Cullen argues that Silicon Valley is not your friend and his new book The know it alls he argues that Silicon Valley's vision for society is harrowing libertarian and often cruel it's one where each of us and the words of Linked In's founder Reid Hoffman is a start up of you struggling and a hyper competitive market without the protection of unions government regulations social welfare programs or all too often even basic decency So how do we reach this place and such a short amount of time do you agree with numb Cullen and how can we take back from tech back from radical individual ism and make it more democratic and inclusive join us after the news. B.b.c. News with Su Montgomery polls are closing in Liberia where people have been voting in a runoff election for a new president off to cost him his vote the former international football star George Weah told reporters he was confident he would win but I'm not associated that with reason to do this. They said it was I'm going away with the work out can I when I go yeah his rival the current vice president Joseph book I said the electoral process was working to get rid of a car just transferred to Madras or Abbey and I was never going to leave Yeah as I would go now to serve my country a b.b.c. Correspondent in Monrovia says turnout has been low the Russian president Vladimir Putin has been formally nominated to stand for reelection in March for what will be his 4th term the nomination will be approved by Russia's electoral commission which on Monday rule definitively that a fraud conviction disqualified Mr Putin's only credible opponent Alexina Vonnie said Rainsford reports that he may Putin is so confident of winning this election he didn't even turn up to his nomination rally the Kremlin says he was otherwise engaged in today's t.v. . The images included him surrounded by smiling children at a New Year's party now the popular opposition politician Alex in a valley has been barred from running against him Vladimir Putin faces no serious rivals in the presidential race instead Mr lavani has called for a mass boycott of the whole process to undermine its legitimacy Mr Putin won't be too worried unless that and any street protests really grow a former president of Peru's Football Federation has been found not guilty of racketeering and conspiracy by u.s. Jury in New York man Wilberger have been accused of taking bribes in return for awarding broadcasting rights for international football tournament he is our America that attorney to Russia mano Borger is one of $42.00 people charged by u.s. Prosecutors in 2015 after a long investigation it took a Russian at the heart of fee for world's football governing body he was accused of taking bribes as president of the Peruvian Federation to award media companies broadcasting contracts for top football tournaments the jury acquitted Mr Borger after coming to the conclusion that even though he agreed to receive bribes he couldn't take the money because he was on the reverse a geisha in Peru for money laundering the former president of Peru Alberto Fujimori has asked Peruvians to forgive him 2 days after the current head of state pardoned him over corruption and human rights abuses in an Internet video filmed in hospital Mr Fujimori thanked President publicly ski acknowledging that he had let people down when in power nearly 2 decades ago riots broke out in Brewer on Monday after news of the pardon emerged world news from the b.b.c. . The Syrian military has confirmed reports that one of its warplanes it's been shot down and the pilot killed earlier rebels said they'd hit a jet flying over the north of the province of Hama there have been reports of dozens of civilians being killed in raids in recent weeks Activists say 20 people have died in the past 24 hours a loon in parts of rebel held it live province which lies just north of Hama police in Bangladesh say they have arrested Dunn atheist blogger on charges of insulting Islam South Asia editor and brought us an ad to Rajon reports police accuse others are more note of hurting religious feeling on this You Tube channel by mocking the Prophet Mohammad hundreds of Muslims staged demonstrations against Mr Noor earlier this year in southern Bangladesh Mr Noor went into hiding after a local Islamist leader filed a complaint against him is expected to be charged under the country's strict Internet laws and could face up to 14 years in jail if found guilty rights groups have accused the government of suppressing dissent and targeting eighty's to bloggers we have used to social media to criticize religion protesters and possible have hung hundreds of neckties on the railings outside the government building in the capital Prishtina in response to the Prime Minister's justification for doubling his own salary rushed to deny a former guerrilla commander sparked both rage on ridicule when he said he needed the extra money for clothes as he was obliged to wear a tie at work Mr Howard Dean $9.00 Arens around $3500.00 a month 10 times the average monthly salary the top them hots for around England footballer hurricane is set a record for the most goof schooled in England's Premier League in a calendar year his hat trick in a $52.00 victory over Southampton his 2nd in a week took him to 39 goals this year b.b.c. News. Well come and this is your call over the last 25 years the Internet and technology have revolutionized the world our personal and professional lives have become dependent on companies like Facebook Google and Amazon it is incredibly difficult to disconnect the original concept for the web was created by a physicist named Tim Berners Lee back in 1909 and at that time he envisioned a Democratic Web that would promote autonomy and collaboration but instead the Web pivoted toward the corporate version we know today and his new book The know it alls today's guest Noam Cohen chronicles the political rise of Silicon Valley from its early developers to the multibillionaires shaping the Internet today he shows how radical individual ism has