you think our new office will impact the local community and housing affordability?
What philanthropic activities do you engage in? What about our company?
How will our culture change once our company achieves success?
What can we get in writing, in revised bylaws, rather than a verbal promise?
If you haven't had a lot of practice, ask people who have. Investors and other CEOs typically have lots of practice, though sometimes they aren't trustworthy themselves. So ask several people and discard outlying opinions.
Ignore the press, unless there are external facts like a conviction. The press is full of snark and innuendo about CEOs, most of which is just reporters trying to cook up a narrative people will click on.
Auto-fail anyone who treats the driver poorly. Find the guy that wants and/or tries to help the driver succeed.
Various ways to see the inner person and not the "show person" on display for the interview.
But that's pretty funny to learn :) Nice.
This kind of approach would mean you also look at governance structures, which in the case of OpenAI would have focused on the issues with their board structure.
My answer would be to check their technical background to see how they ended up as CEO. Was it circumstance, or raw machiavellian ambition?
If you must ask one question I would probably ask, "Do you hate being a CEO?". If they answer "Yes" it likely means they are doing it out of responsibility rather than pathalogical persuit of the unattainable.
You really have to take off your rose-tinted glasses and try to get to know what their core values are. That is the only way.
Tell them that their response is going to be publicized beforehand.
None, except to the extent that (there are other requirements, but these apply on top of them): (1) you already know what their honest answers would be, and (2) you can guarantee that they don't know that you know this.
But I could be overthinking this.
I think, WHICH moral code you choose has some relevance here.
For most people who get the chance to talk with "tech CEOs", the basic context of the conversation is usually built on a profit-seeking foundation -- Should I invest in you? Should I sign a commercial deal with you? Should I work with you as an employee? On that basis, morality is often orthogonal to profit (sometimes opposed, and rarely aligned with).
Most people, most of the time, if they are evaluating tech CEOs for any semblance of "morality" or ethics, it is usually most pertinent to consider business ethics -- Will you uphold the terms of a contract? Will you sincerely work to create shareholder value (above personal goals or benefits)? Will you be a good leader for your employees, treat them fairly according to professional standards and company policies? This level of ethics is necessary in order to conduct good business; trust is currency and if you cannot trust a CEO to uphold standard business and professional ethics, then the cost of doing business in an environment of mistrust usually becomes exceedingly high.
Anything beyond that, like is this CEO a "good person", are they working for the betterment of mankind, etc., is usually not worth evaluating for 95% of people -- not because it's unimportant, but because (a) capitalism is amoral and grafting morality on to it is kind of an exercise in futility, and (b) most people are not equipped to evaluate the answers in any kind of serious or logically rigorous way.
But in the case of interviewing a CEO, you don't often have a chance to see them interacting with random people.
How can this be done, and how can you tell when they're in that "state"?
I guess in addition to leetcode, one should grind on trolleycar dilemmas as well to get hired as a coder. :)
If a company is using leetcode, I won't further consider being employed by that company. Same if I'm given any sort of weird psychological questions.
Not because companies are wrong in doing those things, but because they are a strong indicator of how the company operates in general, and that I would be a poor fit there.
Fortunately, most companies do neither of those things.
The best you can do is to look at their history and see how they've behaved in the past.
.. I'll watch the film later.