DailyBeast: > "A decade ago these guys—and they are mostly guys—were folk heroes, and for > many people, they remain so. They represented everything traditional > business, from Wall Street and Hollywood to the auto industry, in their > pursuit of sure profits and golden parachutes, was not—hip, daring, > risk-taking folk seeking to change the world for the better. > > Now from San Francisco to Washington and Brussels, the tech oligarchs are > something less attractive: a fearsome threat whose ambitions to control our > future politics, media, and commerce seem without limits. Amazon, Google, > Facebook, Netflix, and Uber may be improving our lives in many ways, but they > also are disrupting old industries—and the lives of the many thousands of > people employed by them. And as the tech boom has expanded, these individuals > and companies have gathered economic resources to match their ambitions. > > And as their fortunes have ballooned, so has their hubris. They see > themselves as somehow better than the scum of Wall Street or the trolls in > Houston or Detroit. It's their intelligence, not just their money, that makes > them the proper global rulers. In their contempt for the less cognitively > gifted, they are waging what The Atlantic recently called "a war on stupid > people."
In full: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/11/today-s-tech-oligarchs-are-worse-than-the-robber-barons.html The guys (again, almost all men) who came before THEM are my folk heroes. They were closer to hippies (Some WERE! Stewart Brand of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Whole Earth Catalog, and then The Well, one of the very first Internet communities). The OGs were more like hobbyists. They WERE hobbyists. Forced out by the 'suits'. You'll note that after they were all gone, no new ideas in computer development. Just 'polishing the apple', miniaturization, speed and flashier graphics. The people discussed here are the 'moneymen' who eventually drove that element out. Unfortunately they're totalitarian authoritarian and libertarian, and they will NEVER leave unless they destroy their creations. Not a decent coder in the batch either. Steve Jobs was a glorified Marketing Engineer with hipster charisma. That's all it takes... Schmooze ... and as seen with ioerror, lying and cutthroating for personal advantage. Selah. Rr
