TechEyes Jan 2026: New Years Notes

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I wrote a column … for decades, always circling themes of tech, community, and business. I’ve sort of been I’ve been on hiatus for the past few years, but it seems that it’s time to return. And it’s great to be back!

In 1993 the New Yorker ran a cartoon with the text: “On the Internet no one knows you’re a dog.” It featured one dog sitting on an office chair, typing on a computer, and expressing that sentiment to another dog sitting on the floor nearby. The cartoon quickly became a meme.

(If you don’t remember it, here’s the Wikipedia entry about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog)

I read the printed New Yorker magazine back then – yes, ink on paper! I promptly tore out that dog cartoon and pinned it to the fridge, right next to various Dilbert moments. My fridge looked like a lot of fridges in Silicon Valley – reflecting people more passionate about making The Next Big Thing far more than making the next IPO.  The cartoon encapsulated why I loved the potential we were unlocking.

The Internet offered pure text – and your voice could be heard, freed from misconceptions about who or what you were. It would connect us in new ways, offering opportunities and opening a new world. Information, freely shared! People finding other people with shared interests!

Yup. For about 30 seconds at least. Then humanity set in. Flame wars – those cruel and angry taunts –hinted at what would become trolling and other social media ugliness. Commerce and corporate structures fought over access and control. It was very wild west – yet oddly exhilirating as well … despite the lurking darkness, we could see emerging communication technologies offering a different path forward.

By the end 2000, those days were gone and so was I, but I still held on to that love for the potential that comes from the ways human minds with their boundless curiosity meet human hands with their clever ingenuity.

Tech lets us reach beyond our puny human bodies to cross the seas, fly through the skies, heal the wounds, and even build a better compost bin for happier veggies.  Tech lies embedded in transportation, agriculture, art, medicine, construction, communication – in literally every human endeavor because the ability to shape our world with tools also lies embedded in the human psyche and forms part of our core nature.

The last time I wrote a New Year’s forward gazing column, 2023 lay on the horizon.   I said tech-land was about to shift. That we’ve been riding a wave for decades where tech’s image was shiny and hopeful, if a bit scary –  but that the winds had changed. The shine had dulled and the bloom had faded.

I think I was right … but I was also wrong.  Over the past year we’ve seen people fleeing from known medical practice, turning their backs on science, giving up hope in a planetary future. In AI, in social media carnage, in intrusive always-on screens,  we’ve seen the dark side, the threat, the amoral nature of technology … or have we?

In the latter half of the 1800s, tech was changing the world. Transportation  and related industries like oil, steel, and railways, along with the processes and businesses of financing and producing these tech-driven products shaped the so-called Gilded Age.

The “leaders of industry” aka the robber barons  built enormous fortunes through ruthless practices, exploiting workers and consumers alike. They drew on the business of tech to amass power and run the world as they saw fit.

Sound familiar?

Then, as now, the question isn’t really technology. I was wrong. Tech is amoral because that’s what it is – it is not capable of morality or ethics. Both the threats and opportunities of technology lies in the hands of the humans who imagine it, create it, wield it, and use it. That’s the robber barons for sure. But it is also you and I.

So in 2026, don’t have a turn-your-back on it gut reaction to technology.  Instead, bring back intent and awareness to that use. For me, that means  I’m going to return to my old habit of going off-line one day a week to reset, shift my brain away from the bad habit of 24/7 online shopping, and keep an open mind to new tech options that arrive – and of course, I’m looking forward to sharing more about all things tech with you all in the months ahead!

Happy New Year and it feels good to be back,