gone mainstream and he profiles a handful of tech oligarchy ruling so many of our lives he argues that Silicon Valley is a vision for society as libertarian and often very cruel it's one where each of us and the words of Linked In's founder Reid Hoffman is a start up of you struggling and a hyper competitive market without the protection of unions government regulations social programmes are all too often even basic decency known Cohen covered the influence of the Internet on the larger culture as a tech columnist for The New York Times and now Cohen joins me in studio Hi now welcome to the shells we're glad to be it's great to have you what struck me about your book is there's so few critiques of Silicon Valley I mean I get the San Francisco Chronicle and almost on a daily basis the business section is talking about driverless cars of the 10 companies to watch Why do you think there are so few critiques of silicon. I think we're talking about people love the services right and it is a tricky thing that you know we're talking about how helpful these services are and how in general these are great goods that you're getting and I think people don't see the negative right and it's kind of like they've been coming up more and more I think these days is kind of like the robber baron era where you don't see the you know a call the extra now is the pollution let's call it that's being caused by these great. Things are good that you're getting that So if she mails giving you a free service I use it we were talking about on Facebook Live Now another service we're not paying for it right so but the costs are coming to all of society I think that's kind of it's been hidden from people until lately and I do think this is the kind of influence of the election is changing things a bit maybe not so much here but I think around the country I was looking at hearings in Washington d.c. That they are much more criticism of what's going on many more questions but I think in general the costs have been hidden and the benefits have been really well advertise you started writing a column for The New York Times about these issues in 2007 talk about how your opinions about Silicon Valley have been shaped over here so I always I wrote the business section I would rarely write about businesses it was always kind of odd I would write about Wikipedia was a real personal obsession of mine I just couldn't believe this incredible source of knowledge was created by all these volunteers a kind of spoke to a lot of the kind of vision I have almost anarchic of people working together as a community I would go to these events around the world we'd meet the people behind what the p.d.n. Realizes which is very ordinary interesting people who are who are doing this thing for a greater good so they really spoke to me I was very my idealism and then of course it's harder to hide what's going on when you sort of see the tracking and I think like a lot of people it's like a train crash in slow motion you sort of you're I have g. Mail and you kind of realize that you know they're kind of reading your e-mail and giving you ads about it it's a little seems odd that they would say they're just reading a robots reading it but not them but little by little leaked and I have to sort of step back and see how how what effect are these companies having I guess I also want to notice is like a lot of us have that there's a real libertarian view that has become more acceptable what used to be a very fringe idea to think that we're all in it together like you said that to start a preview is suddenly considered a great thing you can be your own driver and you can just work by for yourself all the time it's like well the reasons why unions exist to give you protections the reasons why we band together we're not all out trying to become billionaires or. Live in poverty it's a really very dark vision and I did not like it so that's why I want to write this book I want to sort of stop back and be a critic because aren't many I was that was struck by that and one of the main points you make is that these tech companies that mostly men who run them are so focused on radical individual is them so it's all about you know we're going to change the world and you can do anything but as you write without the protection of unions without government regulations without social welfare programs and many cases without basic decency Yeah I think one thing that really. Was a real turning point for me in doing this book was reading this feminist philosopher kind of argue that libertarianism itself kind of requires devaluing women and that's not a coincidence that it's tech throws in that Texas Toure's that you kind of to be a libertarian truthfully you have to believe that you kind of arrived in the world fully formed and he weren't part of a family or the mother often raising and that you everything you made is yours alone I think that's kind of the fallacy that the Internet is kind of creating a whole new world where there's no racism and no sexism it's part of the whole attraction is very adolescent male adolescent I would say you see in the book I talk about how looking at kind of the adolescent attributes of these grown men who are into satisfying fantasy and and kind of dream of going to Mars and sort of wonder why you know why would you want to settle Mars when you know Earth the 5 Mars with the cold you know terrifying I know rather than actually make Earth it habitable so that was kind of turned out for me to realize that it's kind of the Fed. The massage to me is endemic and the racism is is going to be ignored because they believe they're creating a new world very scary to me Can you talk more about that because I was a tech reporter right out of college I love how you write about the history of Linux and Mosaic the 1st Web browser I mean I was addicted to that browser and the library was one computer had graphics back in 95 and I think I shot the library 10 every night. And back then it really was about wow we're going to share this information you can talk to people in other parts of the world you can learn about other people and but it shift is really quick right I think we were talking about Tim Berners Lee and he is one of the heroes in the book I in that he had a vision for it's also individualistic I guess it's a thing about libertarianism not like I was a believe in personal freedom and I want people to express themselves and he was early browser insisted that was really a form of Wikipedia that you would be able to edit it was vital it was not passive it was active so the shift that happen I think you're talking about is when mosaic it became a passive entertainment vehicle and which is very good for business and you know they would say it's what people want because people did she was the most a browser eventually Netscape but it's more that it was that was the last idea that you could interact with it was something you controlled but you're not part of a of an ecosystem that's owned by a company which is where we are today where Facebook really wants to be considered the equivalent the Internet it's pretty pretty scary it is amazing how quickly things have changed and how incredibly wealthy these men have become over the past I guess 2 decades or so right now what kind of talk about how that shift happened from the Tim Berners Lee who really focused on a democratic Internet that was inclusive to what we have today right I think I mean I guess maybe one way to talk about it is like I look at Wikipedia as being the exception to a right on the real irony in the book doing the research for it that Google right was created by these really were generally idealistic young Ph d. Candidates stand for right Sergei Brin and Larry Page and they wrote this paper that was very influential It talked about how search engines should never have ads it was antithetical to the mission over time Stanford I think the ethos there pushed them to become a company and we have Google today this massive corporate entity with full of ads and tracking now with a pedia was founded by Jimmy Wales who was a real businessman he was a trader he was trying to make money he put we competed. As part of a company he had that was about we call Web 2.0 companies trying to create content and of course the irony is that he didn't have the connections and the access to all these venture capitalists so in the end we could Pedia and use free software like you're talking on the end with a p.d.f. Had to become free I explain in the book why you know every 10th ad advertising Wikipedia were bound to fail and the irony is that basically it became this the one free source I think there are these powerful institutions that were the venture capitalists in Stanford they were really encouraging this along and Wikipedia almost proves it by accepting as this thing that was found in in like Florida not part of that your cattle system is the only thing that became this free site and not tracking sites and not everyone follow this path because I love the story of Craig from Craigslist who in 9495 was sharing cool things to do with friends and then it exploded into a website with jobs and apartments and he was contacted by corporations many many times he said let me put a banner ad on Craigslist and he said no and then there were offers to buy create I mean the guy could probably be a billionaire and he just said no and what I love about Craigslist is the look has never changed it's still very old school tech and it's still very it's a useful right and I would say he's not inclined and plan to do bells and whistles and doesn't use kind of the ai to try to like yeah keep stickiness it's more like he the reason why you turn it down all the money you're talking about is that he really always put the customer 1st and he also considered you know it's funny you meet Crego when I was a reporter I met him out here and his card was business card will say consumer service agent right I mean that's his he's proud of that and the thing that's really interesting about that time of the website is that another real enemy or real problem is scalability this idea that you have to keep growing in order to make money that if you have 2000000000 users of Facebook how in any sense going to be human interaction it can't be you can't they're not they're not fielding 2000000000 phone calls about my problem or. Or like hey this ad by me they're going to have you're going to try the best use algorithms but Craig really always want to keep it in the human scale and that something really special is because he didn't want to make a $1000000000.00 So you're totally right today we're speaking with Noam Cohen The farmer technology columnist with The New York Times who's out with a new book called The know it alls the rise of Silicon Valley as a political powerhouse and social wrecking ball you can find information at your call radio. And if you'd like to join us we'd love to hear from you if you work in tech How would you describe the culture and how do you think technology has really changed the way you work and interact with fellow citizens the way you consume information and consume news and what do you think about the power and the influence giants like Jeff Bezos Mark Zuckerberg Peter Thiel Peter Thiel is the venture capitalist who founded Pay Pal and who was one of the major Silicon Valley C.E.O.'s or tech titans who supported Donald Trump give us a call 8667 this is an encore presentation of your call we're not taking calls right now thank you to 55 how do you think we can push back against the monopolization of tech companies how do you think they can better address discrimination when you think about the libertarian bent and this focus on the individual it's 667988255 you can also e-mail your colleague k l w dot What are your thoughts known about this focus on the individual it's about me sometimes I get debates with friends about super versus a cab driver and a union cab driver versus driver who has a really hard time making ends meet and they say well it's fast they pick