Talk a little bit about your discussion of AT&T in the book.
In the 1910s, AT&T promised the American public that they would do no evil. Their president, Theodore Vail, turned to the government and the American public and he said we are a public utility and our duty is to the American people before profit. In there was the grand bargain that we keep making between the great information monopolists and the American nation. AT&T was the 1910 counterpart to Google’s pledge to do no evil.
When did AT&T become “evil”?
Most monopolists create a golden age that lasts a decade or more, and then slowly they became more interested in being in power. AT&T became dangerous when they began to suppress technologies that might threaten their rule.
Which technologies did AT&T suppress?
In the book I tell the story of tape recording technology, which AT&T itself invented in the late 1920s, and then suppressed because they believed that the recording technology would lead to the abandonment of the telephone.
Do the technology monopolies surrounding the Internet look different than the past?
The question is whether there is something about the Internet that is fundamentally different, or about these times that is intrinsically more dynamic, that we don’t repeat the past. I know the Internet was designed to resist integration, designed to resist centralized control, and that design defeated firms like AOL and Time Warner. But firms today, like Apple, make it unclear if the Internet is something lasting or just another cycle.
What do you think will happen?
My gut tells me that a return to 1950s prime time seems outlandish, but I can imagine a future where we have choices but something will be lost.
Which companies do you fear the most?
Right now, I’d have to say Apple.
What about Facebook?
I think Facebook is looking for a mentor, they are looking for a role model. Right now it is choosing between Apple and Google in this great war between open and closed. It is possible that whatever side Facebook takes will have a lot to do with the future of how we communicate.
What worries you about Apple?
As I discuss in the book, Steve Jobs has the charisma, vision and instincts of every great information emperor. The man who helped create the personal computer 40 years ago is probably the leading candidate to help exterminate it. His vision has an undeniable appeal, but he wants too much control.
Is this book about business or power?
I write about business in the way that writers have traditionally written about war. I’m interested in the quest for dominance, in industrial warfare. I believe that capitalism, by its nature, is about conflict, and ultimately the life and death of firms.
So what makes Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg get up in the morning?
Joseph Schumpeter, the famous economist, wrote about a special breed of men who are motivated not by money or comfort, but the will to found a private kingdom. The men in my book are motivated by power, and the information industries offer possibilities unavailable to people who sell orange juice or rubber boots, a power over people’s minds.
Do these C.E.O.’s make decisions that aren’t in the best interest of the public?
As I show in the book, there’s a similarity to power and great nations. The man who starts as the great reformer often ends his career by becoming increasingly paranoid and abusive. There’s a cycle, and the problems usually shows up when the great leader feels his power is threatened, like a political leader.
What part of these “evil” acts are the C.E.O.’s and what part are the employees?
I think the mogul makes the medium, but it’s also true that once a firm has been in existence long enough, it begins to have a life of its own.
Do you think that will apply to Apple?
Yes.
But who will take over it from Steve Jobs?
I think it may not matter. I think the mark of Steve Jobs is firmly placed on that firm, that it will continue to be him long after he passes from leadership.
As you probably know, Matt Taibbi has a new book out, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America. Within it, Taibbi moves from his established gig reporting on the weirdness that is modern American poltical campaigning…
... Being in the building with Palin that night [of her acceptance speech for the VP nomination] is a transformative and oddly unsettling experience. It’s a little like having live cave-level access for the ripping-the-heart-out-with-the-bare-hands scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. A scary-as-hell situation: thousands of pudgy Midwestern conservatives worshipping at the Altar of the Economic Producer, led by a charismatic arch-priestess letting loose a grade-A war cry. The clear subtext of Palin’s speechi is this: other politicians only talk about fighting these assholes. I actually will.
Palin is talking to voters whose country is despised internationally, no longer an industrial manufacturing power, fast becoming an economic vassal to the Chinese and the Saudis, and just a week away from an almost-total financial collapes. Nobody here is likely to genuinely believe a speech that promises better things.
But cultural civil war, you have that no matter how broke you are. And if you want that I, Sarah Palin, can give it to you. It’s a powerful, galvanizing speech, but the strange thing about it is its seeming lack of electoral calculation. It’s a transparent attempt to massmarket militancy and frustration, consolidate the group identity of an aggrieved demographic, and work that crowd up into a lather. This represents a further degrading of the already degraded electoral process. Now, not only are the long-term results of elections irrelevant, but for a new set of players like Palin, the outcome of the election itself is irrelevant. This speech wasn’t designed to win a general election, it was designed to introduce a new celebrity, a make-believe servant of the people so phony that later in her new career she will not even bother to hold an elective office.
The speech was a tremendous success.
... to a thorough, even obsessive, discussion of the new finance-based reality:
Our world isn’t about ideology anymore. It’s about complexity. We live in a complex bureaucratic state with complex laws and complex business practices, and the few organizations with the corporate willpower to master these complexities will inevitably own the political power.
Amazon’s currently advertising Griftopia for half off the cover price, and if you order through the link in the right-hand column, I understand you’ll be adding a couple pennies to Tunch’s personal catfood commission. If the Amazon teaser isn’t enough for you, Rolling Stone has an excerpt on “how our cash-strapped country is auctioning off its highways, ports and even parking meters at fire sale prices.”
The witty and foul-mouthed TBogg will be leading an online discussion of Griftopia at the FDL Book Salon on Saturday afternoon, November 27. If you are a faster typist than I, there should be some excellent back-and-forth shared there.
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Yes! We´re totes excited for this! Dolly Parton made the official announcement on her website today that she is planning not only a brand new album full of brand new music, but a worldwide...
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Does anyone know if this animation, or any of these CGI clips from NMA.tv, actually appeared on TV news in Taiwan? Because their website seems more like it's mostly an online thing - I would love to see video of this actually being ...
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alpine payment systems scam
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Yes! We´re totes excited for this! Dolly Parton made the official announcement on her website today that she is planning not only a brand new album full of brand new music, but a worldwide...
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Does anyone know if this animation, or any of these CGI clips from NMA.tv, actually appeared on TV news in Taiwan? Because their website seems more like it's mostly an online thing - I would love to see video of this actually being ...
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