Technology companies the world over have long built their corporate reputations on concepts of product quality and continuous innovation that give consumers personal freedom from Beijing to Boston, Copenhagen to Cape Town.
However, regulators and concerned citizens on six continents now have high-flying tech titans in their crosshairs in 2025, with concerns over the industry’s license to operate related to geopolitics, privacy, and mental health now front-page news.
As the post-Cold War tech dominance of the so-called FAANG (Facebook Amazon Apple Netflix Google) gang of Silicon Valley is challenged by a new generation of Asian technology dynamos, a new AI arms race between the US and China is forcing some governments to choose sides amid bruising tariffs and uncertain national security alliances.
The ancient Sanskrit proverb ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ is showing up all over Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas as high-tech lobbyists find themselves on the defensive in capitals over digital sovereignty where they once were feted as conquering heroes and the ‘good guys’.
From the dawn of personal technology breakthroughs (PCs, 1980s, internet and mobile phones, 1990s, social media and smart phones 2000s), privacy was always a second or third order reputation risk for the industry, as consumers and policymakers alike were starry-eyed over the productivity, efficiency and connectivity gains that resulted.
Only in Europe where Safe Harbor principles were enshrined in the late 1990s was the compliance burden a dent to profits, but the industry now sees a variety of new legislation and regulatory regimes emerging across the Global North and South (beyond the EU’s GDPR passed in 2018) to protect consumer privacy as threats to its future growth and expansion.
As academic critics of social media continue to publish studies that link teen suicide rates and depression to smart phone/multiscreen ‘addiction’, strange political alliances between libertarians, educators, stay at home parents, and some burned out tech execs have emerged.
While tech companies have amassed trillion-dollar market capitalisations, these critics claim social media is dissolving the mortar of society and is partially responsible for the fragmentation and disinformation that are rampant.
Big Tech is certainly not doomed to repeat the reputational missteps of Big Tobacco on addiction or Big Oil on disputing climate change, but the weaponisation of its traditional assets (products & services and innovation) mean that most stakeholders expect tech market leaders to practice what they preach as employers, community members and taxpayers.
Perhaps Spiderman’s Uncle Ben said it best when he told his nephew Peter Parker: ‘With great power comes great responsibility’, emphasizing that those with exceptional abilities have a moral obligation to use them for good and to protect others.
This is where the global technology industry finds itself today, and many market leaders would be wise to reflect on their founding principles in garages and college halls of residence to answer the bell across several reputation risk issues that are only getting thornier by the day.
Technology companies of all shapes and sizes – not just market leaders but also start-ups and scale-ups – have a unique opportunity to carefully build reputation thinking into business building and workplace culture in order to facilitate growth.
They have historically focused on brand building to nurture a sense of community, but that loyalty comes with a price. As memes about so-called ‘tech bros’ and images of billionaire founder weddings proliferate, it is high time the tech industry reclaim the high ground to help stakeholders understand why they are in the business of connecting the world.
Protecting communities through a renewed sense of corporate purpose is a mandate for change that can preserve the industry’s license to operate while allowing its historical growth trajectory and innovation heritage to continue uninterrupted.