Much of the tech world still believes that in order to succeed, we must prioritize growth and speed over all else, and we can worry about the consequences later.  How can we get past the binary thinking that it’s either move fast and grow or slow down at your bottom line’s expense?

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At Betalab, we seek to be part of a shift to the next wave of tech culture. We believe the way companies make decisions on governance, values, and hiring, and how they build products, are all by-products of the company’s culture.  Which is why we believe it’s critical to be intentional about creating and living your company culture, from the very beginning.

In this two-part event we'll explore both how we got here, and the way forward. (Click here to RSVP to Day 2)


DAY 1: HOW WE GOT HERE
How can we avoid some of the pitfalls of so-called tech or “start up culture”? Can we learn from past mistakes to help us think through what a positive company culture can look like?

About the speakers:
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- Sarah Drinkwater co-leads Omidyar Network's Responsible Technology program, funding and fuelling the responsible tech movement. Grantees include Ethical Explorer, Zebras Unite and #ResponsibleCS. Previously, she led Google's international work designed to democratize access to entrepreneurship, heading up their London space Campus, and built the social layer on Google Maps as the first employee outside the US with "community" in the title. In past lives, she has been a failed entrepreneur & a journalist for the Guardian. She also angel invests through Atomico's program and sits on the boards or mission guardianships of Library of Things, Data4Change and YSYS (Europe's leading effort to diversify tech's talent base).

- Jane Yang was the data analyst at Basecamp. She holds a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and knows where she is at, though sometimes she's a little ahead of her time. It's all a balancing act... and a work-in-progress.

- Rhett Lindsey is the founder and CEO of Siimee, a social impact company whose mission is to eliminate bias in hiring and transform the way employers connect with job seekers. Prior to launching Siimee, Rhett spent over seven years leading and collaborating with teams at prominent companies including Facebook, Tinder, Microsoft, and The Walt Disney Company, sourcing and hiring talent in the technology and software development sectors. During his time at Tinder, Rhett established and led the tech conglomerate’s first Black History Month series, collaborating with social impact organizations in Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Throughout his time as a recruiter, Rhett continuously dealt with unjust recruitment technologies such as Applicant Tracking Systems, or ATS, that led to unconscious bias in the hiring process.
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In December 2020, he left the recruiting industry to create Siimee, an organization committed to reforming the hiring process in U.S. corporations. Siimee is doing this by increasing awareness of the inherent problems in recruiting and hiring, developing training programs, and creating a non-biased hiring tool that is completely unlike the ATS used by more than 90% of large U.S. corporations.  

- Sarah Frier is a senior technology reporter for Bloomberg News out of San Francisco. Her award-winning features and breaking stories have earned her a reputation as an expert on how Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter make business decisions that affect their future and our society. Frier is a frequent contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg Television. She’s also the author of No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram, the winner of the 2020 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award.

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