WASHINGTON — A successful entrepreneur who’s made his mark — and money — by pushing technology forward is worried about some of the side effects of the digital world.
“History is repeating itself,” says Brian Hiss. “What happened with the food and energy industries — where we overconsumed — we’re doing the same thing,” says Hiss. “We’re overconsuming technology.”
So Hiss is on what he calls the Experience People Awareness Tour — a 12-week, 20-city tour in an orange Volkswagen bus.
Hiss began his business life at Goldman Sachs. In 2007 he founded Eats.com, which was eventually sold to delivery.com. He is currently the CEO of Dooble, which he describes as “a daily collection of curated experiences in your city.”
Yet Hiss believes the technology boom is having adverse affects on society: “We’re outright rude to friends and family at the dinner table.”
Hiss calls Experience People “the digital enlightenment movement,” and says he is passionate about his crusade to have “technology aid the experience, not be the experience.”
Get companies to stop exploiting users
Hiss likens technology companies’ marketing to tobacco and food companies that push unhealthy habits on consumers in search of profits. “We’re looking to spawn the sustainable technology industry,” he says.
Hiss wants to highlight companies that focus money on some of the world’s problems. “We’re not anti-tech — technology is a beautiful thing,” he says. “It’s really connected the world.”
Hiss points to the Arab Spring as an example of how technology has resulted in meaningful change. “Technology is beautiful, but we also overconsume technologies in ways that are not healthy.”
Consumers’ devotion to mobile devices poses serious risks, says Hiss, whose travels are being documented by photographer Rob Loud.
“People are risking their lives driving and texting, people have their heads buried in their phones, walking into traffic, manholes, construction, into other people,” says Hiss.
He maintains that he’s not trying to shame digital devotees — “We’re just as bad as the next people” — his goal is get the behemoths of the tech industry to the table to discuss a better way: “Let’s start fostering best practices, where we’re not openly proud of exploiting users, like Facebook and OKCupid.”
In his travels, Hiss says people he’s met largely agree tech use is going too far.
“They’re all very self-aware of this consumption,” says Hiss. “They’re just looking for something or someone to show them how to actually change.”
