Episode Details
Back to Episodes
DB|BD at Aspen: AI is the Greatest Civil Rights Issue of Our Time With Chris Hyams
Description
Chris Hyams spent 15 years at the job search platform Indeed, becoming its CEO in 2019. When he stepped down in 2025, more than 300 million jobseekers visited Indeed’s site every month. He also 200x’d the company’s revenue.
So why would a guy who is so good at what he does step down? According to him, he had a higher calling.
Chris believes that AI is the single greatest civil rights issue of our time and he’s appalled it isn’t better regulated. And he’s taking action. Chris is teaching a college course on responsible AI and he’s also Founding Board Member of the Guardrails Alliance, a Super-PAC that was created to fight ANOTHER Super PAC that has invested more than $140 million dollars in snuffing out anti-AI congressional candidates.
In this conversation with DB|BD host Ellen McGirt, Chris explains why he is so worried about the unfettered growth of AI. He openly questions the claims made by OpenAI, Anthropic and others who stand to profit from AI. Oh, and he has the data to back it up.
On this season of DB|BD, we are thinking about radical collaboration. Host Ellen McGirt sat down with visionary designers, leaders and thinkers at the 2026 Aspen Business & Society Summit to ask them about the radical act of collaborating with others in a time when it often feels impossible to find common ground.
Visit our site for more on this episode and to view a transcript.