me up it's cheaper I mean this is what you hear all the time is that I'm busy and I just need to use these services because they're so they're fast yeah I guess I come back the idea that the social costs are kind of it and I know it's not only you need to be in. And I think about Wal-Mart too where you'll hear that Wal-Mart employees are on food stamps because of that make enough money and like that's us as society com You know subsidizing Wal-Mart paying low wages or you know and or the damage that Wal-Mart will do to Main Street America or what not but this was a similar thing where you know yeah the in the short hand it is definitely more convenient but we as society have to collectively look what's best for us and because we're going to all pay for the for the for the pollution that's going on I would say that the election really was a big wake up call I thought because when people saw you know it wasn't just I was saying and talk that like you know in the past to be a critic of Silicon Valley be like you know is your smartphone making you are you know or to young people care about privacy I'm really worried about that but more abstract not as as essential as is our democracy compatible with these tools and that when we talk about individual stressing the vigil I think about like how Let's not walk through the whole Facebook and how it's helping people stare anger and dissent and what they're really doing when I was talking to friends about this it's like also the fact that it isn't such transparent and it's not we don't all see the same ads right or they're targeting your neighbor will see something you aren't seeing and that's a very dangerous thing is it's breaking down community and marks like we're talk so much about community but community is a physical thing how you live who you live next to how you take care of reach other and if you if you're not all kind of seeing the same reality it gets very scary I think so that's a real We're not you know I think it's sinking in I really am more optimistic that could be change I think people see the damage more clearly than they ever have optimistic for change I am because I think this election I was watching these hearings that were going on and in Washington where they were really questioning the. The the general counsel for these companies for Google and Facebook and Twitter and they were there in Republicans as well as Democrats were asking very hard questions because one Republican from Louisiana was really asking you know this Facebook keep track of people who are depressed or overweight and would you sell the that to advertisers and he was really calling for some kind of accountability that you can't just. We as a society have to regulate this you can't just let Facebook do whatever it wants with its powerful tools he focus on Mark Zuckerberg you have a couple of lines here about Sean Parker a former Facebook president who staged a multimillion dollar wedding and I read about forest and our beautiful Big Sur and it was landscape to look like Middle earth of the Lord Of The Rings and he got a lot of trouble because they did a lot of damage to that environment there Sean Parker was speaking recently he's now chair of the Parker Institute for Cancer immunotherapy and he was speaking about advancer advances in cancer therapies recently he said that when Facebook was being developed the objective was how do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible and I'm reading from The Guardian now it was this mindset that led to the creation of features like the like button that would give users a little dopamine hit to encourage them to upload more content he says it's a social validation feedback loop exactly the kind of things that a hacker like myself would come up with because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology and so he's basically saying it's saying that Facebook is exploiting human vulnerabilities Yeah and there's a whole chapter on Mark Zuckerberg and you know and he was different some hackers they also studied psychology and you know so it's funny that Sean Parker would say like I was a hacker would know what about the domain hit but you also mentioned psychology would know about that I think you know it's really hard to unpack like the Mark Zuckerberg story is I begin about how talking about how he was a young man his 1st program was about Julius Caesar game and I think you know I want to ways he's sort of dreamed about world domination you could say and I think a lot of computer programmers had that and you say you've been in that world there's a book I will talk about like the close world of a computer that it's a world where you can be in total to man up is down whatever rules you make on your screen or true and that's one thing for a programmer to see. Spillover to real life I think it's like a bird who sees a chance to really have that kind of control over the world I think what's interesting is that I'm not prepared to say whether he believes his own mythology or not I think he genuinely He says that he thinks connecting people is a good and that he will use tools like these don't mean he hits to get people to join up and that in the end he's connecting the world I think he might not know what is important the world or we might differ about that I think he does a weird thing he wrote one in his letter to his daughter about his values or talked about like we can we can experience 100 times more things in a given day I don't even know what that means on a for for him virtual reality is the same as reality and you could see hundreds sunsets a day is that 100 times better than seeing one beautiful sunset I don't think so but so I don't know what he really believes but it's definitely not what I want the person I would want to be in charge or our society or world for sure and new study just came out from the Institute for Policy Studies that found the 3 richest people in the United States Bill Gates Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett on as much wealth as the