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Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritune Day, a podcast

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Speaker 1: that reimagined citizen as a verb, not a legal status.

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Speaker 1: This season is all about tech and how it can

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Speaker 1: bring us together instead of tearing us apart. We're bringing

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Speaker 1: you the people using technology for so much more than

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Speaker 1: revenue and user growth. They're using it to help us citizen.

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Speaker 1: Last time on How to Citizen, you got to meet

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Speaker 1: my older sister, Belinda, which meant a deep dive into

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Speaker 1: little Baritune Day. Yes, there was a point when I

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Speaker 1: was small, but we weren't just reminiscing for old times sake.

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Speaker 1: We were sharing the lessons our mom taught us, lessons

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Speaker 1: that laid the foundation for how I see tech and citizen.

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Speaker 1: My mom taught me to stand up for myself, to

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Speaker 1: advocate for my own education, to question authority, and to

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Speaker 1: wash my own damn clothes. But beyond that, she showed

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Speaker 1: me that tech could help me citizen. And now that

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Speaker 1: I'm grown, or at least mostly grown, I'm gonna take

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Speaker 1: it one step further. Tech has the potential to help

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Speaker 1: us all citizen. Imagine a social media platform where people

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Speaker 1: supported each other instead of tearing each other down, or

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Speaker 1: a web browsing experience that doesn't assault you with advertising

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Speaker 1: at every single page load. Or imagine just having control

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Speaker 1: over your personal data instead of constantly hearing about some

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Speaker 1: company losing it again. Unfortunately, we're nowhere near any of this.

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Speaker 1: Our tech landscape is dominated by a handful of wildly

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Speaker 1: wealthy companies that in so many ways make it harder

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Speaker 1: for us to citizen. How did we even get here,

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Speaker 1: what happened along the way, and how do we fix it?

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Speaker 1: I wanted to find find out. So today I'm going

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Speaker 1: to retrace the defining moments of the tech industry, at

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Speaker 1: least according to my definitions. I'm gonna see where we

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Speaker 1: went wrong and try to figure out a path forward.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to just address the problems. I want

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Speaker 1: to imagine a better future. And this task, Yo, it's

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Speaker 1: a big one. So I brought someone along to help

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Speaker 1: me out very ten day. First off, you are coming

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Speaker 1: for my job, your guest hosting. I'm pivot. I know

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Speaker 1: what you're up to. This is this is diplomacy right now.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, if I have him on my pod that

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Speaker 1: he won't feel the threat, so sharply, he won't feel

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Speaker 1: the knife going in. Yeah, you and your good looks

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Speaker 1: and your deep boys, brother that that you know. Sorry, sorry,

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Speaker 1: this job is taken. I'm Scott Galloway is a professor

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Speaker 1: of marketing at n y U Stern and co host

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Speaker 1: of the Pivot podcast for Now. I've actually never met

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Speaker 1: Scott in person. I mostly know him from his podcast

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Speaker 1: with Kara Swisher, but I feel like I've got to

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Speaker 1: know him. He's really fiery at this intersection of tech

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Speaker 1: and business. Was there a moment that got you really

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Speaker 1: into this world? As an academic, you you hit a

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Speaker 1: ceiling if you don't do research, And so I decided

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Speaker 1: to do research on how technology disrupts traditional industries and

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Speaker 1: then wrote a book and kind of made I don't

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Speaker 1: say a living, but my I would say my star

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Speaker 1: kind of rose. I mean if I called my star

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Speaker 1: whatever it is. A dark moon on Pluto started getting

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Speaker 1: some heat because I was talking a lot about Amazon, Apple, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Google, which became kind of bigger and bigger parts

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Speaker 1: of the economy. Yeah. I love this stuff. I'm interested

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Speaker 1: in technology. I'm interested in society and to try and

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Speaker 1: understand big tech has to understand everything from grocery to

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Speaker 1: teen depression. It gives you a lot alattitude to talk

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Speaker 1: about a lot of different things. Clearly, Scott gets it.

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Speaker 1: I knew he'd be able to help me better understand

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Speaker 1: the problem and also offer up some guidance and words

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Speaker 1: of wisdom. Big tech wasn't always a thing. Um, there

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Speaker 1: was lots of little tech being connected, especially by the Internet.

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Speaker 1: What do you recall as the early aspirations of this

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Speaker 1: thing that is now dominating our lives in terms of

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Speaker 1: connected in network technologies and the Internet. Well there was

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Speaker 1: Intel and Microsoft, so there was sort of the Windtel world,

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Speaker 1: and then now they seem kind of quaint compared to

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Speaker 1: the impact. You know, no one weaponized our elections using

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Speaker 1: Microsoft word right that we know of, that we know of.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, I remember the Windtel world vividly. And you

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Speaker 1: are this, Jennifer Andson and Matthew Perry. We're here to

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Speaker 1: see Mr Bill Gates about a possible starring role in

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Speaker 1: the video guide to Microsoft Window. It was n and

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Speaker 1: the long awaited Windows had just hit the scene. And

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Speaker 1: Scott is right, it was quaint compared to what we

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Speaker 1: have now, But for me it represented possibility. Honestly, I

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Speaker 1: was obsessed. And when my big sister Belinda, who was

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Speaker 1: a journalist at USA Today got the opportunity to have

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Speaker 1: someone review Windows. Well, she gave me the best gift

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Speaker 1: I could have dreamt of. The headline read teen says,

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Speaker 1: program gives PC a Macintosh personality. Life was good. Your

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Speaker 1: boy was in the paper. But it wasn't just Windows

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Speaker 1: that made notable. That same year brought us Craigslist, Match,

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Speaker 1: dot com, eBay, and even a little bookseller that went

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Speaker 1: by the name of Amazon dot com, Earth's biggest bookstore.

