'VC qanon' and the radicalization of the tech tycoons

Anil writes briefly about the nature of billionaires and tech venture capitalists from his experience around them. Folks who seem to imagine themselves as the new Rockfellers and the ilk, with near-full control over industry and policy when it comes to tech. Tech, both as a concept and an identity (to some), effectively moves to their whim. He concludes mentioning his faith in those working outside of this insular realm to help counteract their actions.

I'd believe one of those forms of action to be in the form of collective organizing: where workers recognize and pool their labor-power to both reign in power and reclaim it from those who control our ability to support ourselves. However, it's important to peek a bit closer at what this means. The once-glamor child of the tech industry and social networking space, Jack Dorsey, has taken a pretty hard turn towards the right. He's gone from attempting to help foster the open social Web with some initial funding for BlueSky but now has become the silent and invisible contender in the space of cryptocurrency work under the moniker, TBD. Quite annoying to search. I do believe that solely focusing on these people, the VC QAnon, is doing the same amount of unncessary narrowing of focus as we saw with Donald Trump and focusing solely on him as the source of American issues.

We need to be more honest and broaden our understanding of why this industry is so easily capable of producing people like this. It's not because money corrupts. One of the reasons is that it's extremely profitable to work against the needs of people. A prime example of this shows up in Malcolm Harris' Palo Alto; a working history in the development of the "Silicon Valley" as he recounts how tech is yet the expansion of how this country demands production at the cost of people here and abroad. As Netscape grew, computer manufactures worked with state governments for fast track access to handle the fabrication of the personal computers and ship it back to the United States at a premium to citizens. This is now the model used by every company: from Apple to Samsung, as described in Dying for an iPhone.

Yes, these former nerds now billionaires are on one and the systems we use everyday that we are committed to upholding further entrench their power. That's as long as we allow it to. Reclaiming control of our lives can take on many forms, from labor organizing to progressive lobbying to direct action. But we can't keep it as just the off-shoot of a few folks wanting control over everyone else. We also live on this planet — on this Web.