bottom half of the u.s. Population are $160000000.00 people and of course there's that for a place that comes out every year and I guess that comparison those that if they kind of shift around but net worth almost $70000000000.00 for one person what is the flip side of saying you're not going to catch people when they fall is the same if you win the contest you should get everything it's a really not how you would organize a normal side as on how you would through word seem so disproportionate I mean looking from reading the stuff and looking at the history like I do in the book you could say that the Google invention was like a special invention and they did something very special I don't think that's worth whatever $70000000000.00 all Facebook is a lot about monopolistic behavior and it really ends up rewarding just the fact that I've been ruthless in buying competitors so yeah it's all out of whack I think that's something people talk as much about that is just an out of whack why our society is that it's just mind boggling I mean the tax level it shouldn't happen anywhere. I am with you all the way now I'm coming as the author of a new book and know it alls the rise of Silicon Valley as a political powerhouse and social wrecking ball let's hear from Caroline and Mountain View Hi Caroline Welcome to the shall. So much for having the sound Thank you for having me on I have a question I'd like you know what are the few good internet. Like that. Well been with. And that you're good at and there are hints. Where well have been a lot. Better and all I don't want to hear that it will be there. And hopefully. What we have Caroline I actually own a home medical record on personnel on the on block chain or. By the way you're on me every day that I own it and hear about it along the whole you know universe and I can act when I want to or in my. Inbox Yeah I love it I think it's funny that you make this point about kind of controlling your own data I guess as I've been on this book tour I've been kind of asked what you are you point out the problem so well in your book and I'm so enjoyed it but where we go now and it's a hard question I think often I talk about breaking up the companies or having more regulation European style but I was talking to friends who also controlling their own data maybe that's a better narrative a better way of seeing this fight instead of like being these you know start up companies being stopping the government from regulating them let's thing with that we should when our own data and why and it's very valuable I've seen there's a recent op ed to talk about taxing this data the wealth created by this data but I mean what you're saying makes perfect sense it's the way your medical records are you should be able to see what they know about you and the I don't want to know that we give it back to me or I'm cool you know it is that I get better ads or I get better book recommendations so I'm really happy you have the state then go for it but like it should be our decision and it was when I was looking back in history in the seventy's there was a. Commission was put together under Nixon and one of the characters in the book Joseph Weizenbaum was on this committee which was a talk about privacy and records and I think the initially recommended that corporations should also be under this rule that you should be able to get your data back in the end the only law that was passed about government I think would be a perfectly great solution to say that corporations should respect your data and give it back to you if you write that when Mark Zuckerberg with asked if Facebook should be regulated by governments the same way the electric and water companies are he replied in terms of regulation I mean we get regulated by users right I love that quote Yeah I think that speaks exactly to the arrogance and the kind and 2 levels the arrogance that like we know how to regulate ourselves better than you and also what I call the the greed the entrepreneurial leave us alone we're going to don't get in our business both both aspects but yeah I think they believe they're popular therefore they're good and they're good therefore they're popular and it's. Also when we know best because you have so many quotes from these guys who believe that they can disrupt education they can disrupt the media and we did a show of but maybe 5 years ago about Mark Zuckerberg spending $100000000.00 to completely quote reform the education system in New Jersey new work without even talking to parents on the margins here in New York never been in the city let alone a school yeah it's a pretty amazing concept and this is kind of across the board I mean you've got examples in here about a lot of these guys who think they can do it better than. Workers like government employees or people who have dedicated their lives to these jobs that pay like 60 or 70 grand a year right yeah where does that come from yeah I think it is a kind of a computer like I was saying that close world of think you can make it work on your screen there for you can make it work in the world is obviously I think that's part of the attraction of certain you know young adolescent minds to think that finally it all makes sense I can just there's no kind of it's a real you know it's real bummer to think you have to deal with the legacy of racism and and massage me like who want to be one of like the. Became this world new world a no no no strings attached it's like it's but it's very clearly doesn't work it didn't work in Newark partly I remember read I read the book about that time and one of things he also he thought it all could be incentives that you just gave money for the ones who did the best work but it's like truthfully being encouraged by principle had your back met as much as money so probably look at the world like they were all like kind of maze rats who just give pellets to and that's how will perform without seeing that being part of community is so important Yeah I thought that was a great example what's wrong