Dinner With the CEO Stars of Tech
A dinner, hosted by Yahoo’s CEO and another 11 CEOs and execs from Twitter, Google, Apple and more, recently took place in Silicon Valley. These major players, responsible for shaping our world of tech, simply sat down to break bread. You gotta wonder what the conversation was like.
So this got me thinking: With whom would I want to sit down to dinner, and what would I ask them? The “dinner” part of this dinner is already a problem for me. I’m thinking I’d want to eat ahead of time so I could engage my companions in conversation; otherwise, when I eat, it’s similar to a hyena taking down an antelope in the plains of the Serengeti. While some people do get a kick out of my eating drama and it certainly makes for great entertainment, it might not be the ideal scenario for a repast of this gravity.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Mark, fascinating platform you’ve built here. When you designed and built it, it was for college kids only. But what happened that made you decide to open it up to everyone? And at what point did you recognize the real value of connecting the way everyone has? How did you know that so many people would freely share they way they have? Is there a way you can prevent people from sharing so much? Don’t worry—I’m not bringing up privacy. I’m talking about how I’m pretty sure many of us have heard enough!
Gemalto CEO Olivier Piou. Olivier—I’m sorry, Mr. Piou…or is it Sir Knight? I’m sorry to be asking this, but in your bio it says you are “a Knight of the Legion of Honor in France,” and I’ve never been to France or met a knight. The closest I’ve come to a knight is the 1976 white Corvette that I bought when I was 18, with WHYNYT on its license plate. I know—corny, but the babes loved it. Anyway, I’m just going to call you Mr. Piou. Great company you’re running. My only question: What’s it going to take to convince all the world’s citizens that we need to be properly identified, proofed and documented, keeping their privacy in mind but in a way that prevents fraud, deception and identity theft by ensuring accountability for everyone? I know YOU are the guy to do it!
Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh. Tony, dude, NICE JOB! Love Zappos! Did you model your business after Amazon? Because you’ve made shopping for shoes and everything else as easy as Amazon has made it for getting books and macadamia nuts. Can you sprinkle some Hsieh dust on me?
Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Bill, thank you for all you’ve done. I know you’ve caught a lot of grief over the years, but seriously, thank you. And fabulous job you’re doing with saving the world with all your charity work. One question: Could you tell the developers at Microsoft to stop making Internet Explorer so annoying?
Robert Siciliano, is a personal security expert contributor to Just Ask Gemalto and author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Mobile was Hacked! . Disclosures
