#Wetransfer founders Offline
We all should start treating our online experience "with the same values as you would with the offline experience. On an individual basis, this means being more aware of what we’re doing online. "I think it's our responsibility, and the responsibility of companies, people like you guys and government, to look at what it is that we are going to do to correct this situation," he says. In addition to undermining democracy Cambridge Analytica-style, he worries how data might be put to use in other industries - he suggests insurance will be next, with companies insisting on tracking vehicles in order to then hike up premiums when they detect what they can construe as unsafe driving.
driven towards just collecting more data, and not doing anything decent with it". Bradfield thinks that since 2015’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, the world is waking up to the perils of big data.īradfield says he has "no issue" with data collection per se, but is concerned that people are "giving it away and have no concept of the data that is actually being extracted", adding: "I don't believe the concept of us being the product." He argues that the tech community, and Google and Facebook in particular, is stuck in "a bubble that is very much funded by VC money. The file sharing service has never gone down the route of collecting reams of personal data in order to monetise it. His vision for a better Internet has the same values as WeTransfer. "I'm proud to work for a company that's been profitable, since 2014 and has taken a very grounded approach to long-term tech and long-term investment in an infrastructure that we can sustain," he says. Headquartered in Amsterdam with a total of 175 staff between it and US offices in Los Angeles, he admits the company can’t offer the sky-high wages of other tech firms, but also doesn’t want to. He describes efforts to ensure WeTransfer’s culture avoids the high-stress intensity of Silicon Valley. It in turn is one of the reasons he’s donating all proceeds from his book to the charity United for Global Mental Health. He puts this down to today’s uber-networked digital world and always-on working culture. "We’re seeing in society today an increase in the amount of depression, the amount of self harm, suicide," Bradfield says. That desire to get us switching off also reflects Bradfield’s belief that people power is key to making big tech behave better - the central tenet of his new book ‘T he Trust Manifesto: What You Need to Do to Create a Better Internet’.Īnd there’s a third reason he wants to prise us from our screens. Our focus really was trying to enable people to stay in their flow. The whole tech industry is completely fixated on trying to capture your attention.
#Wetransfer founders free
He explains that the file transfer service, which is a banner ad free zone, was created with creativity in mind: "One of the hardest things to do is to get into the state of flow - and one of the easiest things is to get out of it.
In part, Bradfield’s aspiration for partial digital detox is borne of his and WeTransfer’s roots in creative industries. You can't be by your screen for 12 hours a day." So just please leave, go and find inspiration and then come back. "The biggest insight was that everybody, no matter who you are in the creative fields, draws more inspiration offline than online - from music, art, wherever, it comes from being away from your screen. "We had a report called the Ideas Report last year," Bradfield tells Campaign’s global tech editor, Omar Oakes. And not just to give us time to read his new book, although he would presumably appreciate that. His desire for leaving has nothing to do with the EU: the file sharing boss wants us all to leave the Internet - for a bit, at least. WeTransfer co-founder and CMO Damian Bradfield’s words could be read as an impassioned message concerning a certain political hot potato.īut actually, it is nothing to do with Brexit - instead, Bradfield was at the London office of Zone for the second #ZoneBookClub, in partnership with Campaign and Penguin Business.
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