EP005: Technological Tools of Wealth, Power and Control — The Role of Tech Culture and Elitism in Fostering Inequality

The first step to tackling a systemic problem is to become aware of its mechanisms of action as well as its influence on you. Today’s episode is a discussion with Ron Williams on the nature of the rigged system we’re living in.

 

We touch on how the system traces its modern roots to tech, the way it operates to generate wealth for an increasing few, its inherently discriminatory nature as well as some ways forward.

 

Dive into Part 1 of this series that will explore the rare opportunity we currently face to redesign our society to work for everyone, revolutionizing the world as we build it.

 

Key Takeaways

 

[:16] Tony welcomes listeners and explains today’s episode in the context of the broader multi-part episode series in the works.

 

Where my dollars at? [2:31] The Silent Generation, Boomers, and Gen Xers hold the bulk of wealth by way of a lifetime of work, and Millennials who are now pushing 40, hold the reins of some of the largest tech companies.

 

Because of tech and social media, it’s the first time in history that all these generations have a forum to clash, to be aware of, and outraged at each other.

 

The people and entities who created and leverage these tools have become very powerful and currently continue to operate in a way that secures their profit and survival at the detriment of everything and everyone else. They are often referred to as the 1 and 99%.

 

Side note: It’s not even the 1 and the 99%, it’s the 99.9996 vs the 0.0004. When people think of success, the image they’ve been fed is not the millionaire, not even the multi-millionaire, it’s the billionaire. But they’ll statistically never get it.

 

How do they make money?

From conquer to plunder [9:46] To make money, these large corporations require us to remain engaged. Tony touches on the nature of social media algorithms and how they are designed to generate polarized emotional reactions and pull us ever further into the infinite scroll…

 

Ron, having sat on many, can attest that in those large corporate boards they actually are aware that fear and outrage generate more engagement than kittens. Their decision-making process includes these facts when they refine the algorithms to generate more engagement. They are complicit in fostering divisiveness to generate outrage and further engagement to garner more profit.

 

It’s what you like [17:12] Ads don’t care about what you don’t like. At the exception of Reddit, social media platforms only ever allow you to amplify, effectively removing the ability to reduce the signal on something and identify bad content. 

 

The ante to tech is has become exorbitant

The VC discrimination problem [21:00] Tech and venture capital supported tech are a high-risk high reward business; the whole system starts with investors betting that some of their investments will generate returns and that some may yet generate super-returns: unicorns.

 

Discrimination starts earlier however: if your idea doesn’t have the billion-dollar potential right out of the gate, you will get no funding.

 

A lifestyle business is called that because it isn’t deemed successful enough for you to have sacrificed your life at its altar. What does it say of our world when a 100 million dollars/year company is considered no more than a lifestyle — a kind of humanitarian pursuit?

 

Power is hard to resist

The power discrimination problem [27:03] All this concentrated money also enables people to gravitate ever closer to political power. Facebook got Trump elected and Twitter empowered him massively by ignoring their own TOS which they ruthlessly applied to everyone else.

 

Twitter recently decided to hold POTUS to its general standard. So now Jack’s got this monster on his hands who could put Jack in jail or shut down Twitter, not for some legal issues about tweet management, but for one of the countless other crimes large companies commit and friendly politics ignore.

 

But Jack has some leverage, and the ability to push back because he’s a billionaire and gets to be in the room arguing with top decision-makers. Who wouldn’t want this?!

 

And who, short of billionaires, has this kind of access to the government as well as their crimes — large and small — ignored for the sake of profit?

 

How did we get here?

Competition without balance [30:30] Ron shares some of the unhealthy competitive environments he’s seen permeating the tech industry over the years.

 

Every company has its own internal competitive culture, from gym over-enthusiasts to day trading to survivalism, and all of them promote this internal competition at the detriment of the rest of human life.

 

4 or 5 times a week is not enough; train for 3-4 hours a day … and If you can’t do this, you’re obviously not fit enough or tough enough for this kind of business, bro.

 

Even communication has become competitive circa 2009 when Facebook introduced the like.

 

Maybe shower and eat, maybe [34:31] Tony breaks down the 168-hour workweek. Guess what?

 

Quick recap! The culture of competitiveness in tech created a competitive communication tool (social media likes) that monetizes engagement — primarily through emotional divisiveness — creating more wealth for the people who designed and created it. The money is then funneled back to VC to find the next crop.

 

Beware fictitious shields

Freedom of speech [42:12] The platform, in order to fulfill its mission and generate revenue, needs you to engage and as such will prompt an emotional response from the viewer in order to get them to engage, shaping the discourse and amplifying whatever message keeps engaging you.

 

This, in effect, is not freedom of speech, it is complete emotional manipulation.

 

The way forward

Change the culture [44:15] The Arab Spring was a precursor, and access to technology played a huge role in enabling it, and although social media played a role, it was never its intent, it was only a side effect.

 

The leaders in the seed stage startups are not leading the conversation towards how to make the world better, the only current objective is how to make more money than Facebook.

 

Focus on industry-specific changes [47:46] Markovitz and Hanauer have advised policy change, and this is the right goal.

 

We challenge the scope: a change in tech and venture capital models and culture would generate more change than a sweeping national reform. Ron speaks to the changes that might apply to VC’s specifically.

 

Next episode [54:10] Hacking the elite: meditation has a really strong foothold in tech, but the interesting part is the more the meditate the more they will enter in direct conflict with their one-sided perspective. Can meditation help balance the one-sided all-profit, optimized mindset? Steve Mescon comes back to the discussion.

 

Thanks for tuning in.

 

More about your hosts

Podcast: tonywongpodcast.com

Agile Coaching: Agiletony.com

Executive Coaching: Agiletony.com/mental-and-emotional-agility

Twitter: Twitter.com/agile_tony

LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/tonywongdigitalonion

Youtube: Youtube.com/channel/UCJyT0C_nrzAZ9GhmOXaSRRw

 

Co-host Ron Williams on LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/ronwilliams