And they’re more open minded than it seems.
Tech executives should buckle up.
Three weeks from the election, with control of at least one of the chambers of Congress looking pretty likely to change hands, Americans are starting to think about what’s next. Democrats on the campaign trail are hammering the same few points: getting costs down, ending the war in Iran and keeping AI in check.
Tech execs are a natural target for oversight in the new Congress. Americans are rightfully concerned about the big questions: whether AI is going to kill us all, or short of that, take our jobs; whether the data centers leaders say we need will destroy the planet or poison our communities; and whether a new wave of tech IPOs will concentrate wealth more dramatically than we are already seeing.
The results of a new poll from SourceCode and Talisman, LLC, conducted by Shearwater Strategies, present a path forward for leaders who want to earn the public’s trust.
STEALTH WEALTH
More than anything else, Americans believe getting rich is the primary goal of tech executives.
This probably isn’t surprising, but it is reinforced by executives who choose to communicate only during quarterly earnings calls, where the sole focus of the conversation is on profitability, and by the hype surrounding the potential IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic.
A second finding from our poll should be extremely concerning for leaders in an era of increased oversight.
Next to getting rich, Americans believe tech leaders are more focused on avoiding public scrutiny than being honest with the users of their tech, solving problems or even becoming famous.
That perception is reinforced every time a company declines to comment to a journalist, surrounds projects with NDAs, and ignores tough questions from Congress or the public.
More than half of Americans think athe top focus of leaders should be being honest with people, but only about 17% think they currently are. The gap between what Americans want leaders to do and what they see leaders doing is similarly wide on the issues of protecting privacy and improving lives.
WHY THE CHINA ARGUMENT FALLS FLAT
According to our poll, people think tech leaders are more interested in being world leaders than they are in improving America.
About a third of Americans say they think tech leaders are making being seen as a global leader a top priority today, but just 7% think that should be one.
At the same time, a third of Americans, the largest single group that answered this question, think tech leaders should focus on making America stronger and more competitive.
This is a big deal.
First, it means the main argument that tech leaders are making when they’re asking communities to make sacrifices—that America is in an innovation race with China that we can’t afford to lose—isn’t landing.
The public does not see the connection between America winning the innovation race and their lives getting better. In fact, they see the opposite–leaders getting rich at the expense of their jobs and the health of their communities.
It also means that the venues where executives typically feel most comfortable making news, world stages like Davos, will reinforce the public’s perception that leaders are out of touch.
AMERICANS ARE MORE OPEN-MINDED THAN IT SEEMS
There is good news. Americans are more open-minded than the headlines and viral clips of heated public meetings might suggest.
Our poll found that 9 in 10 Americans named at least one thing a tech leader could do that would increase their trust.
Americans are looking for leaders who take direct action to mitigate technology’s potential harms, and they do not want leaders to focus on shaping regulation. They also want political bias out of AI platforms, and they want tech companies to stop spending money on political donations and lobbying.
We looked at what we thought was tech’s biggest lightning rod with Americans, data center development, and we were surprised by what we found.
People are more open-minded on the issue than we expected. While 31% of Americans say there is nothing a tech leader could tell them about a data center that would make them support one in their community, 69% of people said there was at least one thing a leader could do that would help earn their support.
People want information about noise, pollution and environmental standards. They want data centers built in industrial areas away from homes. And, they are more likely to support data centers that come with a plan to control electricity costs and water and energy use.
When broken down by party, Democrats tend to want environmental guarantees and Republicans tend to want jobs and promises that data centers will be built in industrial zones.
By age, younger Americans seem to be more open-minded than Americans who are 55 and older. We suspect this is because younger people are more likely to use AI assistants than older adults, as other polls have found.
WHAT LEADERS CAN DO TO BUILD TRUST AND SUPPORT
A reckoning appears to be coming, and the era of distrust is already here.
The public thinks leaders have lost focus on the American people in pursuit of the newest, best AI breakthroughs and a global platform. In essence, tech leaders moved fast and broke things, and in the process lost sight of what matters to most Americans.
What can leaders do?
First, they should ignore the advisors who say it is time to lie low. That will reinforce the perception that executives are most focused on avoiding scrutiny.
Second, tech leaders should engage with the public on the things that matter to them. To regain trust, leaders should explain to people what they’re doing to protect against cybercrime and secure our privacy. These are the basics, but they also happen to be what our poll found people want to hear most.
Third, they should build an executive communications operation that makes them accessible so they can have these conversations, something SourceCode and Talisman, LLC can help with through our executive positioning, media training and public affairs offerings.
This will be especially important when oversight hearings happen. It is very likely the executives the public already know will be asked to speak on behalf of all tech companies. That means executives who do not proactively communicate will be tied by the public to what leaders like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk say publicly.
Our polling makes clear that the proactive communicating should happen on local stages, not global ones.
Fourth, they should learn more about the communities that they are working in. People have a lot to say, and they want to be heard. Research from Shearwater Strategies can help leaders figure out what matters to their most important constituency and inform big decisions.
Finally, it’s not enough to wait and see. In our experience silence breeds contempt. Before leaders talk about the important stakes of the global innovation race, they should talk about the consequences of their decisions for the people who have to live with them and whose work is required to win the race.
Nearly every American seems willing to trust leaders who do the work to build trust. While every instinct of an executive might be to lie low right now and let others lead, the data suggests that will make things worse. An investment of time and reputational capital now will pay dividends later.
The poll was conducted between September 24th and October 1st. It surveyed 1,563 participants with a margin of error ± 2.5%.