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Speaker 1: You can't drop by, not in person anyway, for the customer,

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Speaker 1: Amazon only exists on the computer screen. These soon to

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Speaker 1: be Internet goliath were just little David's back then, and

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Speaker 1: they've benefited from the dramatic increase of home computers, the

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Speaker 1: rising curiosity in the world Wide Web that hit the

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Speaker 1: scene ever so slightly ahead of the curve. And while

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Speaker 1: many of us were setting up our dating profiles and

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Speaker 1: fighting with our roommates over who got to use the

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Speaker 1: dial up, these tech David's we're seeing as just a

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Speaker 1: bunch of quirky dudes innovating out of their garage. We

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Speaker 1: ate that underdog story up, allowing these future giants to

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Speaker 1: fly under the radar. I think this gross fetishization. This

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Speaker 1: idolatry of innovators has resulted in a lack of scrutiny

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Speaker 1: or counterbalance because they're doing their job, So the government

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Speaker 1: is meant to be a counterbalance and the government because

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Speaker 1: individuals fetishize innovators and tech, so they all say, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's innovators and our economy and our most productive citizens

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Speaker 1: and YadA, YadA, YadA. So there there they have gotten

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Speaker 1: free rein If I said to my ten year old,

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Speaker 1: you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want, you know,

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Speaker 1: it would pretty much be occasionally to have a peanut

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Speaker 1: butter sandwich, but for the most part it would just

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Speaker 1: be you know, ice creams amwiches in Coca Cola. So

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Speaker 1: there's just no guardrails. But at the time, I wasn't

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Speaker 1: paying attention to all that. I was too busy starting

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Speaker 1: college at Harvard University. Yeah, there's no way to not

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Speaker 1: say it and not sound like that dude who's dropping

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Speaker 1: the Harvard thing. But if I don't say it, you

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Speaker 1: could be like, why are you being mysterious about the

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Speaker 1: college you went to? So, yeah, I went to Harvard University. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you ask someone who met me in those first

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Speaker 1: few months, They're likely gonna remember two things about me. First,

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Speaker 1: my afro. It was huge and it was beautiful. Second

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Speaker 1: my four eight six d X two computer. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was always on the computer, which, depending on the angle

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Speaker 1: you were at, you might not see because of the afro. Now,

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Speaker 1: one of my first campus jobs was as a computer

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Speaker 1: user assistant a k a. Tech support, and we had

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Speaker 1: a mission to bring the Internet to every dorm room. Basically,

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Speaker 1: I set the stage from Mark Zuckerberg to launch Facebook

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Speaker 1: nine years later. You're welcome Mark now where my share

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Speaker 1: is at. And long before Facebook even existed, I helped

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Speaker 1: create and maintain an online community built around real life friendships.

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Speaker 1: It was a small, simple email list of many of

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Speaker 1: the black students in Harvest class, and it worked because

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Speaker 1: we actually knew each other, We had something in common,

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Speaker 1: we lived among one another. We were actually friends, not

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Speaker 1: Facebook friends, real friends, and that made this space safe

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Speaker 1: for us to joke, to organize our politics, to organize

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Speaker 1: our parties, even two more in the loss of some

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Speaker 1: of our members, and none of us was in it

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Speaker 1: for followers or likes or brand deals. It was real

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Speaker 1: community powered by the Internet. In I graduated Harvard and

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Speaker 1: I had the privilege of living through a brief moment

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Speaker 1: of technological hysteria. Why two K the year two thousand

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Speaker 1: computer bug as a worldwide crisis special hardware stores, But

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Speaker 1: the biggest sellers our ammunition, gun safes, kerosene lefts, and

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Speaker 1: water jugs. But if you're looking for a generator, forget it.

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Speaker 1: There are It's gonna be for a long time. It's

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Speaker 1: gonna be a change. I think we're gonna be setting

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Speaker 1: ourselves back to about side. It could quite literally trigger

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Speaker 1: at the end of the world, depending on what nuclear

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Speaker 1: missiles think when that computer screens suddenly go blank. It's

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Speaker 1: not Why two K is the first time that I

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Speaker 1: can remember a collective pause about our faith in technology.

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Speaker 1: It was this idea that the way we coded, literally

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Speaker 1: the code that was in almost all of our systems,

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Speaker 1: would implode because of a law error and lack of

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Speaker 1: imagination and destroy us. Because the year changed over beyond

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Speaker 1: someone's expectations. And though the world didn't implode, the U.

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Speaker 1: S Government did spend nearly a hundred billion dollars trying

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Speaker 1: to fix the glitch, and this left many people with

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Speaker 1: a permanently uneasy feeling about the future of tech. Yet

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Speaker 1: at the same time, there was an emerging underground revolution

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Speaker 1: of bloggers. Around the turn of the twenty one century,

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Speaker 1: the term blog entered the mainstream, along with the formation

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Speaker 1: of blogging sites Zanga, live Journal, and of course blogger.

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Speaker 1: Blogs were a threat to traditional media gatekeepers. Folks who

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Speaker 1: had been subjected to the narratives others wrote for them,

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Speaker 1: they could finally write their own and reach an audience

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Speaker 1: without asking for permission. I even threw my hat in

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Speaker 1: when Cheryl Contie and I launched Jack and Joel Polock six,

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Speaker 1: a black bourgeoisie perspective on US politics. That's what we

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Speaker 1: called our blog. We held institutions accountable for their treatment

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Speaker 1: of black people, whether it was the Congressional Black Caucus

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Speaker 1: or CNN. When I think about Jack and Joe politics,

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Speaker 1: it gave me so much a chance to grow as

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Speaker 1: a writer, community organizer, and citizen. And this period wasn't

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Speaker 1: just good for me. We all as a society experienced

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Speaker 1: this big push for at home broadband. Two thousand three

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Speaker 1: to two thousand six, we saw the launch of Skype, MySpace,

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Speaker 1: Facebook popping up at my alma mater, Twitter, which called

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Speaker 1: itself a micro blogging site. It was on right. The

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Speaker 1: latest cyber drug of choice. It is called Twitter, an

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Speaker 1: addictive concoction of blogs, Google maps, personal websites, and text

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Speaker 1: messaging all the century version of the old paper bound yearbook.

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Speaker 1: Now millions of students used the Facebook dot com to

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Speaker 1: list not only their pictures and hobbies, but as a

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Speaker 1: virtual community. And this was exciting. I mean, we were

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Speaker 1: connecting and creating together on the Internet. But while hundreds

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Speaker 1: of thousands of people were logging into these sites, these

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Speaker 1: future tech golias were growing like crazy, some of them

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Speaker 1: offering services below costs just to gobble up market share.

