The inventor of Facebook's 'Like' button reflects on building products that are ethical under his new values-oriented boss, who has compared Facebook to cigarettes.

• Salesforce COO Bret Taylor spoke with Insider Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Carlson on Wednesday, during the World Economic Forum in Davos.
• The former CTO of Facebook has played a major role in shaping big technology companies into what they are today: he built the 'Like' button for a social network that would later be acquired by Facebook.
• Now, Taylor says he has thought a lot about the role of values and ethics when building products, especially as companies like Facebook have come under fire for their products, from sources including Taylor's new boss Marc Benioff, who has previously warned that Facebook's addictive qualities were the 'new cigarettes'.
• Salesforce now employs ethicists to consult with engineers to help build products, which Taylor cites as an example of the kind of thinking that needs to surround product design today.
• "Technology applied blindly isn't going to necessarily improve or save the world," Taylor said. "I think that's changed my philosophy on how we develop technology."
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Salesforce COO Bret Taylor has a front-row seat to the industry-wide crisis in trust that Silicon Valley is facing - and has implemented his own changes to the product design process.

The former CTO of Facebook built Google Maps back at his first job working at the search giant with Marissa Mayer, and he later created the 'Like' button for a social network that would be acquired by Facebook. Back then, says Taylor, technology companies were held less accountable for the products they built.

"When I worked at Facebook, the main complaint I got was that everyone wanted a dislike button," Taylor told Insider's editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson in Davos on Wednesday. "Obviously, since I've left, that's changed."

One of the most fiery critics of the consumer tech industry's practices is Taylor's new boss, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. And by building the Like button for Facebook, Taylor has directly played a role in developing one of the objects of Benioff's fiery criticism.

"Facebook is the new cigarettes. It's addictive, it's not good for you, there's people trying to get you to use that even you don't understand what's going on," Benioff told journalist Kara Swisher on MSNBC back in November 2018.

But, chuckling slightly at the Benioff anecdote, Taylor went on to say that the shift in his philosophy had more to do with his own personal reflections.

"Technology applied blindly isn't going to necessarily improve or save the world," Taylor said. "I think thats changed my philosophy on how we develop technology."

At Salesforce, Taylor says they actually employ ethicists to work with engineers to guide product design when working with emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. Otherwise, "you might have built a tool that perpetuates inequality - not with malice but because you didn't incorporate ethics into the product."

"10 years ago, these topics just weren't spoken about that frequently," he added. "Thinking about the unintended consequences and its impact on society... I think it's now a part of the product design process," he said.

A broader cultural shift in philosophy

Taylor's shift in philosophy has taken place among a broader cultural shift in Silicon Valley, where consumers have called for tech companies to be held more accountable for the products they build.

"By focusing on growth over trust, it has really impacted the reputation of Silicon Valley," Taylor said. "I think one thing that every company needs to embrace is focusing on values and focusing on trust. That's something that's going to be an awkward transition for these companies but I think it is absolutely necessary. "

But Taylor remains optimistic about the industry's ability to innovate solutions to dig itself out, citing an article he read about Instagram's plan to to hide his old creation, likes. As a parent, Taylor now thinks that Instagram's plan has brought up a meaningful conversation that needs to happen surrounding product design.

I have three children now and every parent in the world thinks about screen time," Taylor said. "What is the goal of the technology we're making? What's healthy?"

"I don't think the solutions are all obvious but I do think it's going to produce better outcomes," he added.