Reid Blackman was gripped by ethical problems the first semester of his first year in college over 20 years ago. Countless hours later, after reading, arguing, and teaching about ethics, he’s still hungry for more. While his early research concerned issues largely contained within the ivory tower, his research has become increasingly action-orientated, particularly as it concerns the ethics of emerging technologies and institutions like governments and corporations. Reid is a Senior Advisor to Ernst & Young and is a Founding Member of EY’s AI Advisory Board. He also sits on the committee for “Methods to Guide Ethical Research and Design” for the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems and is a member of the European Union Artificial Intelligence Alliance. He has taught at Northwestern University, the University of Texas in Austin, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and Colgate University. When he isn’t doing ethics you can find him with his wife and children, unless there’s rock climbing to be done.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
- None specific
Also mentioned
When business started difficulties overcame:
“I suppose the difficulties I had to overcome are still the ones I have although of course it’s getting easier. Ethics consultancy is not a thing… No one ever says you know what we need to call that ethics consultant. So, the difficulties that my business is relatively novel which means I have to tell people that I exist. I think that I am providing real solutions to real problems but some people don’t quite know that they have that problem. And some people if they do know they have that set of problems they don’t know that there is a solutions provider to call”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Book by David HumeFavourite Quote:
- “Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom” Arthur Schopenhauer
- “when in doubt do” Reid’s Grandmother
- “carpe diem”
Recommended Online Resources:
- Pipedrive – Sales CRM & Pipeline Management Software. Pipedrive is a cloud-based sales software company with offices in Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia; New York City, New York; Lisbon, Portugal and London, United Kingdom. It is the maker of the web application and mobile app Pipedrive, a sales customer relationship management tool for salespeople in scaling companies.
- LinkedIn – is a business and employment-oriented service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Founded on December 28, 2002, and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking, including employers posting jobs and job seekers posting their CVs.
- Facebook, Inc. is an American online social media and social networking service company based in Menlo Park, California. Its website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“I really think it’s important to talk to lots of people and just network your head off. There’s a way of networking that is gross where you just go around asking people what they could do for you. But I think there’s a kind of networking that is on the ethical up and up where you are motivated just as much by curiosity as you are self-interest. And so, you go around meeting people because you are curious to hear what they do and maybe they are in your field or maybe they are in and adjacent field or maybe they can’t help you but you can help them. I just think that stuff is extremely gratifying when you make connections, when you connect people to other people. And then also it could lead to your own welfare because then those people are grateful and then the introduce you to these other people that actually do benefit you. So do not underestimate the power of networking”…[Listen for More]
More About Reid Blackman:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.” Maya Angelou
Other Quotes From the Chat with Reid Blackman:
- “I didn’t spend enough time early on thinking about how to get to the people I want to pitch to”
- “you have got to share your idea with people who have the right kind of experience to give you feedback. And that doesn’t mean it’s your friends, your friends might not know, your friends might not have a clue. And if those people aren’t already in your network then just go and find them”
- “I don’t know if there are any secrets any more since everyone talks about entrepreneurship”
- “Luck honestly is really important. I know that a lot of entrepreneurs think that they did it all on their own but there’s just so much luck involved. Of course, you create your own luck. You can do things to increase the likelihood that you will get lucky”
- “it’s easy to get snobby when you are starting a business or even when you are a good way on and you think oh that person, they can’t help me. First of all, so what if they can’t help you, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t talk to them and be nice to them. That’s the first obvious thing to say. But the other is you just have no idea who is going to help you. The way that some business comes about is so random or arbitrary – you talk to this person, they happen to know so-and-so, you had no idea that they knew so-and-so but so-and-so turns out to be your next client. But you are just talking to people and putting yourself out there. I think that’s really important to get out there, go to conferences, go to events and for the love of God put your phone down”
- “the more you scale the more employees you take on… and I have had this experience in previous business… you get farther and farther away from the work. Now you don’t like the work that’s great but if you do that work as I do because I find this work intrinsically interesting, and I don’t find managing people intrinsically interesting, so I don’t want to grow the business or scale the business in a way that would take me away from the work”
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