Tech Leaders: Let's be Honest That We Have Sucked

Fellow leaders in tech, we need to look in the mirror.

For years, we’ve lamented the absence of a true “builder culture” in our country. We’ve complained about risk-averse investors, insufficient government support, and a public that seems to derive more satisfaction from tearing down success than celebrating it. We’ve convinced ourselves that if only these external factors would align, Canada could finally compete on the global tech stage.

I’ve been part of these conversations. I nodded along. I’ve even led some of them.

I was wrong.

The hard truth is that we – the tech leaders of Canada – have failed. Not the government. Not the public. Us.

The Promises We Made vs. The Reality We Created

Back when the Internet took off, we positioned ourselves as revolutionaries. We were young, ambitious, and seemingly unstoppable. “Move fast and break things” wasn’t just a motto; it was a promise that we would disrupt the status quo and replace it with something better.

We pledged to “do no evil” while simultaneously promising to solve the world’s most pressing problems. We spoke of democratizing information, creating prosperity, and building a more equitable future. We promised to be different from the corporate titans who came before us – more ethical, more inclusive, more concerned with the greater good.

We weren’t just building companies; we were building a better world.

But the reality we created tells a different story:

Look at the tech leaders we’ve produced globally: figures like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg who supposedly began as idealistic innovators and transformed into controversial billionaires whose companies have created as many problems as they’ve solved.
Here in Canada, most of us know that many of the most powerful tech voices have been advocating for a Peter Theil-inspired vision of the world that is, frankly, good for a few but bad for the majority. Tech mastered the art of building and funding monopolies, rather than fast-moving disruption agents.
We talked about erasing bro culture, but all of our companies are still male dominated and lack even a hint of a path to the diversity we all bragged about a few years ago.
Housing costs have skyrocketed. Grocery prices continue to climb. The digital divide persists. Data privacy concerns mount. The life of the average person feels harder than ever, despite the billions of dollars invested in technologies that people don’t really care about.
Our innovations have often focused on high-margin, venture-backable opportunities rather than solving fundamental problems that would improve life for the average Canadian.
We’ve operated in echo chambers where success is measured in funding rounds and exits rather than positive impact. We’ve embraced a culture that celebrates hustle and growth at all costs, often at the expense of ethics and responsibility.

We call ourselves “builders.” Our job is to make the impossible possible, the expensive affordable. So if there are so many problems missing solutions, are we not at least partly to blame?

##Taking Ownership Means Acknowledging Our Failures

Real leaders take ownership when their projects fail. And by the metrics that matter most – creating meaningful improvements in people’s lives – we have fallen short.

The public’s skepticism toward tech isn’t a failure of understanding on their part – it’s a failure of delivery on ours. Let’s be honest about our patterns of failure:

When faced with criticism, we stereotyped our opponents, rather than adopting introspection.
We live in a bubble, let’s be honest that we really have lost touch with the lives of the majority of the working-class population.
When the public turned away from us, trying to rein us in, we took over the government.

Is it crazy to wonder why many average people don’t see us as the heroes we claim to be?

Rebuilding Trust Through Accountability

We need to be honest about when we’ve prioritized growth over responsibility, profit over people, and personal gain over public good. We need to acknowledge the ways in which our industry has contributed to economic inequality rather than alleviating it.

We need to examine our collective record on:

The battles we chose to fight versus the times we stayed silent
The wealth we created and how it was distributed
The tone we took as we enacted change
The occasions we advocated for everyone versus just our in-group

Most importantly, we need to reconnect with the ideals that brought many of us into tech in the first place: the genuine desire to solve problems, create value, and make a positive difference in people’s lives.

But We Can Win Back This Narrative

Despite these failures, this story doesn’t have to end with polarization. We can reclaim the “tech as good” narrative and rebuild trust, but only through genuine action and accountability.

A key step: we need to treat our reputation like we would any brand under our management. If public perception of tech leaders is poor, that’s our failure, not the public’s. The gap between how much we believe we’re benefiting society and how much people actually feel those benefits is real and meaningful. We need to close it by acting and talking differently.

Most importantly, we need to realign our focus on solving problems that genuinely matter to most Canadians. Not just the problems that VCs want to fund or that will lead to the fastest exit. In our community, we now have vast sums of wealth: let’s use it effectively to show what we can build. Housing affordability. Healthcare access. Financial security. Energy abundance. Climate resilience. Education transformation.

Let’s build!

-ali asaria