If The Shoe Fits: Tech R People
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.
The top stories currently engaging the tech world and spilling over to the real world are the Google memo and Uber.
A major underlying point of the memo is how unnecessary soft skills, such as empathy are in tech, which has been soundly refuted.
Tech is an umbrella term embraced by a wide range of industries; hence there is fintech, medtech, legaltech, etc.
The inclusion of the word indicates that companies within that industry, frequently startups, are revamping/revolutionizing the business using various kinds of technology.
But none of it happens in a vacuum.
No matter how large or small or how disruptive — from Uber to a solitary founder — they are still part of a larger community.
Consider Uber.
It’s ideal because it is a perfect microcosm of a disruptive startup, with the machinations, interactions and effects on its industry and society in general, since it includes all the elements — positive and negative.
Founders take note.
Uber’s storyline hasn’t moved in a straight line, nor will it in the future, because it involves people.
Societies are people.
People are messy.
Technology is not an end in itself, but a means to many ends.
One way or another, all those ends are people.
Successfully navigating people requires empathy (keyword: successfully).
Image credit: HikingArtist