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Speaker 1: And they were blowing our minds with what we were

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Speaker 1: told was innovation. And remember, they could do some of

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Speaker 1: this because the government didn't want to regulate innovation. No

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Speaker 1: innovation knows no bounds because you can't get in the

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Speaker 1: way of at least a man, probably white, trying to

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Speaker 1: make a doubt. These tech giants weren't just capturing our

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Speaker 1: attention though, they were also capturing our personal information. And

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Speaker 1: while we thought we were just sharing our cute selfies

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Speaker 1: with our friends, behind the scenes, we will share something

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Speaker 1: much more valuable. We were giving away our data and

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Speaker 1: as a result, the CEOs and shareholders of these companies

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Speaker 1: would profit big time. Little did we know this data

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Speaker 1: capture would eventually power the most profitable and destructive business

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Speaker 1: model yet, online advertising, which has since grown to dominate

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Speaker 1: almost all Internet businesses. This is the Onion News Network,

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Speaker 1: a twenty four hour, NonStop loses and in two thousand seven,

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Speaker 1: when I started my job at the satirical news organization,

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Speaker 1: the Onion online advertising was really starting to take off.

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Speaker 1: As the first ever director of Digital, my job was

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Speaker 1: basically to bring the Onion online and I loved it.

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Speaker 1: But one of my biggest frustrations was also just keeping

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Speaker 1: up with the tech. And I say this as the

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Speaker 1: tech guy, but we'd have to change our entire creative

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Speaker 1: process to accommodate some software or some app that I

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Speaker 1: just knew wasn't gonna be around in two years. And

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Speaker 1: this was really my first personal exposure to the intersection

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Speaker 1: of business and technology. Sometimes it worked great, other times

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Speaker 1: there was some conflict. I actually remember being in the

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Speaker 1: room at an online ads award show and folks were

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Speaker 1: giving out awards for like the best pop up ad.

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Speaker 1: They were giving out awards for obscuring the content, and

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, they think they're content too. It

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Speaker 1: was a huge aha, like a major turning point for

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Speaker 1: me because the Internet, in the future of tech was

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Speaker 1: no longer this shiny object that excited me and gave

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Speaker 1: me a place for community and fun. It was becoming

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Speaker 1: something co opted by opitalism. The perfect example is Facebook.

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Speaker 1: The company went public in two and raised a record

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Speaker 1: sixteen billion dollars during its initial public offering I p

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Speaker 1: O for sure. To this day, Facebook is the largest

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Speaker 1: tech I p O ever and as CEO is like

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Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg, started selling more and more of their company

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Speaker 1: shares to the public. They also started figuring out clever

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Speaker 1: ways to hoard their power. One, I want you to

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Speaker 1: quickly explain dual class shareholders in terms of the path

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Speaker 1: we've taken to get here and why it's become a problem.

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Speaker 1: What is a dual class shareholder company? So governance, what

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Speaker 1: are the systems and constructs for who's in charge and

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Speaker 1: who gets to make decisions and remove leadership? Right? So,

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Speaker 1: corporate governance is loosely based on societal or national governance,

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Speaker 1: and that is we show up at shareholder meetings and

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Speaker 1: we get one share, one vote, and we vote for

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Speaker 1: who the board is and the board gets to make

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Speaker 1: decisions around whether or not the CEO gets fired if

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Speaker 1: they sell the company. So essentially, the notion is that

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Speaker 1: the wisdom of crowds and ownership is linked to accountability

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Speaker 1: and responsibility. And until Google, very few companies had dual

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Speaker 1: class shareholder structures. Now dual class shareholder structure means that

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Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg, even though he controls less than half of

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Speaker 1: the company, he has control. So that is a total

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Speaker 1: departure or a fissure from what you call democratic governance.

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Speaker 1: The bottom line is it's a group of individuals that

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Speaker 1: like control and don't want to make the economic sacrifices

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Speaker 1: or don't have the economics to get shareholder control. You know,

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Speaker 1: the board isn't a board at Facebook, It's an advisory

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Speaker 1: board because at the end of the day, Mark can

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Speaker 1: get rid of all of them do whatever the funk

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Speaker 1: he wants. The Apple is not a dual class shareholder company,

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Speaker 1: and I would argue that there's a link to behavior.

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Speaker 1: I think Apple behaves better because Tim Cook can be

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Speaker 1: fired Mark Zuckerberg, and I've said this before, is the

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Speaker 1: most dangerous person in the world. Putin will be out

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Speaker 1: of office because of biology In ten or fifteen years

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Speaker 1: or less. We can vote by them out office. Mark

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Speaker 1: Zuckerberg could be with us for sixty years. For the record,

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Speaker 1: I'm not trying to pick on Mark Zuckerberg. He wasn't

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Speaker 1: the first tech founder to adopt a dual class structure,

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Speaker 1: but when he did it in he opened the doors

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Speaker 1: for so many others to do the same. According to

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Speaker 1: Fast Company, in of tech companies that went public were

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Speaker 1: dual class models. And while Facebook was going public, I

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Speaker 1: was having my own internal conflicts about tech. I didn't

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Speaker 1: just like tech. I loved it. I thought it was

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Speaker 1: gonna free us all, but I was starting to see

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Speaker 1: hints that it could do the opposite, and I wanted

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Speaker 1: to make sure it didn't go down that path. After

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Speaker 1: the break, I leave The Onion for Silicon Valley. That

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Speaker 1: same year, I left my job at The Onion to

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Speaker 1: start my own company, Cultivated with with a vague but

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Speaker 1: important mission to merge humor and technology by bringing together comedians, designers,

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Speaker 1: and developers. We opened an office in San Francisco, where

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Speaker 1: I spent increasing amounts of time, and just as I

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Speaker 1: had committed myself further to technology, I got a platform

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Speaker 1: to reflect on and challenge it. When I took over

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Speaker 1: the back page column for Fast Company magazine, I wrote

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Speaker 1: pieces with headlines like social media may be efficient, but

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Speaker 1: don't forget good old face to face conversation. Okay, Grandpa

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Speaker 1: tun day another headline, living in the cloud apps can

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Speaker 1: only get you so far, or one of my favorites,

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Speaker 1: a radical proposal for putting people in charge of their data.

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Speaker 1: The era of technology that I loved was turning into

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Speaker 1: an environment that aggressively and effectively mind our attention and

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Speaker 1: seemed to demand more work from us rather than liberating

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Speaker 1: us from work as promised, and all that was by design.

