Kara is one of my favorite observers of the way tech shapes our economy, culture, and politics…we talk about the titans of Silicon Valley and her peerless insights into their values, their failings, and their changing views of the world. Burn Book, her new history of Silicon Valley, is hotly anticipated, and I know you’ll love her insights.
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The smartest thing Kara said in this podcast (and she’s said it before) is that for the most part these tech titans do not have a good sense of history. They’re (broadly) Harvard dropouts who never got their social sciences distribution credits. And, without really recognizing it they created tech that thrust them into positions of vast responsibility for the culture and society. And, because they are Uber wealthy and deified by sycophants, they believe they know enough to deal responsibly with these societal issues. They do not -- and they are largely unwilling to listen to those with a broader, better informed perspective.
No good solutions. Maybe introduce mandatory history classes at Sun Valley and Aspen tech titan cons.
Too many in Silicon Valley drank their own Kool aid and believed themselves to be masters of the universe, literally. But they have to own the good and the bad, the Myamar massacres fueled by Facebook, hate groups organizing and radicallizing - you built that too Tech Bros. Own it, fix it.