From Tech Leaders to World Leaders: Why What Got You There Shouldn’t Get You Here

Tech leaders are acting more and more like global leaders, via the sheer reach and impact of their products and their attitudes, but do they have what it takes and are they aware of the differences between the two roles?

As technology evolves and its impact widens and deepens, tech leaders are developing products that could shape the human condition and shift world balances.

The leaders of the most powerful products have long extended their reach beyond the walls of their firms, or their customer base, to impact the world. So more or less intentionally, depending on the leader, they are moving their arm for a wider embrace, and tighter grasp, of planet Earth.

On the other hand, politicians are spending a considerable amount of time discussing tech — consider for example the US Senate hearings on AI regulation or the session last week by the House of Representatives to discuss the bill that could ban TikTok — and having to update their understanding of tech’s lingo and ways of doing things.

If politicians are trying to upgrade their tech knowledge — compare their apparent understanding of tech from the 2018 hearing of Mark Zuckerberg to now — it seems that tech leaders merely want to proceed to copy-paste the tech industry’s modus…