What founders break when they move fast
Anna Brattström, Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Business School’s Department of Management, reflects on how founders make decisions when innovation moves faster than the moral guidance available to steer it.
When Palantir’s UK chief dismissed criticism of the company’s NHS data deal as “woke” at Davos, he deflected a serious concern. At the centre of the controversy is the NHS federated data platform, a system that centralises patient records across England and places long-term control of sensitive public data in the hands of a US surveillance and defence contractor.
Citizens are no longer only asking what technologies can do. They are asking what they might undo: trust in public institutions, autonomy over data and the stability of public infrastructure.
The NHS is not alone. The Competition and Markets Authority’s strategic status for Apple and Google highlights how much digital life is controlled by private companies. Defence accelerators bringing startups into national security show how entrepreneurial speed meets high stakes.
Founder-led companies now build the foundations of public infrastructure, often moving quickly. While we tell founders to “move fast and break things” and “be a source of creative destruction”, we also need to ask exactly, is being broken, or who is left to deal with the damage.
Today, we ask entrepreneurs two questions. “Can I?” Is this technically possible? And “Do I want to?” Is the risk worth taking? These made sense when startups were building products for early adopters. They are no longer enough when tech companies function at the scale of public utilities.
When private firms manage health data, shape information systems or influence national security, a third question becomes unavoidable: “Should I?”
My research highlights entrepreneurship’s potential to solve significant problems, but also how hard it is for founders to grasp the moral impact of their work.
In a recent paper, Marina Vorholzer and I examined how founders decide in morally ambiguous situations, where one action can seem both good and bad, depending on perspective.
We found four factors that strongly influence how responsible a founder feels before they act:
- Magnitude. “Breaking things” is tolerable when “things” means beta features. It becomes very different when what might break is trust in the NHS, the integrity of public information or the reliability of a safety-critical system.
- Likelihood. Founders tend to discount harms that feel vague or unproven. A risk still in the realm of theory is easier to ignore than one backed by evidence.
- Complicity. Responsibility weakens when founders begin to share a decision with investors, partners or regulators. It sharpens when one person recognises that they hold the final call.
- Time and pressure. Investor deadlines, competitive races and political calendars can all distort judgement. Under that squeeze, instinct often takes over. “Move fast” becomes the reflex, before anyone asks the obvious question: what might we break if we do?
Taken together, these pressures drive decisions that later appear reckless, even though they were made in moral fog rather than out of disregard.
So, what would help?
Instead of framing each controversy as a psychodrama about a single founder, we could apply a simple “Should I?” test before any high-stakes technology is scaled. Four questions:
- Can we reduce the magnitude, for example, by piloting safely, limiting the scope or building guardrails?
- Can we make the likelihood of harm clearer through independent testing or external challenge?
- Is complicity explicit? Who is accountable, and who can stop or pause deployment?
- Are we acting on evidence, or are we simply reacting to pressure?
These considerations are not abstract. They are decisions to build into board meetings, procurement, and investment committees. Done well, they protect innovation by preventing avoidable damage.
Entrepreneurship thrives on speed, improvisation and boldness. But when the “things” that might break are public goods such as trust, safety or essential institutions, we cannot rely on charisma or gut feeling.
“Should we?” is not a brake on innovation. It helps ensure what breaks isn’t the public good we all depend on.