Following the U.S. election, tech giants must re-examine the "unintended consequences" of their platforms on society, big tech executives said.

"It is incumbent upon all of Silicon Valley — anyone responsible for technology that can reach beyond historically what was possible — to think about the unintended of what we're doing," said Jeff Weiner chief executive officer of LinkedIn, which is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft.

Those discussions were indeed happening behind closed doors at Alphabet's Google, Diane Greene, senior vice president for Google's Cloud businesses, said. The election highlighted just how divided the country was and has sparked a conversation about what Google can do to help repair it, said Greene.