How big tech companies turned profit into power
rob larca
Professor of Practice, Albert R. Lepage Professor of Business
Executive Director Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Tulane University AB Freeman School of Business
Busboys & Poets at 450K Street
We used to look up to technology entrepreneurs who created the miracle innovations of our time. But our faith was shattered. We now accuse them of spreading lies, breaking laws, and causing chaos. Yesterday's Silicon Valley darling has become today's Big Tech villain. which one? Are they superheroes or villains? Or are they more complex, an amalgamation of both?
In this conversation, Rob Larca reveals how technology entrepreneurs built multi-trillion dollar empires. Meta began as a cruel Halloween prank, Alphabet began as a master's thesis warning of corporate deception, and Palantir was born out of a campus controversy over hate speech. These largely forgotten origin stories show how everyday fear and youthful ambition shaped their adventures, making the story of each technology both wonderfully and tragically humanizing. I try to make it something that people can relate to. The discussion covers the adversity tech entrepreneurs have overcome, the awkward trade-offs they've made, and the enormous power they now wield. Using leaked documents and unpublished archival material, Larca takes viewers inside the worst exploitation and abuse by Big Tech, with plenty of good intentions and moral compromises.
Raluca will share insights on the path to more responsible innovation, so that technology is no longer a dangerous weapon, but a valuable tool that ensures progress, improves society, and enhances our daily lives.
There will be time for questions and answers.
This program is part of ColumbiaDC. cup series.
“This brilliantly researched book reveals the all-too-human origins of today's technology giants. Rob Larca explains how iconic companies like Facebook, Google, PayPal, and Palantir first appeared It takes us into dorm room discussions, campus lab breakthroughs, and debates over free speech.'' Larca traces the ambitions, adversity, and compromises that turned a young innovator into a millionaire. Masu. Here, businesses are living characters, and entrepreneurs are real people, flaws and all. ” walter isaacson National Humanities Medalist and Author of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs
Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
rob larca Professor of Management Practice, Albert R. LePage Professor of Business at Tulane University AB Freeman School of Business, and Executive Director of the Albert LePage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He is a two-time recipient of the AB Freeman School's Outstanding Intellectual Contribution Award and is the author of the forthcoming book The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profits Into Power, to be published by Columbia University Press. , this book is the number one new publication in both venture magazines. Capital and business ethics at Amazon.
Larca moved to New Orleans from Washington, D.C., where he served as a director of Village Capital and a senior advisor to the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. Previously, he worked in the U.S. Department of State's Office of Global Partnerships and was on the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff, for which he received the State Department's Distinguished Honors Award and the Distinguished Service Honors Award. .
Larca currently serves on the boards of Public Democracy, Inc., Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, and Venture for America in New Orleans. He graduated from Yale with honors in both history and English, earned a master's degree in public policy from Duke University, and earned a certificate in executive education from Harvard's School of Business.
cup series: This is ColumbiaDC and Columbia University Press Featuring acclaimed and pioneering work by distinguished scholars, scholars, and researchers published by Columbia University Press.
