Incidents and actions from tracked entities.
Reid Hoffman personally committed $10 million to a $27 million fund created with the Knight Foundation and Omidyar Network to apply humanities and social sciences to AI development. The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Initiative supported research at MIT Media Lab and Harvard Berkman Klein Center focused on ensuring AI serves the public interest.
Greylock partner Reid Hoffman, along with eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, established a $27 million Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund as a joint venture between the MIT Media Lab and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Hoffman also joined the board of Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) and launched the Hoffman-Yee Research Grants for interdisciplinary AI research. While attributed to Hoffman personally, his role as a Greylock partner connects the firm to AI ethics investment.
Palmer Luckey donated $100,000 to Donald Trump's 2017 Presidential Inaugural Committee through a shell company called Wings of Time LLC, while still employed at Facebook. The donation was received on January 4, 2017, and was reported by Mother Jones. Luckey used the shell company rather than donating in his own name.
DJI developed and deployed FlightHub geofencing technology that automatically restricts drone operations near airports, government buildings, and other sensitive areas, setting an industry standard for drone safety.
After Treyarch co-head Dan Bunting was accused of sexual harassment in 2017, the matter was investigated by Activision's HR department and it was recommended that he be fired. However, CEO Bobby Kotick reportedly blocked the move, allowing Bunting to remain in his leadership position despite the HR investigation's findings and termination recommendation. This incident was revealed in the November 2021 Wall Street Journal investigation.
In 2015, Fei-Fei Li co-founded SAILORS (Stanford AI Lab OutReach Summer program) at Stanford to familiarize high school girls with AI. In 2017, the program expanded into AI4ALL, a national nonprofit co-founded with Olga Russakovsky and Rick Sommer, with funding from Melinda French Gates/Pivotal Ventures and Jensen Huang. AI4ALL promotes education, mentorship, and support for underrepresented communities in AI, including women, people of color, and low-income individuals. By 2022, AI4ALL had reached over 10,000 people across all 50 US states, growing from 1 to 16 university partnerships.
Mullvad VPN has maintained fully open-source client applications for all platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS) and regularly commissions independent security audits, publishing the results publicly. The company was also an early adopter and contributor to the WireGuard VPN protocol.
Theranos under Holmes aggressively pursued whistleblowers who raised concerns. Erika Cheung and Tyler Shultz (grandson of board member George Shultz) faced legal threats, surveillance, and intimidation after reporting concerns to regulators. The company hired private investigators to follow Shultz and pressured his grandfather to intervene. Lab director Ian Gibbons died by suicide in 2013 amid the pressure.
Noctua has remained independently owned by its parent company Rascom since its founding in 2005, growing from 10 to over 80 employees without external investment or acquisition. This independence has enabled a focus on long-term product quality over quarterly growth metrics. Independent testing by outlets including Gamers Nexus has consistently verified Noctua's thermal performance claims and manufacturing quality, with the company maintaining one of the lowest defect rates in the PC cooling industry.
Oracle CEO Safra Catz joined Trump's presidential transition team in December 2016, stating 'we are with him and are here to help in any way we can.' She was considered for cabinet positions including Director of National Intelligence. A senior Oracle employee resigned in protest.
McKinsey prepared a December 2016 report measuring public response to Saudi government policy, identifying three Twitter users as key online influencers including Omar Abdulaziz, a close associate of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Following the report, Saudi authorities imprisoned and tortured Abdulaziz's family and associates. Another identified writer was imprisoned, and a third anonymous user disappeared from the internet. Abdulaziz filed a lawsuit alleging McKinsey outed him to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Under Wojcicki's leadership, YouTube failed to detect over 1,100 videos posted by Russian trolls during the 2016 election cycle, almost all targeting African-Americans. This was acknowledged as a significant content moderation failure.
In late 2016, hackers accessed Uber systems using stolen GitHub credentials and stole personal data of 57 million riders and drivers worldwide, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, and 600,000 US driver license numbers. Rather than disclosing the breach to the FTC (which was already investigating Uber for a 2014 breach), CSO Joe Sullivan paid the hackers $100,000 in bitcoin disguised as a bug bounty and required them to sign NDAs. The breach was concealed for over a year and only disclosed in November 2017 under new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Uber paid $148 million to settle with all 50 US states in September 2018.
Signal Foundation created the Signal Protocol (formerly TextSecure Protocol), which became the gold standard for encrypted messaging. The protocol was adopted by WhatsApp (2B+ users), Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Google Messages. Signal open-sourced the protocol and its client applications.
In October 2016, Sam Altman published a blog post warning that Trump represented 'an unprecedented threat to America' and compared his tactics to Hitler in 1930s Germany, writing 'To anyone familiar with the history of Germany in the 1930s, it's chilling to watch Trump in action... Hitler taught us about the Big Lie.' He urged readers to vote for Hillary Clinton.
Thiel donated $1.25 million to support Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, including contributions to the Make America Number 1 Super PAC. This made him one of the largest tech donors to Trump's first presidential bid.
Jimmy Wales joined eleven other business leaders in signing an open letter to American voters urging them not to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
Wojcicki was among 40 business executives who publicly endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in September 2016. She contributed $81,265 in political donations during the 2016 election cycle.
Yahoo disclosed two massive data breaches (2013 and 2014) affecting all 3 billion user accounts. Yahoo's board found that the 2014 breach 'was not properly investigated' and cited 'failures in communication, management, inquiry and internal reporting.' The breaches significantly reduced Yahoo's acquisition price by Verizon.
In September 2016, The Daily Beast reported that Palmer Luckey had secretly funded Nimble America, a pro-Trump political group that created and spread memes and shitposts supporting Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The revelation caused significant backlash in the VR community, with some developers refusing to support Oculus. Luckey initially denied involvement, then acknowledged funding the group. He left Meta/Facebook in March 2017.
In July 2016, Brian Chesky acknowledged that Airbnb was 'late to this issue' of racial discrimination on the platform, stating 'we took our eye off the ball.' In September 2016, he formally apologized ('I am sorry. I take responsibility for any pain or frustration this has caused') and announced a comprehensive anti-discrimination policy including photo reduction, instant book expansion, and community commitment.
Reliance Jio launched in September 2016 with free voice and data services that destroyed competitor margins, accelerating the consolidation of India's telecom market from a dozen operators to a duopoly of Jio plus Bharti Airtel. Critics including academic and industry analysts have argued the regulatory environment - including TRAI's interconnection rulings, spectrum policy, and the rejection of competitor predatory-pricing complaints against Jio - reflected the close documented ties between Mukesh Ambani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Reliance Group has been the BJP's largest corporate donor through electoral bonds. Vodafone Idea entered NCLT-adjacent distress under the resulting price pressure.
Reliance Jio's 2016 launch with free voice and data services collapsed Indian mobile data prices from among the world's most expensive to among the world's cheapest (sub-$2/GB sustained), accelerating mass adoption of mobile internet in rural India. By 2024 Jio served approximately 450 million subscribers, the largest single-operator subscriber base in any democracy, with much of the growth in lower-income rural districts. Independent academic analysis (e.g., the National Council of Applied Economic Research) credited Jio's pricing with major increases in digital literacy and informal-economy mobile commerce, while flagging the concomitant market consolidation harms.
In August 2016, Republican Whitman endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, calling Trump an 'astonishing display of political opportunism' and comparing him to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. She called on Republicans to 'put country first before party' and stated voting for Trump 'out of party loyalty alone would be to endorse a candidacy that I believe has exploited anger, grievance, xenophobia and racial division.' She also supported the campaign financially.
Thiel became the first openly gay speaker to address the Republican National Convention, delivering a prime-time endorsement of Donald Trump. He declared 'I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all I am proud to be an American.' The speech marked a high-profile tech industry endorsement of Trump.
Impossible Foods, founded by Stanford biochemistry professor Pat Brown in 2011, develops plant-based meat using heme protein technology to replicate the taste and texture of animal meat. The Impossible Burger and other products aim to eliminate the need for animal agriculture. The company's mission is explicitly to reduce animal suffering and environmental impact of meat production.
On June 11, 2016, Brian Chesky became one of the youngest signatories of The Giving Pledge, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates' initiative where billionaires commit to giving away at least half their wealth. At 34 years old, Chesky stated he wanted the pledge to be more than 'a bunch of old people.'
In 2016, multiple people publicly accused Tor developer Jacob Appelbaum of sexual harassment and assault. The Tor Project conducted an investigation, terminated Appelbaum, and subsequently replaced its entire board of directors. The organization implemented new governance structures and a code of conduct to prevent similar issues.
In 2016, Kahle founded the Decentralized Web Summit movement, bringing together technologists to build alternatives to corporate-controlled platforms. He has consistently advocated for baking values like privacy and freedom of expression into the code itself.
On June 1, 2016, Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk and his wife Elizabeth signed the Giving Pledge, the Warren Buffett/Bill and Melinda Gates initiative in which billionaires commit to give away the majority of their wealth over their lifetimes. In their pledge letter, the Blecharczyks wrote they felt 'a responsibility to share our good fortune' and identified focus areas including 'the potential of children' and 'transformative ideas.' This is a personal wealth commitment distinct from any Airbnb corporate philanthropy program.