Media Mentions

Salesforce Inc. has gone on the acquisition offensive in 2026, purchasing 10 companies in part to minimize risks that AI advancements on their business practices. These deals could be worth billions of dollars, but the company has declined to disclose the price on multiple high-profile acquisitions.

"It's a lot to keep taking on companies," Ann Skeet, interim executive director at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, told the Business Times. "There are other people who start to have interest beyond investors, like customers who might be negatively (affected) if some of the integration doesn't go smoothly, or employees."

Ann Skeet, interim executive director, quoted by Business Times.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned over reports he'd engaged in multiple extramarital affairs. His departure raises significant questions about the organization’s leadership, and if the board prepared appropriately for a succession plan.

Ann Skeet, interim executive director told Forbes, the board’s failure to adopt a succession plan made the company vulnerable to an unnecessary risk and “appears to have stumbled on one of the most basic board responsibilities, responsible succession planning, and exposed the company to ‘key man risk’—having a rock star CEO with no evident successor or a board level succession plan."

She added that “By allowing for this governance lapse, the board did not prioritize the interests of key stakeholders including shareholders, customers, employees, and the broader AI industry.”

Ann Skeet, interim executive director, quoted by Forbes.

A Washington Post report shows that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has taken $1.2 million worth of personal flights since joining President Trump's Cabinet, paid for with government funding. His personal use of government planes includes regular trips to watch is son play football at University of Florida.

“Nobody faults a parent for wanting to see their kid play.” I think the question is, who pays for it and whether the public gets to see the bill," Hurt told the The Washington Sun.

“Senior officials owe taxpayers restraint, sound judgment and clear accounting on when their taxpayer dollars are being used, and I think there are sacrifices that must be considered in this day and time when people are struggling to put food on the table, gas in their cars, and to keep a roof over their head,” she said.

Davina Hurt, director, government ethics, quoted by The Washington Sun.

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) state that drug testing laboratories under their jurisdiction must be independent void of conflict of interests, reports the Thoroughbred Daily News.

Former Horseracing Integrity and Safety Unit's (HIWU) general counsel Michelle Pujals worked as both a regulator and as a board director for the non-profit that purchased the lab responsible for testing, raising serious conflict of interest concerns.

Guadalupe Hayes-Mota, director of the bioethics program, explained that Pujals had a “fiduciary responsibility to the [SMRTL] nonprofit. So, she needs to act in the best interest of the nonprofit itself.”

As the general counsel for HIWU, however, “her responsibility is to uphold the standards” of the regulator, said Hayes-Mota.

“How could she actually have loyalties to both places?” said Hayes-Mota, describing it as a “strong conflict of interest.”

Guadalupe Hayes-Mota, director, bioethics, quoted by Thoroughbred Daily News.

Markkula Center's Irina Raicu was featured in St. Louis Riverfront Times discussing the ethical concerns surrounding Meta's AI-enabled smart glasses. As concerns grow about people being recorded without their knowledge, Raicu warned that pervasive wearable cameras may undermine traditional expectations of consent, noting that “the whole notion of consent is kind of disintegrating.”

The article explores deeper with growing public unease over wearable technologies that can capture photos, video, and personal information without the knowledge of those nearby.

Irina Raicu, director, internet ethics, quoted by St. Louis Riverfront Times

More than 1 in 4 grandparents say their adult children have set rules about what they can share about their grandkids on social media.

A study by The Senior List, found that 75 percent of parents of children under 18 have explicit rules or general guidelines for what they share about their kids online. Irina Raicu, Markkula Center's director of internet ethics, believes parents have good reason to approach social media sharing with caution. “We are living in the age of facial recognition and deepfakes: AI tools available to anyone can now be used to identify people, including children, and one photograph is enough to create fake images and even videos that would seem real to most people,” she explained.

Irina Raicu, director, internet ethics, quoted by The Senior List.

When does political loyalty cease to be an expression of shared principles and become an abdication of independent judgment?

Davina Hurt, director, government ethics, reflects on the historic 2026 midterm election results, which resulted in major shifts in both the U.S. House and Senate, and result in a massive shift in political power. She raises questions about democracy, loss of public trust, and a responsibility to ethical leadership in governance.

Drawing an analogy with Hamlin's story of the Pied Piper, where "Pied Piper’s greatest power was not simply his ability to play a captivating tune. It was his ability to persuade others to follow without questioning where their journey would end."

Hurt reminds us that In a democracy, voters retain the right to question the destination a leader is asking them to follow, and says voters have a responsibility to reconsider promises and withdraw their support when they don't like the direction. She says, "Political loyalty is not a debt citizens owe their leaders. It is a trust that leaders must continually earn."

"Political cooperation is essential to governing. But cooperation becomes ethically troubling when loyalty to an individual displaces the obligation to question, deliberate and act independently," writes Hurt.

"An election can change the balance of power overnight. It cannot, by itself, restore public trust or guarantee ethical leadership. That requires leaders willing to place constitutional responsibility above political convenience, institutions prepared to exercise meaningful oversight, and citizens who refuse to surrender their judgment to the most compelling voice in the room."

Davina Hurt, director, government ethics, published by Salon.

Science has measurements that evaluate aging, but what are we actually measuring, and what criteria are being used to determine what is considered success?

Director of Bioethics, Guadalupe Hayes-Mota, distinguishes between recording a health condition and assigning meaning to it: “Writing down someone’s bone density or walking speed is documentation. Calling their aging ‘unsuccessful’ is a verdict.”

Describing an outcome as successful can imply achievement by the individual, even if the individual had no control over the conditions leading to the outcome. “Once you can measure aging and do something about it, decline starts to look like a choice,” observes Hayes-Mota.

“Once optimization becomes a duty, society can hand the problem of aging back to individuals,” Hayes-Mota said. “Then it never has to ask why some of them had so much less to work with.”

Guadalupe Hayes-Mota, director, bioethics, quoted by The Care Capitalist Substack.