When I picked up this book, I was completely unaware of Kara Swisher's work. Never heard of her. I'm not a Luddite, but I'm not enthusiastic about tech either. But last year I did read Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires (and A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?) and became more aware of the billionaire class and their influence on our world. Then I heard Swisher interviewed on the radio, probably doing promotion for this memoir, and her mentioning regular contact with Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg intrigued me.
Honestly, I wish that I skipped this book and could continue to be naïve about how much giant amoral corporations run our lives. Especially now, it is mucho depressing. This is my take-away from Burn Book:
Tech bros are overwhelmingly white men who have never felt unsafe in their lives and can't put themselves in the place of others who are not so privileged. The algorithms of their creations exhibit this lack of empathy. They start out socially awkward and end up acting like spoiled toddlers in bubbles of comfort/money that insulate them from reality. The omission of women from the industry is quite deliberate and they are happy to keep their ranks very male and uber-white. Capitalism trumps community every time. These guys are thin skinned and deeply insecure. According to Swisher, “These tech moguls are so rarely disagreed with that they now interpret valid questions as attacks.” Alarmingly, they appear to be trying to eliminate news media just to avoid having to answer questions.
In my opinion, the worst offenders are desperately lonely and have no idea how to fix that. They thought that gobs of money would make them happy (it didn't) and keep pursuing more money because they are unwilling to accept that they are wrong. Somehow they have come to believe that obscene wealth qualifies them to be leaders of society. They missed the memo that caring about other people as more than potential customers or sources of data is necessary to be a real leader. Worryingly, politicians seem to be following in their footsteps. Ironically, social media has created a climate in which only the power hungry are willing to brave public office and those who would bring valuable perspective are driven out.
I was ever so thankful for the chapter about the decent people in the tech biz. They get overshadowed by the loudmouth shnooks, but I'm comforted just a little by knowing that a few tech leaders have a moral compass and some empathy. I find it heartening that Swisher remains optimistic about the future, but I think we have some rough years ahead. However, as she says, the cat videos are still fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment