How do we hardwire humanity into the business of tech?
Our Strategy
We are impact investors with a constructivist mindset. We work to align the interests of investors, companies, and workers to guide tech’s trajectory through intentional choices.
We invest directly in disruptor companies developing responsible AI and enabling products with the potential to positively shape digital tech’s effect on society.
We also help mobilize other investors to increase their investment in technology solutions and companies that put humanity first. We encourage them to adopt responsible investing practices that guide how they govern companies and the funds they invest in. And we partner with other investors to demand better options from the sector and advocate for safeguards and standards that will make the industry more responsive to society’s needs.
Additionally, we work with companies to responsibly deploy technology and manage technology risks, guided by sound corporate governance and active engagement with workers, customers, communities, and investors.
This requires that we support workers building collective voice and power to shape how technology impacts their jobs and industries and to share in the prosperity of a digital economy. It also requires us to support more diverse tech makers, coders, executives, founders, and board members who build digital technologies that are more useful and relevant to a larger swath of society.
As AI adoption explodes across every industry, so does the number of startups. But these companies are not all alike. We need more mission- and safety-driven disruptor companies to succeed so that the arc of the digital revolution bends toward shared power, prosperity, and possibility. Investment capital can help startups grow in a positive direction.
At Omidyar Network, our role as an investor is to provide capital to systemically important tech ventures and advise their founders in pursuing intentional strategies for long-term growth and the well-being of all stakeholders.
To achieve tech’s promise, we need more capital invested in tech solutions and companies that benefit society. To avoid its worst perils, investors also need to play a more influential role in governing tech’s most consequential risks and impacts.
At Omidyar Network, we work with investors, researchers, major companies, business networks, and industry leaders to define a higher standard for corporations in the digital age, including building strong governance and responsibly managing workforce transitions.
As a society, we must reckon with generative AI’s effects on jobs and the future of the workplace. Technology should augment human capability and allow us to do more and better, but not at the cost of wholesale replacement of jobs, industries, or human agency and judgment. Prosperity must also be distributed more equitably so that shareholders are not the only ones that benefit from technology’s gains.
At Omidyar Network, we work with labor movement advocacy groups, think tanks, unions, and coalitions to demonstrate to corporations how to best support working people in the digital age. We champion the ways technology can augment and improve jobs. We also work to bolster the power and capacity of organized workers to bargain over tech deployment.
Startups, funds, and boards with inclusive and representative leadership and cultures will ultimately make better technology, governance, and investment decisions. Broadening who has power in the innovation economy, corporate boardroom, and capital markets will ultimately make the industry more dynamic, responsible, and aligned with public interest.
At Omidyar Network, we invest in startup training, capacity building, infrastructure support, tech access, new investment models, and business incubation for tech companies and networks focused on inclusive innovation and responsible leadership.
As a philanthropic leader who manages both our grants and our capital for social good, we are investing in generative AI that protects and promotes the public interest and prioritizes the long-term benefit of humanity. That’s why we acquired shares in Anthropic, a leading generative AI company recognized for its commitment to transparency, accountability, and safety.
The Model Alliance’s recent policy victory, the Fashion Workers Act, will go into effect in June 2025. For the first time, models will have legal protections against AI misuse, establishing a crucial precedent for how industries can protect workers in the digital revolution.Learn More
BIA is an alliance accelerating wealth creation by pioneering bold solutions that center entrepreneurship and innovation.Learn More
The alliance's newest initiative, the Collective Impact Coalition for Ethical Artificial Intelligence, uses the collective influence of investors to incentivize companies to use AI technology more ethically.Learn More
Whether AI promotes equality or increases injustice, whether it makes all of us richer or the poor poorer is a choice we, as a world, must consciously make.
Partnership for AI
A non-profit partnership of academic, civil society, industry, and media organizations creating solutions so that AI advances positive outcomes for people and society