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Speaker 1: I would say that when you know I'm one of

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Speaker 1: my colleagues. Jonathan hy sort of raised my awareness when

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Speaker 1: you start talking about He wrote this book called The

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Speaker 1: Coddling of the American Mind and said that the emerging

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Speaker 1: mental health crisis among teens was in large part due

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Speaker 1: to the rise of social media and then dual class

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Speaker 1: shareholder companies such as these companies didn't have to really

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Speaker 1: listen to shareholders regulatory overrun. I just all these things

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Speaker 1: added up, and I just noticed personally my addiction to Twitter.

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Speaker 1: You just have all these little moments I remember my

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Speaker 1: kid at the age of nine doing a handstand and

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Speaker 1: asking me to record it and then saying could you

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Speaker 1: put it on YouTube? And I said sure, because I

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Speaker 1: think technology is wonderful. I want my kids understand it.

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Speaker 1: And then on the way home, uh, he said, oh

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Speaker 1: my gosh, I got a like, And then every fifteen

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Speaker 1: minutes for the next day he wanted to go back

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Speaker 1: onto YouTube to see if he got more pikes. And

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Speaker 1: it was one of those moments like, there's some externalities here,

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Speaker 1: and while we focus on all the wonderful things about technology,

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Speaker 1: the shareholder return the innovation it does unlock a tremendous

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Speaker 1: amount of value. It seems like the gross idolatry of

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Speaker 1: technology has resulted and we ignore the externalities, and it's been,

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Speaker 1: I think, really detrimental to mental health, really detrimental to

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Speaker 1: our economy, really detrimental to our democracy. And I feel

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Speaker 1: as if there needs to be a counterbalance, and usually

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Speaker 1: that counterbalance our regulatory bodies. They have been in a

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Speaker 1: deep slumber for twenty or thirty years. As it relates

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Speaker 1: to technology. In my personal life, I felt like I

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Speaker 1: was on a hamster wheel producing content for my feed,

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Speaker 1: taking pictures of my food, instead of eating it, posting

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Speaker 1: about books online instead of reading them. I was doing

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Speaker 1: all that more than living my actual life. This lack

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Speaker 1: of accountability that you've been bringing up, whether it's inside

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Speaker 1: the company's governance structure, whether it's our collective will through

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Speaker 1: our government and an unwillingness and ability to regulate them.

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Speaker 1: I think of it in another way about the funding

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Speaker 1: of some of these businesses. When when I see a

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Speaker 1: lot of VC backed firms that have never made a

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Speaker 1: dollar after five, ten, maybe many more years, that doesn't

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Speaker 1: to me deserve to be called a business. It's like

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Speaker 1: a special project that's subsidized by people who should have

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Speaker 1: been taxed more at some point in their lives. What

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Speaker 1: role do you think, um the funding mechanism for these

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Speaker 1: companies has contributed to some of the downsides we're experiencing

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Speaker 1: now in terms of that lack of accountability, like they're

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Speaker 1: not failing. The thing that has kind of changed everything.

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Speaker 1: And this is your point, and it's an important one,

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Speaker 1: is that before Amazon, a company was kind of given

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Speaker 1: three four years a runway and then it was expected

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Speaker 1: to start making money. And two thirds of companies that

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Speaker 1: went public just ten twenty years ago were profitable right

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Speaker 1: now as we sit here today, s the companies that

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Speaker 1: go public are not profitable. So the markets have taught

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Speaker 1: because of Amazon the Netflix, which were extremely unprofitable but

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Speaker 1: still became gargantrian companies that dominate their sectors and have

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Speaker 1: had enormous returns to shareholders. It's taught investors to replace

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Speaker 1: profits with vision and growth. And it's really changed the

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Speaker 1: ecosystem because the big shift you're talking about where there's

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Speaker 1: a new class of companies that are afforded cheaper capital

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Speaker 1: and more runway. It's just an enormous advantage. If I

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Speaker 1: told a T and T they no longer needed to

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Speaker 1: be profitable, they no longer needed to have a divin end,

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Speaker 1: they could go negative for ten or twenty years and

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Speaker 1: their shareholders would continue to bid their stock price up.

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Speaker 1: They could be remarkably innovative. So this is a real

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Speaker 1: shift in our economy in the markets, and that is

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Speaker 1: the keyest disruption, and the key is being perceived as

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Speaker 1: a leader, not necessarily profitability. It used to be that

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Speaker 1: the numbers kind of spoke for themselves, and now it's

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Speaker 1: the numbers that everyone's looking at. Is growth and also

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Speaker 1: just a certain level of innovation, so you end up

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Speaker 1: with Facebook with seven people in pr and comms. Let

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Speaker 1: me set one thing straight, it's not necessarily a bad

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Speaker 1: thing to bet on companies with a vision. I love

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Speaker 1: risk taking, I support it. And there are so many

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Speaker 1: innovative people out there with brilliant ideas that deserve to

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Speaker 1: be funded, even overfunded, even if it may not immediately

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Speaker 1: be profitable. But who's getting this no strings attached funding.

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Speaker 1: It's just gendered men. It's mostly white men a k a.

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Speaker 1: The visionaries that we've been taught get to have that title.

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Speaker 1: They have this endless supply of chances. They can be

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Speaker 1: unprofitable for years, and often their share prices still go up.

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Speaker 1: But are we doing the same kind of investing, the

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Speaker 1: same kind of risk taking for women for l g B,

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Speaker 1: t q I A plus business owners for BIPOC folks.

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Speaker 1: Hell no. And let's not forget the big five companies

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Speaker 1: who control the industry get to cherry pick who succeeds.

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Speaker 1: They decide who to acquire, who to buy out. Anti

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Speaker 1: monopoly experts Stacy Mitchell said it best on this podcast

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Speaker 1: last season. If you control the roadway that the vast

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Speaker 1: majority of traffic is traveling down. Then you control what

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Speaker 1: that traffic sees. For example, all the movies on Netflix

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Speaker 1: are basically stored on Amazon servers. Facebook bought Instagram and What'sapp.

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Speaker 1: And think about it, Google's algorithms determine what posts you

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Speaker 1: see first in your search results. If someone new steps

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Speaker 1: onto the scene, maybe someone who's trying to help us

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Speaker 1: citizen better, these five companies can basically determine if they succeed.

