Monads are a fundamental concept in functional programming that provide a way to structure and compose computations that involve effects, such as input/output or exceptions, in a pure and modular way. As a key construct in programming languages like Haskell, monads are relevant to the tech community because they enable developers to write more composable, reusable, and maintainable code, and have far-reaching implications for areas like programming language design, software engineering, and formal verification.