with that and thank you for the ca Caroline let's go next to James in San Francisco hi James welcome to the show. Thanks for taking my call I just want to say 1st off that like every statement and I agree with everything that you're saying for the most part I'm curious why single out Sally in life and love sex and like this just the story of corporations in every industry it's like the generational Well credible greed. Like she didn't like aren't you in for a story Bill Gates It wasn't even an internet right like the Silicon Valley and the start of culture that you know is. Related. I totally hear the question and I don't agree with that because I think there is something unique and special going on here there is an intrusion into our lives that are that is unprecedented and obviously trains were super important and there were there was these robber barons and you know clear the person set up Stanford and then they got regulated so there are definitely an alley analogy here but you know clearly we're seeing like with the with the this in this is going on in our culture and people there's a kind of been a graph that's been making the rounds of Twitter about so showing that polarization of political views in America coinciding with the rise of social networks you know I I hear you but I just think these are really powerful tools that are way more into our lives our deal with the Goldman heads and all the things that Sean Parker was talking about it be nice to think it's just another company another example of greed but it is something that is happening fast and it's changing our society that's part of what a marvelous book it's like it's also changing our political values and it's encouraging hyper individual ism I don't think again trains or telephones quite had the same ability to split us up like that are going to change brought us together maybe it's a train let people go on rides far away from their homes and that's true too but these these tools are really kind of feeding people a line that they're that they can be a start of themselves and then not care about their fellow citizens and that's very dangerous it's different I wish it wasn't I hope I'm wrong but I think it is of a different nature Well thank you for calling and James will continue that that question and we'll ask now to elaborate right after the break now Cullen is a former technology columnist with The New York Times author of the know it alls the rise of Silicon Valley as a political powerhouse and social wrecking ball this is your call and we'll be back after this hurricane Maria did more than knock out the power in Puerto Rico it shined a light on some ugly truths about the resources its residents need more real was more than 3 months ago how is the recovery effort going we check back in on Puerto Rico as it continues to rebuild next time on one and one half an hour from now at 11 o'clock for one day here on 91.7 k. L. W. Tomorrow on your call. On the next you recall here the story of Arkansas where citizens are fighting for their lives against Georgia Pacific the paper and chemical giant owned by the billionaire Koch brothers experts have lent toxins from Georgia Pacific paper mill to high rates of cancer in the town but when residents turn to the e.p.a. They don't find the relief they need here the director of the documentary company town and one of the people who fought back on the next tour call with Rose Aguilar and you tomorrow morning at 10. This is your call. If you have a show idea or a guest idea you can drop us a line your college. And if you'd like to join today's conversation with Noam Cohen author of the know it alls the rise of Silicon Valley as a political powerhouse and social wrecking ball we'd love to hear from you if you work in tech give us a call how do you think tac has changed the way you work the way you interact with your fellow human beings and the way that you consume information and news you can e-mail us your colleague k l w dot org or give us a call 8 this is an encore presentation we're not taking calls right now the show is not live it's prerecorded and thank you come to the show All right thanks thanks for the book this interview I just wanted to take the history of the Internet a little bit earlier and suggest that everybody view a documentary called. Back came over here and interviewed the people who were in the origin of the Internet where it arched out of the Arpanet that was developed with DARPA and then brought into the popular culture through art galleries. Made into something that could be interesting to people who have marketed so I just wanted to put that in you know for an additional interesting look at the Internet that's all I've got all right thank you oh yeah I was going to say you should know the book does deal. With that history but clearly Darva comes up but there's a lot with the history of computer science because there's a 1st chapters about the person who came up the idea of an artificial intelligence it's me it was very important as this is where a lot of the thought of people's machines in machines is people and thinking of brains as being these individual units that can be detached from a body and. In a I you know the term here brought about talk about all the time now I want to go back to the origins because back when it started it was idealistic like saying a government project government funded and there was a dream of creating this greater intelligence that could actually answer important questions like John MacArthur The Stanford professor who ran the ai lab there had a dream to actually computers could like explain the cosmos if they got smarter than I say we're going to be our overlords are going to be our help us help us because knowledge is good and you know what's happened over time is that these ideas of Ai have been used just imitate people and they manipulate people so it's really a whole 360 you know whole switch of what me on what we what ai is about and it's really become about manipulation rather than something noble about