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Speaker 1: And to me, that sounds really undemocratic. You know, I'm

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Speaker 1: still lingering on something you said earlier about disrupting major industries.

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Speaker 1: I'm for becused, and I think we're focused in this

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Speaker 1: upcoming season on the disruption to our democracy itself and

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Speaker 1: into the fabric of our society, not just their competitors,

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Speaker 1: which in some ways should happen. How are you seeing

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Speaker 1: the structure of the industry, the design of the technology,

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Speaker 1: the lack of oversights, what elements are making the impact

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Speaker 1: on us less bearable? I would say ground zero for

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Speaker 1: what I'd call the unraveling of the fabric of America.

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Speaker 1: Kind of one threat at a time is algorithms. These

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Speaker 1: algorithms have been trained to figure out a way to

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Speaker 1: capture as much of your attention for as long as possible.

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Speaker 1: And so we are a tribal species. We are very

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Speaker 1: suspicious of each other. We're very prone to making stereotypes

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Speaker 1: and believing bad things about people who don't look, smell,

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Speaker 1: and feel like us. That's one of the flaws of

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Speaker 1: our species. Of modern societies learned to cooperate and they

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Speaker 1: learn from more progressive ideals. And if you think about capitalism,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of the least bad system of its kind,

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Speaker 1: it's based on this collision of cooperation and self interest,

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Speaker 1: which is this gangster cocktail. And what these algorithms have

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Speaker 1: done is staid, let's tap into our primal instincts and

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Speaker 1: let's amplify content that is really divisive and create violence

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Speaker 1: online because people can't look away from violence. So and

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Speaker 1: by the way, it's not just social media, it's the

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Speaker 1: situation room at CNN. It's Fox gas lighting America constantly.

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Speaker 1: But there's less money in news and content that says,

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Speaker 1: you know, everything is kind of incrementally getting a little

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Speaker 1: bit better. Isn't that great? That's just not an exciting story.

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Speaker 1: It's like remember the kid. Remember when you're in fifth

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Speaker 1: grade and two people start having words and someone would

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Speaker 1: screen fight, fight fighting, and they just didn't really have

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Speaker 1: an intention of fighting. Facebook a billion times an hour

430
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: is saying to any two entities fight, fight, fight, It

431
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: just it promoting this coarseness. So one of the things

432
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: I checked around myself is I started identifying people as

433
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 1: blue a red. And what I realized is if you

434
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 1: don't separate the person from the ideology, you lose fifty

435
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 1: of all potential relationships. And what you find is that

436
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: the majority of conservatives don't dislike democrats, and the majority

437
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 1: of democrats don't like conservatives because of their viewpoint, but

438
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: because of our ecosystem has taught us to hate each

439
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: other and take taken the worst aspects of our dialogue

440
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:21,640
Speaker 1: and turned it into insults and made it very personal.

441
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 1: And I think these companies lie at the center of that.

442
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:32,119
Speaker 1: With infinite computing capacity and bottomless venture funding on their side,

443
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 1: these companies had the power to keep us in their

444
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:38,160
Speaker 1: world by luring us to click and scroll and swipe,

445
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,720
Speaker 1: such that I had written a Fast Company cover story

446
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 1: talking about taking a social media detox. I can't express

447
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: to you how dramatic and public this rejection was of

448
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: the tech I had long celebrated and been celebrated for

449
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 1: that cover piece. You know it kind of unleashed me.

450
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: For the next few years, I spoke up louder about

451
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:08,200
Speaker 1: the gap I was seeing between the promise of tech

452
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: and the reality unfolding. My critiques were bolstered by others

453
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: seeing the same things, who taught me even more than

454
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: I thought I already knew. The most fun group of

455
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: fellow critics were the people I met through cultivated with

456
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 1: comedy hackathons. These events brought together comedians, designers, and coders

457
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: to build apps in a single weekend. The apps themselves

458
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:33,879
Speaker 1: were designed to be jokes, satirizing the industry we were

459
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: all a part of, and trust me, there was a

460
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: lot to satirize. Who's been here. You got one bill,

461
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: multiple people, a wage gap plaguing women in minorities, plus

462
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: Molly drank most of the wine. That's why I created

463
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 1: an appuit Table, the only bill splitting app that uses

464
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: real labor statistics to adjust for income inequality between races

465
00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: and genders. Now, during this period, I was bouncing back

466
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: and forth between San Francisco, where I had this office

467
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 1: with my colleagues, and New York, where I actually lived,

468
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: and when I was in New York. I worked out

469
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: of the offices of a group called Data in Society.

470
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: It's a research institute that studies the social implications of

471
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: data centric technologies as well as automation. These researchers were

472
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 1: pointing out with data how the systems we were building

473
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: discriminated against folks who are already overlooked in our society,

474
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: poor people, l G, B, t q I, A plus

475
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 1: and BIPOC folks. Today, it's become fashionable to talk about

476
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 1: things like the surveillance economy and criticize how we make

477
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 1: money with tech by observing and mining data around people's behavior.

478
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: But I first heard that phrase years ago when I

479
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: was at Data in Society. I remember being there and

480
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: seeing Rebecca Wexler, a lawyer in residence who was part

481
00:29:57,320 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: of the group, give a talk about how the New

482
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 1: York government it was using evidence derived from computers in

483
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 1: prosecuting black and brown people, but that digital evidence from

484
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: cell phones and social media was often deemed proprietary or

485
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 1: some companies trade secret, so folks had no ability to

486
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:18,480
Speaker 1: challenge it or even understand it. As smartphones and apps

487
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: became more than norm, attention mining and addiction became the

488
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: new currency. You know that little thing called the terms

489
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: of service that no one ever reads. Well, it gives

490
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 1: these companies the authority to use and sell our data

491
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 1: to their hearts content. Eventually, this data mining became a

492
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: full on surveillance apparatus, monitoring and monetizing our whereabouts, social interactions, tastes,

493
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 1: and more international intrigue, and an American fugitive on the run,

494
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: Edward Snowden, the man who told the world about the

495
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 1: federal government sweeping top secret domestic spying program, is on

496
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 1: the move as we speak. Incredible extent to which the

497
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: US government is monitoring and keeping records of not just

498
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 1: our phone calls, but also apparently our emails, internet searches, downloads, photos,

499
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 1: Facebook pages, and on and on. All this led to

500
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: a massive shift for the little boy who was so

501
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:16,959
Speaker 1: excited for that apple to eat. Instead of feeling like

502
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 1: a technology user, I was feeling used. The tool that

503
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: had empowered me was now sapping my power. And it's

504
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: no wonder these big tech companies were set up with

505
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: essentially zero oversight and in a position to do pretty

506
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 1: much whatever they wanted. And the extra frustrating part is

507
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: that despite all these warning signs, it still felt like

508
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: this was all happening under our noses. Big business had

509
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: essentially pick pocketed the people's internet and made it their internet.

