My first crowdsourcing post

Quick one this morning:

I've been thinking about how I'd manage a company right now.

At both the places where I served as CEO, we had a general philosophy that we wouldn't do business with people who used our products for illegal purposes. I don't think we had an express rep or warranty in our subscription contracts to that effect, but we certainly talked to our customers about the applications they were building, and our ongoing technical support interactions meant we stayed on top of the use cases.

Of course, back then, the concern was fraudsters and other criminals who needed some data storage and analysis.

These days, there's a legit risk that your US government, or US government contractor, client will (for example) build software to arrest and deport people in defiance of judicial rulings and without due process.

So: If you're in an operating role at a company today, are you, your leadership team, your board thinking about this? What steps are you taking to assure that you can support legitimate, law-abiding clients, but legitimately decline or terminate contracts with those who violate the law? Have you struggled with this idea and thought of impediments or problems I should consider?

My Signal username is mikeolson.35. I'd welcome your ideas.