trying to you know more science science to help the world and how and government funded science not privately funded side so. The Chronicle had a piece recently about how Ai scientists are pretty scarce and so they're being paid up to $500.00 grand here are more and salary since you're bringing this up what is the point of driverless cars in your opinion it's fascinating I mean I think there are a couple things 1st of it's amazing from the book I was reading about these early labs right and they've been working on the driver's cars for more than 50 years. I think partly it's this irrational mind that says God it's so irrational have traffic lights I just wish it could be why that's from session I don't know I think partly you think about some of the time that Peter Thiel and who has a dream of living forever right he's very upfront about he thinks we're strange for not wanting to live forever he believes it makes sense you should not want to die and if you think the look at traffic actions is a thing that could be avoided because that kills people I think that's some part of it as well but I don't I don't know why it is kind of like removing the human the holistic idea that you drive a car is interesting stop you look at things and seeing it in just transactional terms it's always strange to me though because there are so many stories now about homelessness in Silicon Valley massive poverty in Silicon Valley a lot of contractors who work for these companies cannot make ends meet and yet these guys are pouring hundreds of millions into driverless cars Yeah I do think it's it's also like this idea that believing that engineering is going to answer all our problems and I there's a hero in the book named Joseph Weizenbaum is a professor who basically said for him privily math was easy math answers very easy questions the questions like What is this and how do we live together society those are the hard questions if you really think you're so smart if you know it all could you help us figure out how we get along is deciding get rid of racism and that would be really I would be you saying you are a smart person and you can figure that out figure out how to like map a driver's car Ok the scene like there are thousands of people injured that you can do that and not very interesting I mean it's not really tough questions always are taking the easy way out and a kind of site that quote The wise man knows he knows nothing I mean if they really believe they're so smart they should have more humility I would say and they want you to agree you brought up Peter Thiel and in the book you call him a one man wrecking crew has been who has been sowing chaos through American society up to this day he was one of the few if only major Silicon Valley executives who publicly supported Donald Trump and you write about Peter Thiel when he went to Stanford he started the Stanford review to give a voice to conservatives. On campus you have so many tidbits about Peter Thiel who came up with the idea of Pay Pal back in the day what really struck you about what you learned about Peter Thiel Well I guess part they want to I think some ways he's always been identified as an outlier he's the libertarian and we're we're not like him I want to argue that he's really of the same world view as other ones Reid Hoffman he are kind of the Linked In founder kind of famously friends from Stanford they're like on opposite sides or to me you know Reid Hoffman right start up of you and has very extreme views about individuality and so is Peter Thiel and I guess I just in telling his story I wanted to show you know show that it came from a very he's very extreme views I mean he's famously written an essay that you know I want to quote it kind of accurately but basically bemoan that women are thought was bad for Catholics democracy that women and people on welfare get the vote he this book that he wrote with David Sacks in the ninety's is a very extreme view of multiculturalism very harsh and cruel and times this book if you read it I give lots of excerpts from it in the book so I just see him as a kind of person who speaks most honestly and that in some sense he takes a lot of flak and lets them kind of cover and say they're not like him you know I think those are in some of Peter Thiel is that he's very upfront that monopolies are good like he talks about how the goal of a company should become monopolies because a monopoly makes lots of money if your true competition you are you're not making money because everyone's lowering the price so a lot of ways he just really lays out the blueprint that smart rich people should run the world they should use their powers to get more power and you know his support of the whole Trump some ways to view it as him just being cynical and like hedging his bets like no one else was publicly going for him I'll do it I'll have more clout but also I think it's in some ways Donald Trump it's easy to see everything is Donald Trump embodying every that problem in our society but he really is a kind of you know the know it all approach he's not like them he's not overtly smart overtly a hacker but you know only I can solve the problem like I think that's. An attractive top down that democracy isn't something that's organic that leads to a leader like our president but instead it's like you get a plebiscite you go vote you vote for me I do whatever I want I think that's attractive to tee off the book you cited that he wrote with David Sacks It was published in 105 and it's called the diversity math they wrote the primary problem for multiculturalists is that there are almost no real racists at Stanford or for that matter in America's younger generation this is a $95.00 it's a quote that's held up well I think yeah yeah well and then he wrote an essay for the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute in 2009 and he wrote that the 1920 s. Was the last decade in American history during which one could genuinely be optimistic about politics I think to be fair he wrote that in 2009 