510
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 1: How did we as a society let this happen? What

511
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:59,000
Speaker 1: do you think happened along the way in terms of

512
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: the development of the Internet, in the role of technology

513
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 1: in our lives to give us the Internet we have

514
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: now that has so much more harm than we remember

515
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: in the early days. Well, a lot of good things.

516
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 1: There's more utility, you know. I can order a car

517
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: and see where it is before it gets here. I

518
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: can have almost everything delivered to me off my phone.

519
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:23,479
Speaker 1: I can find out almost answered almost any basic question

520
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: from our new god Google. So the utility and the

521
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 1: innovation has been extraordinary. Um that's one of the many positives.

522
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 1: One of the many negatives is that as a society

523
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: becomes wealthier and more educated, it's reliance on a super

524
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 1: being in church attendance goes down. But we still need

525
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 1: that spiritual guidance or what I call is super being

526
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 1: that can answer very complicated questions. And into that void

527
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 1: has slipped tech. Because technology is kind of the closest

528
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: thing we have to magic or some sort of godlike action.

529
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 1: I just have no idea how my phone does what

530
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 1: it does, but it's amazing, so it feels somewhat mystical,

531
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 1: somewhat spiritual, so what God like? And as a result,

532
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: I think our new Jesus Christ are Jack Dorsey and

533
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs and that we don't longer have go to church,

534
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: we go to Apple. And there's a certain that's dangerous

535
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 1: now whole type because after the break we'll find out

536
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 1: why despite all this doom and gloom, my optimism has returned,

537
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 1: and we'll learn about Scott's take on investing in citizenship

538
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: as a way to get us out from under big tick.

539
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 1: So at this point in my personal journey, we're now

540
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: in the year I know it's almost as hard of

541
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: a year to say as why do we get trauma's

542
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: eyes every four years in America? That same year, I

543
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 1: was at south By Southwest ringing the alarm bell even

544
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:06,840
Speaker 1: before the election. Upon receiving the Hall of Fame award,

545
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: Yes I am in a Hall of Fame and it's exciting.

546
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: My acceptance speech sounded a very different tone from my

547
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 1: more optimistic past self. Could we in the virtual reality racism?

548
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:23,400
Speaker 1: Could we have should learned sexism? Could power the police

549
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: by drones and Internet of crop. This is all very possible.

550
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 1: We don't needede cautiously in the world that we're all doing.

551
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:35,320
Speaker 1: Hate to say I told you so. After that historic

552
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:38,400
Speaker 1: election went down, so many of us saw that the

553
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:42,839
Speaker 1: human manipulation and tricks learned through attention economics weren't just

554
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 1: stressing us as individuals, but also as a collective as

555
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:52,399
Speaker 1: a democracy. This is where I mentioned Robert Mueller. I'm

556
00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: so sorry to bring you back to that era of

557
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: our history. It explains that under longstanding Department policy, he

558
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 1: probably president, cannot be charged with a federal crime while

559
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: he is in office, even if the charge is kept

560
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: under sealed and hidden from public view. That too is prohibited.

561
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 1: But I remember reading through his indictments against the Russian

562
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:17,840
Speaker 1: hackers and learning how they poured gasoline on our existing,

563
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: highly flammable divisions. Their techniques were not novel spycraft. They

564
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 1: were simply effective digital marketing strategies, the kind I'd seen myself,

565
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 1: the kind I'd used myself and had become increasingly critical of,

566
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:37,399
Speaker 1: but the kind that even I hadn't imagined could help

567
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 1: weaken a whole nation. I was screaming even louder than before.

568
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:51,919
Speaker 1: I wasn't sugarcoating anything, and comedy alone wasn't gonna cut

569
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 1: it for me. This led to my longest tech piece yet,

570
00:35:55,880 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 1: my technology manifesto, Humble Guy Here. Technology Manifesto Demands from

571
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 1: a citizen to Big Tech. This manifesto included five overall demands.

572
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 1: Number one transparency around data collection and usage. Number two

573
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:21,319
Speaker 1: data sovereignty, as in, we are in charge of our

574
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,719
Speaker 1: own data and consent to use it is in our hands.

575
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 1: Number three inclusive design and participation by diverse stakeholders in

576
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 1: the development of all these tools. You can't design for

577
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: the world if you don't look like the world. Number

578
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: four we need new regulations and new accountability. And number

579
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 1: five decentralization of tech power back to the people the

580
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 1: way we design this thing in the first place. Between

581
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 1: pursuing profit regardless of the social harms and the lack

582
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 1: of transparency and oversight, we've reached a point where tech

583
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 1: is actually making it harder for us to citizen. But

584
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:08,359
Speaker 1: when we're overwhelmed by the serotonin inducing algorithmic hits from

585
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:11,839
Speaker 1: our tech products, we can't show up for our communities.

586
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 1: When tech platforms just view us as dollar signs and

587
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 1: click potential. They make it harder for us to feel

588
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 1: connected to each other. When economic and computing power is

589
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: concentrated in a handful of companies, that makes it harder

590
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:28,240
Speaker 1: for all of us to be fluent in our power

591
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 1: and use it for collective benefit. One of the things

592
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 1: my mother encouraged me to do often was question authority.

593
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 1: She wanted me to think for myself and understand my

594
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 1: own power. We've ceded too much authority to too few

595
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: controlling how we use technology. It's past time to question

596
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 1: that and come up with some better answers. That brings

597
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: us to season three of How to citizens the technology addition,

598
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: because despite all that we've gone through, I see a

599
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 1: light and that's what this season is gonna focus on.

600
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:07,280
Speaker 1: There was a moment when I was listening to Scott

601
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: and Karros Swisher's Pivot podcast walking down the Street in

602
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: my Hood, and Scott said something that stopped me in

603
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: my tracks. But I've been plenty of money and private

604
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 1: companies in my theme, My entire theme for the next

605
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: five years of my life around investment strategy is citizenship.

