Well, that was a bleak introduction to Year II of trump 2.0...not only are the technogarchs strengthening their hold over captive audiences here at home, but — with trump's help — battering down defenses in the EU, in the latter's attempt to hold these wretched monopolies to account.
It only will get worse before it even attempts to get better.
We are going in to the New Year with fascists in charge, billionaires running the show. There’s so many people not paying attention while they rob us blind.
I was disappointed that Gregory Warner cast you as a conspiracy theorist. He did so in a sleight of hand editorial way- basically acknowledging you while causally dismissing your concerns as a stepping stone to elucidate his own. It was an intellectual feint that felt like a cheap shot. Though the series as a whole has a great deal of merit, it was lessened by that opening move, IMHO. For someone who finds great insight in your ongoing work, that editorial choice diminished trust with its intended listeners who are your readers. It is frustrating to those of us that wish there were more discussion around the issues you consistently bring light to. You are, at present, a one man powerhouse of analytical fury bringing moral outrage fueled with industry and technical insight that gives your judgments immense power. No one is synthesizing the consolidation of the tech innovation/infrastructure with the ongoing democratic degradation in our constitutional republic as it is driven by the philosophy of those opposing spheres of influence. That lack of understanding on the part of the public is allowing them to continue to meld into a techno-authoritarian system of governance and capital dominance. The Last Invention podcast - for all the ground it covered and conversations it had with foundational characters- seemed stuck inside the looking glass. Real power is being consolidated and exercised in our immediate moment. They understandably were looking to the approaching horizon of immense societal change, but did so while ignoring the very real threat that is happening in the day to day. That is where they would have benefited from your work, but chose to dismiss you instead. Regardless, I continue to read your work and share it with those that I hope would read it.
One of the most sickening things is that Andreessen and his ilk KNOW that Trump is a fool, and that this is perfect. They NEED someone who hasn’t a clue what they are doing but who actually believes he is the smart one.
Your ability to not only see what is happening, seemingly on the surface, but to deeply understand the implications, is what is so helpful Mike. Thank you again.
Thank you for this Mike. In my opinion you have put your finger on it. The real problem in the "AI" debate is not so much the technology, but that the hyperscalers and frontier models are largely controlled by techno-fascists who celebrate their predation of humanity.
If I may add to the conversation, I believe there is an opportunity that techno-fascist AI boosters and catastrophizing AI ditzers are ideologically blind to.
Remember when IBM was king and there was no such thing as a personal computer, only servers and workstations?
... then the Commodore booting from a cassette tape followed by the TRS-80 booting from a floppy disc came out, and something started to change - the technology started to democratize.
That's where I think we are now with the DGX Spark and open source/weight models. Access to emerging "AI" technologies are no longer dependent on frontier models or hyperscalers. The need to surrender pieces of your soul to the broligarchy for access to "AI" technology can be disrupted now.
Your first paragraph exactly. I would say I'm an optimistic futurist. AI is likely to be a boon to my field where pattern recognition is crucial. I just don't trust the people who are controlling it.
The “spheres of influence” concept is becoming alarmingly clear every day. Andreesen, Yarvin, Srinivasan, all the anti-Democratic broligarchs will pay for a weak leader they can control by rewarding him with riches made on the backs of citizens. Their wealth for our freedom. And they dare to sell themselves as altruists.
And this is the douchebag who Substack took $100 million in vulture capital from. What could possibly go wrong? Billionaires need to be eliminated either by taxation or any other means. Period.
The Sand Hill Rd of Don Valentine and Arthur Rock is no more. Where once strode these VC godfathers - who encouraged, disciplined, funded, and mentored the founders of such companies as Fairchild Semi, National Semi, Intel, Apple, Cisco, Oracle, and Nvidia, who helped these founders scale their inventions into tech behemoths - now strides Marc Andreessen (MA was born around the time Valentine started Sequoia) of a16z.
Whereas Valentine and Rock practiced a VC-ism grounded in robust free market capitalism and which operated within the parameters of democratic pluralism and its attendant constraints, MA aspires to practice a VC-ism where his investments in extractive tech are unfettered and unrestrained by our slow dirty democratic chaos, are protected by authoritarian cronyism from the vicissitudes of public regulation. As if human “progress” is tantamount to the market share and capitalization of a16z’s investments, to its ROI, to the number of its unicorns. The question I keep asking myself is “how did MA come to this inflection point? To where he believed the good of his investments exceeds the good of our democracy?”
