Anil Dash writes:
As I’ve been saying for a while, and as Krugman quotes, “it’s impossible to overstate the degree to which many big tech CEOs and venture capitalists are being radicalized by living within their own cultural and social bubble.” Many people resist believing this can be the case, because we’ve been fed so much of the “Great Man” myth, and are told so often to believe in these people as the innovators and brilliant minds that will bring us to some exciting promised future.
One thing I’ve noticed since 2016 is the slow, painful movement of tech oligarchs into degeneracy. Elon Musk, Mark Andressen, and others have staked their claim as alt-right sympathizers yet are still lionized by the general public. How can he be wrong, he’s rich and smart! It’s always gotten us into trouble and will continue to if we let it.
But I’ve spent decades in this industry, often knowing the executives and investors long before they came to wield so much power, and… they’re just a bunch of dudes. They’re just as prone to becoming swept up in stupid conspiracized thinking as, well, everyone else in their demographic seems to have been.
The quicker we understand this, the easier it will become to move away from the deifying petty, alt-right billionaires and building communities on the free and open web.