Last week I was at the Monktoberfest event after Cheryl McKinnon, and others, insisted that I HAD to attend. Any conference that focuses on developers, community, craft beer, and social was already appealing. When you factor in the large numbers of recommendations, I had to attend.

Monktoberfest soared above my expectations.

It was really a three events into one, and kudos to RedMonk and Steve O’Grady for putting the event together. It was a place to meet and converse with smart people in and adjacent to the Open Source ecosystem, to try some great new beers, and to hear about how technology can, and should, change the world.

One such talk, given by Alex Payne, brought up an extremely interesting topic that spurred a lot of discussions. [Note: Reconsidering Startups is now available for watching.] He questions the setup of the Silicon Valley “startup” ecosystem and how it seems that it was more of a model of disruption to help capitalists and not the world.

This raised the question, what is our ethical responsibility as “innovators”?

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