# Artificial Intelligence, IT Leadership, Technology Industry Published articles for Artificial Intelligence, IT Leadership, Technology Industry. This is one page of public article previews, not the complete archive. Follow Next page to continue. Summaries are not the original full articles. ## Money can't buy enterprise trust DevFeed: [Money can't buy enterprise trust]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Matt Asay Published: 2026-10-06T09:00:00Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [InfoWorld]() Topics: [trust](), [CI/CD]() Tags: [ai](), [ai-companies](), [announcement](), [artificial-intelligence](), [artificial-intelligence-it-leadership-technology-industry](), [enterprise-software](), [it-leadership](), [leadership](), [meta](), [mongodb](), [technology-industry]() ### AI overview The article argues that enterprise software and AI companies depend on customer trust built through product continuity, planned leadership transitions, and support that persists after founders or executives leave. It discusses MongoDB CEO CJ Desai's abrupt departure and Google's hiring of Windsurf leaders while the product remained with the company, then connects these examples to the long-term commitments customers make when adopting AI tools. ### Source excerpt I thought the AI boom was producing a new level of bad behavior, what with MongoDB CEO CJ Desai peacing out, not to mention Google's earlier controversial "acquihire" of Windsurf's executive team. But I was wrong: Money has a long history of hollowing out our ethical norms. The problem in these and other AI moves isn't really about the money, but rather about the trust, or lack thereof, left in the wake of the moves. My former MongoDB colleague Meghan Gill brought this into focus after Desai's departure. In a post following her sharply critical tweet about the exit, she put the business case plainly: "A leader's word is a business asset." Otherwise stated, investing in employees and planning leadership transitions help build a company that people can trust. That sounds almost embarrassingly obvious. Yet some responses to Gill's thoughts treat integrity as an unreasonable expectation in a capitalist economy. Take the money, their logic says, because everybody else would. Perhaps. But even if you don't think ethics matter in some absolute sense, Gill's point doesn't require you to have Leave It to Beaver (look it up) sensibilities. After all, enterprise software companies succeed largely by fostering trust, which manifests in long time horizons for supported products and more. If AI companies want to cash in on the enterprise, they're going to need to start acting in ways that earn trust, rather than burn it. Leaving well is part of the job MongoDB's September 28 filing records Desai giving notice on September 24, with his resignation effective four days later, the day Meta announced him as its chief enterprise platform officer. The filing doesn't tell us everything discussed privately, and neither announcement establishes that a bigger paycheck drove the decision. What it does establish is a remarkably short interval between the formal notice and the departure of the person running the company. A rank-and-file employee would normally give at least two weeks' notice.