1/ I just finished reading Zucked by @Moonalice. If you haven't been paying attention to @facebook's incessant fuckery, McNamee's book may be for you.
But, it wasn't for me.
And, I want to talk about why.https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/598206/zucked-by-roger-mcnamee/ …
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3/ My post-defense goal was to mount a direct attack against them by building alternatives. I wanted to design something that could *never* concentrate as much wealth and power as they enjoy, while stripping it away from them, too. https://twitter.com/impcapital/status/1108437861559230464 …
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4/ I have ideas to do so. And, I'll slowly be sharing them. But, having had a lot of conversations with smart and sincere people in SV since moving here (and on twitter), I think doing so is a fool's errand, staring me as the hapless oaf.pic.twitter.com/KDN5l2yQPP
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5/ I, by myself, cannot do it. It's arrogant at best to think I can. Sometimes my desire to play the hero deludes me to thinking otherwise. But there is a near-literal empire of resources and very smart people ready to resist all challengers.pic.twitter.com/TxktwmBzH1
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6/ Therefore, at a minimum, I have to join other people who want what I want. Which brings me closer to the point of this long-winded thread: I didn't like *Roger McNamee* while reading Zucked.
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7/ The entire time I was reading his book, I kept thinking, "this reads like a misdirected mea culpa from a VC/angel technologist who suddenly saw the horror of Frankenstein's connectivity monster."
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8/ But, his book wasn't biography. And I know nothing about him. He may be sincere; or, he may be soothing his ego and washing his reputation. In either case, he and I obviously share a big goal — possibly even life's work.
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9/ So, why did I read the entire book through a motive-skeptical lens? Group-script snobbery rendered reliable (in part) by the endless social posturing. A pretty ironic mistake for me to make.
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10/ I like to imagine myself apart from most of SV tech people. I'm not a definite optimist nor an indefinite one. I am not a definite pessimist nor an indefinite one.pic.twitter.com/uUB9z8jlJJ
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11/ I like Joseph Weizenbaum a lot and believe in a health respect for technology. I don't believe sociological problems can be solved with technological solutions. ...but, I also believe incentives matter and technology is a factory for those.pic.twitter.com/RjrKoqfHEH
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12/ This set of beliefs doesn't have a large intersection with the VC/TechBro stereotype. But, I've been here for a year and it's been easy to meet up with people with similar beliefs. (HMU if you're one of them.)
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13/ That's not to say the greed-is-good-in-tech-as-well crowd is absent. They're just not as overwhelming as the salience of inflated and chronically-accessible stereotypes suggest.
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13/ The conclusion to this long, rambling thread? Stereotypes and the fundamental attribution error conspire to frustrate what I hope to accomplish. By myself, I'm a puny force; working with others, I can exert more of it.pic.twitter.com/hnkgqJj736
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14/ Collaboration is harder when your answers to "can someone change?" or "do they have an ulterior motive?" dominates. Skepticism is always warranted. But the benefit of doubt helps bootstrap trust. And everything I want to build revolves around fostering more of it.
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End of conversation
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