606
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: Other than lobbying to get on this podcast, why did

607
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: you choose to use the word citizenship in connection with

608
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 1: your own investment strategy. What do you see coming? What

609
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: do you hope is coming? That's an alternative to what

610
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 1: we've been talking about. Sure, So first off, just the

611
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: asterisk around all my virtue signaling is I'm doing this

612
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: for selfish reason. I think there's money to be made

613
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:44,919
Speaker 1: and what I'll call the citizenship or immunity strategy. And

614
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 1: I like the strategy. I like the idea of trying

615
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: to do stuff that I think are investment companies that

616
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 1: I think are good for the commonwealth. When Amazon becomes

617
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 1: abusive to their partners, Shopify emerges, and when I think

618
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 1: the toxicity of Twitter and Facebook becomes so noxious, I

619
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:06,319
Speaker 1: think Snap and Pinterest, which are less toxic, are outperforming

620
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:08,840
Speaker 1: Facebook and Twitter right now on a shareholder level. I

621
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: think the people that Robin Hood I'm gonna use an

622
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:13,279
Speaker 1: academic term here, are mendacious Fox. I think that they

623
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 1: are addicting young men. I think they are absolutely using

624
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 1: dark psychological techniques to create a dopamine addiction among young men.

625
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:24,920
Speaker 1: I do not think they are building wealth. There's just

626
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: so many gotchas, but make them richer and their shareholders

627
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: poort a much less their customers. I've invested in open web,

628
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: which manages comments section. The comments section is actually more

629
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:37,400
Speaker 1: important than the actual content. It's where you get a

630
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 1: lot of back and forth and they're trying to make

631
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 1: people fights right. And this this company, open Web, manages

632
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 1: it for big media companies ranging from news Core to

633
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 1: ganet and helps them create a comment section that elevates productive,

634
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 1: thoughtful comments. I invested in better dot com, which is

635
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 1: online mortgages. We have found it and when whenever we

636
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 1: get humans involved in improving mortgages, we end up with

637
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 1: terrible things such as this emmic racism, and mortgages are

638
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 1: just too expensive and intimidating. You know, take a take

639
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 1: a young immigrant family. They don't want to walk into

640
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:09,319
Speaker 1: a bank of American apply for a mortgage. They don't

641
00:40:09,320 --> 00:40:11,760
Speaker 1: have a confidence that they've heard really bad things about

642
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:14,719
Speaker 1: mortgages and redlining and all that bullshit. So I think

643
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:19,279
Speaker 1: there's just some really outstanding opportunities from companies that are

644
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:23,120
Speaker 1: zigging when other companies are zagging in terms of not

645
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:27,280
Speaker 1: addressing the externalities they create. What obligations do you think

646
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 1: a tech company in particular, company in general has to

647
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:34,879
Speaker 1: the public to us, you know, other than generating as

648
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: many profits as possible for their shareholders, we've basically prioritized

649
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 1: companies and shareholders over workers. We have done that for

650
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: the last thirty years. And the results of since two

651
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, the nastacas quintupld CEO compensation as a

652
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 1: multiple of the average workers compensations got from sixty to

653
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 1: thirty and minimum wayagees exploded from seven dollars and cents

654
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 1: to wait for it, seven dollars and cents. And we

655
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: say that, oh, this is a function of a processor

656
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 1: network economy, and isn't this terrible? And let's pretend that

657
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 1: we give a flying fuck. We have managed this. We

658
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: have orchestrated a transfer of wealth from poor people to

659
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 1: rich people, from young to old, with almost every major

660
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 1: economic policy and constructing our approach to this. So I'd

661
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: like to think that companies have an obligation will calling

662
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 1: their better angels. That is not a good strategy. The

663
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 1: government needs to regulate them. The government needs to say,

664
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: if you have grown your wealth a hundred billion dollars

665
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:31,839
Speaker 1: in the last five years and paid less than one

666
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:34,879
Speaker 1: percent of that and taxes, we need to rethink our

667
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: tax system. When you have a profit incentive around making

668
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 1: young girls feel bad about themselves, the government needs to

669
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 1: step in because here's the bottom line. And I'm guilty

670
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 1: of this too. When it's raining money, it blurs your vision.

671
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:51,399
Speaker 1: The people at Philip Morris weren't bad people, but they

672
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: talked themselves into believing cigarettes were no worse than ice

673
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:55,960
Speaker 1: cream because they were all making a ship ton of money.

674
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 1: So we need to elect leaders who will hold these

675
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 1: firms to the same standards we've held other firms. We

676
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 1: call this show how to Citizen, and he interprets citizen

677
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 1: as a verb actions When you think about citizen ng

678
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: as a verb, how do you define it? What does

679
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 1: it mean to Scott Galloway to citizens? First and foremost,

680
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: I'm trying to raise secure, loving kids that have empathy

681
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:24,799
Speaker 1: in a sense of how fortunate that they are to

682
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:27,319
Speaker 1: be to be American, but more than anything, and this

683
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 1: is hard for me because I'm naturally an angry to

684
00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 1: press person. I'm trying to be less coarse in my dialogue.

685
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 1: I am really good at dunking on people, and I've

686
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 1: tried to stop that. I've tried to say, Okay, your

687
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:42,360
Speaker 1: opportunity to get a couple of thousand likes because you

688
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 1: call out someone, make a character of their comments, and

689
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: take it to an ugly place. It's just not adding

690
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:49,800
Speaker 1: any value to our commonwealth. It might feel good, so

691
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: I think it's sort of what I call comedy a

692
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:54,400
Speaker 1: manner being good to your neighbor and imagine that everybody

693
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 1: you meet online is your neighbor. You would never say

694
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 1: this ship to your neighbor. You would never say hey about.

695
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 1: You would never say this ship to another American who

696
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,279
Speaker 1: maybe served and was a good person and got up

697
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: in the morning. You would never say this to someone

698
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 1: who'd been raised by a single mother and was struggling

699
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:12,799
Speaker 1: with you know, economic shame. You would just never say

700
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 1: this ship, So why would you do it online? And

701
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 1: I fall into that trap. I get angry at people,

702
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: and I respond the easiest way to live your life?

