"The engineering elite of Silicon Valley may know more than most about building software. But they do not know more about how society should be organized or what justice requires.
Our company was founded in Silicon Valley. But we seem to share fewer and fewer of the technology sector’s values and commitments.
From the start, we have repeatedly turned down opportunities to sell, collect, or mine data. Other technology companies, including some of the largest in the world, have built their entire businesses on doing just that.
Software projects with our nation’s defense and intelligence agencies, whose missions are to keep us safe, have become controversial, while companies built on advertising dollars are commonplace. For many consumer internet companies, our thoughts and inclinations, behaviors and browsing habits, are the product for sale. The slogans and marketing of many of the Valley’s largest technology firms attempt to obscure this simple fact."