Put me down as somebody who is now not feeling sorry at all for these entitled clowns who greatly overestimate smarts and skill vs. luck. And F--- you, @jack, especially: Cathy O'Neal: Mark Zuckerberg Is Totally Out of His Depth: "I might be the only person on Earth feeling sorry for the big boys of technology. Jack Dorsey from Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, all those Google nerds: They’re monumentally screwed, because they have no idea how to tame the monsters they have created...
....These guys... were arbitrarily chosen... some good ideas, some luck, great timing, got lots of people to believe in their rosy vision, and they won the unicorn lottery. Little did they know or care what problems they were creating. And now, they’re being asked to solve—or acknowledge, or something—some really big issues, such as what to do about people who use their platforms to meddle in elections or spread lies, paranoia, bigotry and straight-up hate. The world expects great things of them, because they’re supposed to be geniuses. Problem is, they’re not. There’s nothing they can do except apologize, turn off their big machines and walk away. I doubt they’ll do that. Instead, they’re manufacturing baloney explanations....
When you make your inconsistent policies public, it gets much harder to dodge responsibility for stuff like fomenting genocide. Also, those problems suddenly seem much more up close and real. Your investors, who had pretty high hopes for your future profits, will get disappointed. Maybe time to pair up with a bank? So, back to my sympathy. These boys are all super rich, so it’s limited. But I’m imagining being their mom, feeling for them. They all started out wanting to make the world a better place using cool technology, and here they are, dealing with all of this democracy and public responsibility stuff, which they never signed up for and honestly don’t have the chops to handle. As their fictional mom, I’d like to offer some advice. Retire, step aside. Maybe find a new hobby. Ask someone smarter and more educated, thoughtful, and civic-minded to decide on the future of your companies.
#shouldread