Attorney Larry Sonsini, the Valley’s preeminent tech attorney who cofounded the Palo Alto law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in the 1970’s, represented many of the startups funded by Valentine and Rock and has also been a venture investor through WS Investments. He lawyered some of Silicon Valley’s most notable IPOs and has been a powerful voice for the public’s corporate ownership and investment participation. He has said more than once that the purpose of tech commercialization, the essence of Sand Hill Rd’s VC-ism, is to lead to better lives for humanity. Attorney Craig Johnson, another preeminent tech attorney who nurtured countless startups and left WSG&R in the 1990’s to found The Venture Law Group on Sand Hill Rd, was also a serial entrepreneur who later started several other ventures, including Concept2Company Ventures, which coached and funded entrepreneurs. Craig was a Peace Corp volunteer out of college who believed in “giving back” and who was also a powerful and persuasive advocate for the mutually beneficial relationships that he nurtured, both within his own law practices and his other ventures and within the startups he represented.
What would Messrs. Sonsini and Johnson think of MA’s corporate feudalism, of his protective authoritarian cronyism, of a Curtis Yarvin worldview where a few elite tech overlords extract our metrics to surveil, manipulate, control and dominate us - even as we pay them for the privilege - while our govt sits idly by and looks away, unwilling and powerless to protect us from tech predation?
I suspect they’d see MA and his a16z worldview as an epitaph, a coda, for the Sand Hill Rd they helped to create…
Great work, Mike. This piece speaks of control through enrollment. What about the anti-vax/anti-science crowd? That crowd revolts against government control, too, but the anti-vax folks think like luddites, not retail investors in big tech innovations. So government control processes are being shredded by both the big tech retail investors on the high-middle side of the socio-economic spectrum, and by the “low information” crowd that tends to occupy the low ends of that spectrum.
The % of the human species that consciously recognizes the need for connection/meaning is, granted, a significant minority (15-20%?), but nowhere near the level required for fundamental change. And the usurpation of democratic institutions has been in process/progress for many years. My question concerns the most effective manner in which to “raise the consciousness” of more folks and reform the political system to strengthen democratic constraint for the benefit of the people. I agree with other commenters that the situation will worsen before it improves. As you mentioned, we humans have a high tolerance for the sufferable. Yet, like you, I am optimistic that there is a threshold beyond which that suffering will become unacceptable and recovery/repair will ensue. Forever hopeful
“Any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder.”
This is just Roko's Basilisk argumentation repackaged, or, "Imagine a boot so big that logically we must start licking it now in case it might possibly exist someday."
Well, that was a bleak introduction to Year II of trump 2.0...not only are the technogarchs strengthening their hold over captive audiences here at home, but — with trump's help — battering down defenses in the EU, in the latter's attempt to hold these wretched monopolies to account.
It only will get worse before it even attempts to get better.
We are going in to the New Year with fascists in charge, billionaires running the show. There’s so many people not paying attention while they rob us blind.
I was disappointed that Gregory Warner cast you as a conspiracy theorist. He did so in a sleight of hand editorial way- basically acknowledging you while causally dismissing your concerns as a stepping stone to elucidate his own. It was an intellectual feint that felt like a cheap shot. Though the series as a whole has a great deal of merit, it was lessened by that opening move, IMHO. For someone who finds great insight in your ongoing work, that editorial choice diminished trust with its intended listeners who are your readers. It is frustrating to those of us that wish there were more discussion around the issues you consistently bring light to. You are, at present, a one man powerhouse of analytical fury bringing moral outrage fueled with industry and technical insight that gives your judgments immense power. No one is synthesizing the consolidation of the tech innovation/infrastructure with the ongoing democratic degradation in our constitutional republic as it is driven by the philosophy of those opposing spheres of influence. That lack of understanding on the part of the public is allowing them to continue to meld into a techno-authoritarian system of governance and capital dominance. The Last Invention podcast - for all the ground it covered and conversations it had with foundational characters- seemed stuck inside the looking glass. Real power is being consolidated and exercised in our immediate moment. They understandably were looking to the approaching horizon of immense societal change, but did so while ignoring the very real threat that is happening in the day to day. That is where they would have benefited from your work, but chose to dismiss you instead. Regardless, I continue to read your work and share it with those that I hope would read it.
Unfortunately Mike for Andreesen Trump is Caligula not Julius 😂
Covfigula.
One of the most sickening things is that Andreessen and his ilk KNOW that Trump is a fool, and that this is perfect. They NEED someone who hasn’t a clue what they are doing but who actually believes he is the smart one.
Andreessen et Al are counting on J.D. Vance to carry this vision through.
The thing these idiots all fail to grasp is the only reason Trump has gotten so far is Charisma and Vance has none.
Your ability to not only see what is happening, seemingly on the surface, but to deeply understand the implications, is what is so helpful Mike. Thank you again.
Thank you for this, Mike
Thank you for this Mike. In my opinion you have put your finger on it. The real problem in the "AI" debate is not so much the technology, but that the hyperscalers and frontier models are largely controlled by techno-fascists who celebrate their predation of humanity.
If I may add to the conversation, I believe there is an opportunity that techno-fascist AI boosters and catastrophizing AI ditzers are ideologically blind to.
