In this episode, I sit down with Vivek Wadhwa to talk about his pivot from tech entrepreneur and big tech enthusiast, to critic and activist. We talk about his path to tech and then to his activism in education, his research into tech innovation, and his research into the importance of global diversity when considering questions of how we imagine, innovate, and build.

Vivek Wadhwa is a Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program. He is the author of five best-selling books: From Incremental to Exponential; Your Happiness Was Hacked; The Driver in the Driverless Car; Innovating Women; and The Immigrant Exodus.

He has been a globally syndicated columnist for The Washington Post and held appointments at Carnegie Mellon University, Duke University, Stanford Law School, UC Berkeley, Emory University, and Singularity University. In 2012, the U.S. Government awarded Wadhwa distinguished recognition as an “Outstanding American by Choice” for his “commitment to this country and to the common civic values that unite us as Americans.”

He was also named one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers” by Foreign Policy magazine in that year; in June 2013, he was on TIME magazine’s list of “Tech 40”, one of forty of the most influential minds in tech; and in September 2015, he was second on a list of “ten men worth emulating” in The Financial Times. In 2018, he was awarded Silicon Valley Forum’s Visionary Award, a list of luminaries “who have made Silicon Valley synonymous with creativity and life-changing advancements in technology.”

Wadhwa is an advisor to several governments; mentors entrepreneurs; and writes for top publications across the globe. He has also researched Silicon Valley’s diversity, or the lack of it.  He documented that women entrepreneurs have the same backgrounds and motivations as men do, but are rare in the ranks of technology CEOs and CTOs. He is the founding president of the Carolinas chapter of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TIE), a non-profit global network intended to foster entrepreneurship.  He has been featured in thousands of articles in publications worldwide, including the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Forbes magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, and Science Magazine, and has made many appearances on U.S. and international TV stations, including CBS 60 Minutes, PBS, CNN, ABC, NBC, CNBC, and the BBC.

This episode was produced by Mereck Palazzo & Matt Perry.

Art by Desi Aleman.