Ethics in Strategy
What DeepNudes and Apple’s privacy crusade can teach us about strategy’s missing ‘C’
“The world is not yet ready”
With this statement, Alberto, the pseudonymous creator of an artificial intelligence image editor, withdrew his app from sale. The app had gone viral after it received media coverage from Vice’s Motherboard technology blog that was subsequently picked up by other outlets — first online and then TV, radio and print media.
Recovering from the financial damage of a recent failed start-up, Alberto had finally struck product-market fit. It was the type of success founders dream of, with the explosion of traffic and sales taking down his website, he quite literally could not keep up with demand.
Alberto had created something customers wanted, he had identified his capabilities to build his business and despite the fact, as Alberto acknowledged, users could achieve the same results in competing programs like Adobe photoshop, Alberto was cornering the market in his niche.
According to Kenichi Ohmae’s 3 C’s model, Alberto had his strategic triangle nailed.
