Joseph Fung, CEO and co-founder of Kiite, says the tech community has lost its way – that the train has come off the rails.
Tech, he says, is broken. “Really, terribly broken. And if we aren’t willing to admit that, we’re never going to be able to fix things.”
In recent months, a deluge of stories has emerged with themes that would suggest that tech is indeed broken – that it is changing the world, but not necessarily for the better: Social media platforms rife with fake news and bots; gender and racial discrimination at tech firms; sexual misconduct in Silicon Valley; governments threatening to rein in tech giants; fears of AI killing jobs or even taking over humanity.
Those developments are why Fung and his sister, Donna Litt – Kiite’s co-founder and Vice-President of Operations and Marketing – have lined up behind True North Waterloo, a conference slated for May 29-31 that’s designed to tackle tech’s ills head on.
“I love the fact the conference is happening right now,” says Fung. “This [conference] is not only an admission [that there’s a problem], but a collaborative effort to help set things right.”
Fung and Litt have watched tech’s fall from grace with growing alarm and confusion.
“The stories of individual behaviour are appalling,” says Fung. “Whether or not they’re proven in court, or whether or not the outcomes are constructive, even just hearing the stories is appalling. And it can be very demotivating.”
Kiite co-founder and Vice-President of Operations and Marketing Donna Litt. (Communitech photo: Sara Jalali)
It’s been particularly hard for them to witness, because diversity and inclusiveness, doing the right thing, treating employees with respect, are standard operating procedures at Kiite, as they are at many Waterloo Region tech companies.
Fung says issues like diversity and inclusiveness in the workplace first surfaced in a meaningful way for him in 2005, when he took part in a leadership program.
“The program did an exceptional job at challenging assumptions,” he says. “From the working day on diversity to the working day on poverty to the governance and system sessions, it did an incredible job at helping the participants challenge their ideas and norms.”
Since then, Fung, who studied engineering at the University of Waterloo, and started his first company 19 years ago while still a student, has made diversity and inclusiveness part and parcel of every company he has been involved in.
“By practising that habit, it’s kind of like a muscle,” says Fung. “You work it and you get better at it. Not just for the sake of playing devil’s advocate, but by thinking through which are the groups that are being left out when we don’t challenge these assumptions.
“It was deliberate. And I think I’ve gotten better at it. I think of each of my previous companies, we’re definitely getting better at it at each step.”
Litt says she can’t imagine her brother building a company any other way. Why?
“Because there would be no space for someone like me,” says Litt.
“Being someone who is a visible minority, who is a female, who is subordinate, I need to work at an inclusive workplace, I need to help build an inclusive workplace.
Kiite CEO and co-founder Joseph Fung. (Communitech photo: Sara Jalali)
“Otherwise, not only will I be underrepresented, not only will I not have a voice or a platform or the respect and the opportunities that my peers will, but I can’t build them for other people.”
Kiite is an AI firm, launched by Fung and Litt last summer and based at the Communitech Data Hub in Waterloo. Its main product is a chat system that answers questions for sales teams. The platform serves as an internal resource, giving sales staff a link to best practices and quick answers to vexing sales questions.
“We use the phrase ‘intelligent sales coach,’ ” says Fung.
“So the whole idea is helping sales professionals in particular be more productive, but on their own time or their own schedule so that they don’t feel as dependent on the timing and the availability of that buddy [who knows all the answers] or their manager.”
Entrepreneurship is in the siblings’ DNA. Their parents – a mother with Scottish and Hungarian ancestry; a father born in Macau, the autonomous region of China near Hong Kong – are serial “business enthusiasts,” as Litt puts it. Their parents met in Toronto. Their resumes include running a sheet metal business, a financial advising business, a build-your-own-home business. Litt and Fung have an older sister who runs a karate and personal training business in Vancouver.
“It’s not like [our] parents were software engineers or anything like that, but they were very entrepreneurial,” says Fung. “They were always very enabling. There was never any ‘No, you can’t do that.’ There was a lot of great feedback and mentorship on how to do better, and also a lot of door opening.”
Litt, who has a background in archeology and a passion for creative writing, says she and her brother have always worked well together, collaborating on projects since they were children.
“Growing up, he was a fantastic brother,” she says.
“To be invited along to join and participate was something exciting for all three of us, three siblings growing up, so we developed a really good working dynamic from a very young age. The very idea of not solving problems together seems a little crazy to me. He’s always going to have ambitious projects and I’m always going to want to execute on ambitious projects.”
Fung and Litt have focused on the people part of business for some time. Before Kiite, they co-founded TribeHR, a small-and medium-sized business HR tool, which was acquired by NetSuite in 2013.
“We started [TribeHR] with the idea of helping employees be better employees and helping managers be better managers,” says Fung.
“In launching Kiite, it was very much coming back to those roots. How do we make work more fulfilling? How do we let people work more independently, autonomously?”
Fung and Litt say True North Waterloo won’t necessarily solve tech’s troubles. But it’s a necessary starting place.
“I think what was really good to see [is] the conversations have been moving the needle,” he says. “The conversation goes further. The consequences go further.
“We’re by no means in a good place yet. There’s still a lot of work to be done. But first and foremost I think it’s important that companies and individuals feel safe having difficult conversations. The reality is that if people feel like they can’t bring up concerns to their managers or their company or HR, you’re never going to be able to improve things.
“That’s one of the biggest reasons why I’ve always made things like diversity and inclusion a big issue internally to the company. Knowing that if I’m comfortable talking about it, that it’s OK for the team to talk about.
“Like I say, it’s an evolution. There will be things I’m missing. My team needs to be comfortable bringing them up to me, in case I’ve missed something. And that sets the example for any of the other executives in the company.”
Adds Litt:
“I think [True North is] the beginning. I think it needs to happen before anything else can happen. This is the first point at which we’re giving ourselves the opportunity to be honest in a safe space. It won’t be perfect. It won’t be right. Not all perspectives will be included.
“But the fact is the spirit is right. It’s the first point at which we’ll be able to learn.
“It’s definitely not the end of the conversation. It’s very much just the beginning, and that’s an exciting point.”
