Uncovering the $7 trillion reputation economy

Google had the technology to build ChatGPT first. The search giant possessed all the necessary AI capabilities, the computing infrastructure, and the research talent. But they didn't ship it. The reason wasn't technical limitations or lack of vision , it was reputation risk. When you're already the target of antitrust investigations and congressional hearings, releasing an unpredictable AI chatbot feels like handing your critics a loaded weapon.

This calculus, revealed by former Google communications executive Corey duBrowa, illustrates the central tension of what he calls the "$7 trillion reputation economy." Companies with established reputations face a fundamentally different risk-reward equation than scrappy newcomers. OpenAI could afford to move fast and break things because they had little reputation to lose. Google couldn't afford not to worry about the consequences.

duBrowa, now CEO of communications giant Burson, spent years navigating these trade-offs at Salesforce and Google before taking the helm of one of the world's largest PR firms. His perspective cuts through the usual corporate communications platitudes to reveal how reputation actually functions as a strategic asset , and constraint , in an era where every executive decision plays out under public scrutiny.

The most telling example of reputation-first leadership came during duBrowa's first conversation with the late Susan Wojcicki. "The first conversation that I ever had with the late Susan Wojcicki, literally the first conversation I ever had, is when I was at Salesforce, and I was interviewing for the Google job," duBrowa recalls. She had quietly approached him at lunch to recommend he speak with CEO Sundar Pichai. But when duBrowa asked about the recent active shooter incident at YouTube's headquarters, Wojcicki's response revealed something profound about crisis leadership.

The shooter had specifically targeted Wojcicki, yet her immediate focus wasn't on her own safety or the company's liability exposure. "Her first thought was about the safety of her people, the safety of her creators," duBrowa explains. "Maybe this is what leadership looks like. Right? When you're constantly having to sort of juggle this idea of exposure, social exposure, real life exposure, reputation exposure, and her first thought was about the safety of her people."

This instinct , to prioritize stakeholder welfare over immediate reputation management , runs counter to most corporate crisis playbooks. But it illustrates duBrowa's core thesis: reputation isn't built through defensive communications strategies. It's built through consistent decision-making that puts long-term stakeholder value ahead of short-term reputation protection.

The strategic implications extend far beyond crisis management. In today's polarized environment, every corporate decision carries reputational weight across multiple constituencies. duBrowa points to a fundamental shift reshaping the landscape: "There's been a global shift to the right, and so there's a conservative resurgence across, you know, Japan, France, Germany, UK, to name but a few. And so helping clients, to be able to, again, kind of navigate that volatility, that societal polarization that everybody is kinda dealing with."

This isn't just political commentary , it's a business reality that affects everything from product launches to hiring decisions. Companies can no longer assume their stakeholders share similar worldviews or that remaining "apolitical" is even possible. Every silence gets interpreted as a statement. Every statement gets weaponized by someone.

The Google-ChatGPT case study exemplifies this dynamic perfectly. Google's caution wasn't just about potential AI safety issues or regulatory backlash. It was about operating with an asymmetric risk profile where any misstep gets amplified through the lens of existing skepticism about Big Tech power. OpenAI faced no such constraint because they had no existing reputation to protect.

But this dynamic cuts both ways. While established companies face higher reputational stakes, they also have more reputational capital to deploy strategically. The challenge is knowing when to spend that capital and when to preserve it.

For executives navigating this landscape, duBrowa's framework suggests three practical principles. First, reputation decisions should flow from stakeholder value creation, not defensive positioning. Second, silence is no longer neutral , it's a choice that carries its own reputational consequences. Third, the global nature of reputational risk means local decisions can have worldwide implications.

The stakes are only getting higher. As AI accelerates the speed of information flow and amplifies both praise and criticism, companies will face more frequent reputation-defining moments. The winners will be those who build reputation proactively through consistent stakeholder-focused decision-making, not those who try to manage their way out of each crisis.

Watch for how tech companies handle their next major product launches. The gap between what they could ship and what they actually ship will tell you everything about how seriously they take reputational risk , and whether they've learned the right lessons from the ChatGPT moment.