Remember when IBM was king and there was no such thing as a personal computer, only servers and workstations?
... then the Commodore booting from a cassette tape followed by the TRS-80 booting from a floppy disc came out, and something started to change - the technology started to democratize.
That's where I think we are now with the DGX Spark and open source/weight models. Access to emerging "AI" technologies are no longer dependent on frontier models or hyperscalers. The need to surrender pieces of your soul to the broligarchy for access to "AI" technology can be disrupted now.
Your first paragraph exactly. I would say I'm an optimistic futurist. AI is likely to be a boon to my field where pattern recognition is crucial. I just don't trust the people who are controlling it.
The “spheres of influence” concept is becoming alarmingly clear every day. Andreesen, Yarvin, Srinivasan, all the anti-Democratic broligarchs will pay for a weak leader they can control by rewarding him with riches made on the backs of citizens. Their wealth for our freedom. And they dare to sell themselves as altruists.
And this is the douchebag who Substack took $100 million in vulture capital from. What could possibly go wrong? Billionaires need to be eliminated either by taxation or any other means. Period.
The Sand Hill Rd of Don Valentine and Arthur Rock is no more. Where once strode these VC godfathers - who encouraged, disciplined, funded, and mentored the founders of such companies as Fairchild Semi, National Semi, Intel, Apple, Cisco, Oracle, and Nvidia, who helped these founders scale their inventions into tech behemoths - now strides Marc Andreessen (MA was born around the time Valentine started Sequoia) of a16z.
Whereas Valentine and Rock practiced a VC-ism grounded in robust free market capitalism and which operated within the parameters of democratic pluralism and its attendant constraints, MA aspires to practice a VC-ism where his investments in extractive tech are unfettered and unrestrained by our slow dirty democratic chaos, are protected by authoritarian cronyism from the vicissitudes of public regulation. As if human “progress” is tantamount to the market share and capitalization of a16z’s investments, to its ROI, to the number of its unicorns. The question I keep asking myself is “how did MA come to this inflection point? To where he believed the good of his investments exceeds the good of our democracy?”
Attorney Larry Sonsini, the Valley’s preeminent tech attorney who cofounded the Palo Alto law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in the 1970’s, represented many of the startups funded by Valentine and Rock and has also been a venture investor through WS Investments. He lawyered some of Silicon Valley’s most notable IPOs and has been a powerful voice for the public’s corporate ownership and investment participation. He has said more than once that the purpose of tech commercialization, the essence of Sand Hill Rd’s VC-ism, is to lead to better lives for humanity. Attorney Craig Johnson, another preeminent tech attorney who nurtured countless startups and left WSG&R in the 1990’s to found The Venture Law Group on Sand Hill Rd, was also a serial entrepreneur who later started several other ventures, including Concept2Company Ventures, which coached and funded entrepreneurs. Craig was a Peace Corp volunteer out of college who believed in “giving back” and who was also a powerful and persuasive advocate for the mutually beneficial relationships that he nurtured, both within his own law practices and his other ventures and within the startups he represented.
What would Messrs. Sonsini and Johnson think of MA’s corporate feudalism, of his protective authoritarian cronyism, of a Curtis Yarvin worldview where a few elite tech overlords extract our metrics to surveil, manipulate, control and dominate us - even as we pay them for the privilege - while our govt sits idly by and looks away, unwilling and powerless to protect us from tech predation?
I suspect they’d see MA and his a16z worldview as an epitaph, a coda, for the Sand Hill Rd they helped to create…
Great work, Mike. This piece speaks of control through enrollment. What about the anti-vax/anti-science crowd? That crowd revolts against government control, too, but the anti-vax folks think like luddites, not retail investors in big tech innovations. So government control processes are being shredded by both the big tech retail investors on the high-middle side of the socio-economic spectrum, and by the “low information” crowd that tends to occupy the low ends of that spectrum.
The % of the human species that consciously recognizes the need for connection/meaning is, granted, a significant minority (15-20%?), but nowhere near the level required for fundamental change. And the usurpation of democratic institutions has been in process/progress for many years. My question concerns the most effective manner in which to “raise the consciousness” of more folks and reform the political system to strengthen democratic constraint for the benefit of the people. I agree with other commenters that the situation will worsen before it improves. As you mentioned, we humans have a high tolerance for the sufferable. Yet, like you, I am optimistic that there is a threshold beyond which that suffering will become unacceptable and recovery/repair will ensue. Forever hopeful
Hey, great read as always. You realy nailed how that 'builders' trajectory went sideways. What do you think is the critical path forward?
“Any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder.”
This is just Roko's Basilisk argumentation repackaged, or, "Imagine a boot so big that logically we must start licking it now in case it might possibly exist someday."
The heat was turned higher under the 🐸 pot with the advent of TV. We are nearing a rolling boil.
As usual, I find your writing, your explication, remarkable. Thank you.