703
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 1: I think, are there are good? I give a lot

704
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:24,239
Speaker 1: of advice to your dad's try and be the man

705
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:27,319
Speaker 1: your kids think you are, especially your young kids. My

706
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 1: thirteen year old kind of figuring out who I am, unfortunately,

707
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 1: but my ten year old still a lot of evidence

708
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, my ten year old still thinks I'm

709
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 1: the bomb. Unfortunately, they have Google and they're finding ship

710
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:39,360
Speaker 1: on me and the like, oh God, Dad did this?

711
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:44,439
Speaker 1: You have been really gracious with your time. I want

712
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,240
Speaker 1: to thank you for being here with me. Scott Galloway,

713
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: good luck with everything, all the journeys. You're wrong and

714
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,760
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you. Yeah. Likewise, brother, congrats on your success.

715
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:02,760
Speaker 1: Here's the thing that optimistic Baritune Day who went dorm

716
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 1: to dorm connecting his classmates to the Internet. He's still

717
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:09,799
Speaker 1: with me. I believe there's more to the story than

718
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:17,800
Speaker 1: vaccine disinformation, mental health crises, and hyper concentrated wealth. This season,

719
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be speaking with ten different people who are

720
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 1: redefining tech. They've built systems that reward consensus, create safe

721
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 1: online spaces for l g B, t q I A

722
00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 1: plus communities, and use games to combat misinformation. It's easy

723
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 1: to get bogged down by all the negativity surrounding tech,

724
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:42,839
Speaker 1: but it's exciting to think about the possibilities. As I

725
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:47,719
Speaker 1: wrote in my tech Manifesto, the promise of the Internet

726
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:51,080
Speaker 1: isn't that a few centralized powers will do everything for us.

727
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:54,800
Speaker 1: That's the old world and we shouldn't try to recreate it.

728
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:59,359
Speaker 1: Imagine if we used our collective data to help us

729
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:04,279
Speaker 1: be better than neighbors, partners, artists, citizens, and humans, rather

730
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 1: than just better products to be auctioned off to the

731
00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:11,720
Speaker 1: highest bidder. Imagine two. If we could hold technology companies

732
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: accountable by demanding that they share power more equitably with

733
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 1: the people who use and enable their products and services.

734
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 1: Imagine it. Now, let's go building. I still believe in

735
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:29,919
Speaker 1: that vision because I've seen evidence that it's real. I've

736
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 1: used tools that empower us collectively, and I've met some

737
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: of the people building those tools. So now that we

738
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 1: know how we got here, let's find the people with

739
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:41,680
Speaker 1: the solutions to take us where we want to go,

740
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 1: the people making technology that helps us live together better,

741
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:49,840
Speaker 1: that helps us citizen. Next week we talked to co

742
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:53,480
Speaker 1: founder of New Public, Eli Pariser. I think this is

743
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:57,320
Speaker 1: the playbook for how we've moved through times of social

744
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: stress and social fracture in the past. Is like we've

745
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 1: invented new kinds of organizations, new kinds of institutions, public libraries,

746
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 1: or a thing that we're invented. Hear it, How do citizen,

747
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 1: We're committed to giving you things to do beyond listening

748
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,560
Speaker 1: to me, talk to somebody We're building an entire universe

749
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:25,040
Speaker 1: of citizen action over at our new website, how to

750
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: citizen dot com. For this episode, I'm gonna give you

751
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 1: three types of things you can do. First, feeds and feelings.

752
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 1: I want you to take a moment and reflect on

753
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:40,880
Speaker 1: your various social media feeds. If your Facebook or Instagram

754
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: or TikTok had a personality, what would it be and

755
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 1: how would you describe it? Is it sassy with a

756
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:50,879
Speaker 1: little bit of inspiration? Is it gossipy and entertaining? Does

757
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: it just make you sad? How do those feeds make

758
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: you feel? Once you thought about that, consider training the algorithm.

759
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 1: Selecting accounts and content that makes you feel good, that

760
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 1: pushes you forward rather than drags you down. This small

761
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 1: act could have a mighty impact on your mental and

762
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:15,839
Speaker 1: emotional well being. The second category of action, check out

763
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:19,279
Speaker 1: my digital manifesto. Yes, I wrote this thing for you,

764
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 1: and I'd love you to check it out. It's available

765
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:23,920
Speaker 1: via link in the show notes, and there's even an

766
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 1: open source Google doc version that you can contribute to.

767
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 1: I am open to expansion, modification, uh and criticism, So

768
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 1: share your thoughts on this and I'll share some of

769
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:40,720
Speaker 1: your feedback on my own social channels. Lastly, let's ensure

770
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: the regulation of big tech. We talked about it a

771
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: lot in this episode, and there are several grassroots efforts

772
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:51,080
Speaker 1: already underway that you can lend your voice, your skills,

773
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:54,399
Speaker 1: maybe some of your money to. Check out Freedom from

774
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 1: Facebook and Google dot Com, Athena for All dot org,

775
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:00,880
Speaker 1: which is working to free us from Amazon, which we

776
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 1: probably all need, and the Economic Liberties Project dot US.

777
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 1: You don't have to memorize all this stuff. We have

778
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:11,680
Speaker 1: a whole website with this and more. Visit how to

779
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:15,879
Speaker 1: Citizen dot com and follow us on Instagram, Join with

780
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:19,120
Speaker 1: us and others on the journey becaus the Internet doesn't

781
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 1: have to be terrible. Hashtag how to Citizen See you later.

782
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: How To Citizen with barrettun Day is a production of

783
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio Podcasts and dust Light Productions. Our executive

784
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:35,160
Speaker 1: producers are Me Barretton Bay Thurston, Elizabeth Stewart, and Misha Yusa.

785
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:39,359
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Tamika Adams. Our producer is Ali Kilts,

786
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 1: and our assistant producer Sam Paulson. Stephanie Cohne is our editor.

787
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 1: Valentino Rivera is our senior engineer and Matthew Laie as

788
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:51,320
Speaker 1: our Apprentice. Original music by Andrew Eapen, with additional original

789
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 1: music for season three from Andrew Clauson. This episode was

790
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 1: produced and sound designed by Ali Kilts. Special thanks to

791
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:01,560
Speaker 1: Joel Smith from My Heart Radio and Rachel Garcia at

792
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:02,400
Speaker 1: Dustlight Production