Some people stand up against Big Tech. Not with a lawsuit. Not with a slogan. They build the alternative — and run it. Meredith Whittaker is one of them.
Who Is Meredith Whittaker?
Meredith Whittaker is president of the Signal Foundation and serves on its board of directors. Before Signal, she spent over a decade at Google, where she founded and led Google’s Open Research group. In 2018, she co-organized the walkout of more than 20,000 Google employees over the company’s handling of sexual harassment. Speaking up cost her. She kept going.
She co-founded AI Now, one of the first research institutes dedicated to the social implications of AI, at New York University. Later, she advised the FTC on technology before becoming president of the Signal Foundation. Moxie Marlinspike built Signal; Whittaker leads the non-profit foundation behind it, which is funded by donations and grants rather than ads or data sales.
Privacy as a Public Good
Signal is a non-profit. No ads. No tracking. No selling your data. Supported by donations, it offers encrypted messaging to millions — privacy not as a luxury product, but as infrastructure for everyone.
Whittaker has been blunt about what makes this hard: the surveillance-advertising business model, where platforms collect and monetize our personal data at enormous scale. Her point is not just technical — it is about power. Who owns the data, who profits from it, and who pays the price.
Her Critique of the AI Hype
In interviews, Whittaker consistently cuts through the AI hype:
- AI is not magic. It is built by workers — including low-paid data workers around the world — and it runs on data extracted from us.
- Concentration of power. The same handful of giants that dominate advertising and messaging now dominate AI. Profit flows to a few; risks are socialized.
- History matters. She has argued that Big Tech now frames AI as inevitable, repeating patterns from earlier technological waves where critical questions were sidelined.
The Business Lesson: Don’t Only Criticize — Build the Alternative
What I admire most in Meredith Whittaker is that she did not stop at critique. She chose to leave Google and lead a non-profit foundation instead. She turns words into action.
That is the lesson for entrepreneurs: don’t only say what is wrong. Build the alternative. Clarity and staying true to your values — that is how you lead when the giants push back.
The Habit: Make Your Values Visible
Her daily habit: make your values visible. She speaks in interviews, in testimony, in public debate — again and again, with the same clear message. In your own leadership: show up consistently. Not once. Not quietly. Again and again.
Dream
Now imagine a different economy. One where technology serves people, not surveillance. Not everyone the same — but everyone with equal chances: development, care, education and food within reach. That future starts with tools that respect us. Take that decision with me: build the alternative, don’t just criticize the system.
Sources
- Wikipedia — Meredith Whittaker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Whittaker
- Signal Foundation: https://signal.org/
- WIRED — The Fight Against Surveillance Capitalism: A Conversation with Meredith Whittaker: https://www.wired.com/video/watch/the-fight-against-surveillance-capitalism-a-conversation-with-meredith-whittaker
- AI Now Institute: https://ainowinstitute.org/
- TechCrunch — Meredith Whittaker on Google retaliation: https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/15/meredith-whittaker-organizers-google-retaliation/
- Dit zijn de winnaars en verliezers van de grote dataroof volgens Signal-baas Meredith Whittaker (Tegenlicht Dutch)
- Photo: Wikimedia Commons, “2022 – Future Societies SAM 1798 (52474012457) (cropped)” by Web Summit, CC BY 2.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2022_-_Future_Societies_SAM_1798_(52474012457)_(cropped).jpg
Photo credit on thumbnail: “Photo: Web Summit, CC BY 2.0”
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