A Recap on Technology in 2019
By: Katharine Jiang
Tags: Technology, Conference, Thought Leadership, Silicon Valley, Startup

The WIRED25 Conference this year focused on a theme familiar to everyone in the tech world: move fast, fix things. 22 founders, youth plaintiffs, professors, visionaries, filled the stage with eye opening discussions about hot topics: SECURITY, CLIMATE CHANGE, DATA. Want a quick skim of what top leaders are talking about in 2019? Here we go:

Jeff Weiner: LinkedIn, CEO

Working on:

Alleviating harassment in DMs, Breaking network biases (hiring only people similar to us, in our circles).

What to watch for:

The +1 Pledge — Create opportunities for people who aren’t just in your 1st degree network. Help someone, whether it’s liking a post or replying to a comment, and they will be able to influence others as well.

Anne Neuberger: NSA, Director of Cybersecurity

Working on:

Securing technologies and security standards.

What to watch for

Low orbit sensor platforms and weaponized drones, which both have very high cost to defend and low cost to deploy.

Brian Acton: Signal Technology Foundation, Executive Chairman

Working on:

Understanding how ads play in big corporations.

What to watch for:

Innovation in business models outside of ads.

Mihir Shukla: Automation Anywhere, CEO + Cofounder

Working on:

Software bots that go through hundreds, thousands of systems and make decisions for E2E processes.

What to watch out for:

Cutting time-consuming processes such as mortgage applications by half.

Dawn Song: Oasis Labs, CEO + Founder

Working on:

Trustworthy artificial intelligence.

What to watch out for:

Kara, a platform where you own your own health data.

Patrick Collison: Stripe, CEO + Cofounder

Working on:

The idea of “splitting” the Internet into blocks where each block agrees to the same rules.

What to watch out for:

Moving headquarters to South SF in 2021.

Chris Cox: Ex-Facebook CPO

Working on:

Acronym, a group that helps progressives build out their campaign and messaging tech stack. Planet Labs, a startup that builds satellites to track climate change.

What to watch out for:

“Tech can lead”

Vic Barrett, Kelsey Juliana, Levi Draheim: The Juliana Plaintiffs

Working on:

Juliana v. United States

What to watch out for:

Holding US leaders accountable for climate change.

Uma Valeti: Memphis Meats, CEO + Cofounder

Working on:

Growing meat from cells

What to what out for:

Being available for the public to try

Ben Horowitz: Andreessen Horowitz, Cofounder

Working on:

What You Do Is Who You Are (Published Oct 2019)

What to watch out for:

Companies are built on strongly defined culture and ethics.

Adam Mosseri: Instagram, Head

Working on:

“People first”

What to watch out for:

Private like counts rolling out to the US.

Anca Dragan: UC Berkeley, Assistant Professor

Working on:

Intentions and cooperation between robots and humans.

What to watch out for:

Robots that work with, around, and in support of humans.

Astro Teller: X, Captain of Moonshots

Working on:

Helping project teams navigate through bumpy waters on the way to reality

What to watch out for:

“Be passionately dispassionate”

This means to try things, even if it’s wrong. But when the time comes to evaluate the feasibility, results must be looked at dispassionately. This requires