and then the Trump elections give him new optimism but back then he was really glom and think we never get someone quite like Donald Trump who could really cut through all the you know the special pleading So yeah I there's one other like thought that happened at Stanford back then which is that you know he was a real proponent of this kind of criticizing what he called political correctness and I write about in the book about how it Stanford in the eighty's there was an attempt to try to like reign in the heat speech it was on the internet it was before the web before there were you know so it's whether obviously well before that and there's it's had to say like this particular usenet group had racist jokes that were very harsh and we want to stop it and you know wasn't Peter till it was the computer science department led by John McCarthy That said you know the in that needs to be totally free and it's like I fix their food and you know and Peter Thiel the product of Stanford is wild west approach to the Internet which we're still paying the costs for his Again it's very attractive but it's got real costs you know it's also just amazing to I mean we've read about these wealthy men again the Forbes list of the richest people in tech Bill Gates 84000000000 Jeff Bezos of Amazon 81000000000 Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook 69000000000 I mean you. Can't even comprehend that kind of money right it's also amazing to see how much money these guys make when their companies go public so you're right that Peter teal from face up and start Pay Pal he made 55000000 for yourself from Facebook he made you know is. More than a $1000000000.00. Wealth from use if he was the 1st outside investor in Facebook you know I invested I think 5008 I was in multiply so much Yeah it's just you know you can do it is like just collecting all the pennies and nickels from around the world it's kind of say it's like a pool table just all goes the side pocket to the Bay Area you know I mean it's really isn't what subsidize I mean we have listeners who live off of Social Security right $1000.00 a month maybe $800.00 a month and then you write about what some of these guys do with their money Peter teal was publicly outed as being gay in 2007 by Valley Wag one of the Gawker family of websites that write about celebrities right and so he got really angry about that rightly so p. Didn't want to be outed and he decided to take on Gawker Media and there's a documentary about this can you tell us the story about how he connected with a wrestler known as Hulk Hogan right well so I think you know I think in my economizing one of the calls we had were I guess he looked at it and saw a bug he saw flaw that Gawker where did the hidden I guess he didn't feel he would sue over I mean that's a question like obviously if he was wrong that we set a court system Let him sue about how he was treated but instead he he saw this fall that there was. Some behavior the car did that was really quite extreme where they printed as they published a sex tape and there was also there were depositions in the case that were really where the the Gawker editor really said things that were not were not inclined to make a jury like him and so he used to secretly and eventually came out gave funding for a whole called into to launch a lawsuit that allowed bankrupted Gawker So it was a very clever. You know how of the legal system to get this and I mean he's opaque about when I think he felt he wasn't going from Salvi Clinton was not mad at them he's just doing a good for society by getting rid of the site but yeah it's a very it grabs you raise lots of chills because a very wealthy person using his money to to go after a publication that he was angry you know had reason to be angry it's incredible that you know if you're wealthy I mean you can take down a media organization like that and I think it kind of in light of all that was listening right before this show there was all discussion of the Harvey Weinstein case and you can't help but think that the New York Times are used to work have such great lawyers have such resources and they were able to convince people because it's one of the things that the reporters are talking about were these nondisclosure agreements in convincing women to say this can't be what and days about you have to talk about wrongdoing and it's one thing for any so you need strong publications that are not scared but they're not you need smaller ones also to be have confidence scary Today we're speaking with now Cohen former tech columnist at The New York Times he's out with a new book The know it alls the rise of Silicon Valley as a political powerhouse and social wrecking ball let's go next to fail in New Mexico Hi fell back into the show I rose thanks I'm a 20 year Silicon Valley veteran who after the last dot com crash went into self exile if you will that's not a New Mexico but at the time I worked for the 1st dot com boom and I worked at Cisco in 3 sets and so I got a perspective on that to share but the main point out that caused me to call when was no repeated patient of Joseph Wiseman bio and just what I've been most people don't know him I was one of the 1st Ai researchers a really interesting German a Nazi refugee at that mit and wives and in the 60 took a moral position against speech recognition type Now if you will. Somebody said that no moral computer scientist should work on speech recognition technology because if it were ever perfected it would be put in the hands of big brother or big government that the Orwellian possibilities were unlimited and I have watched over the last 5 years has speech recognition technology has made major major leaps and it's been celebrated for the most part particularly by technologists and as you guys talked about the general press the business press is Pro technology all the way anyway what no one has commented on about about high accuracy speech recognition technology is what a government like China is going to be able to do with that with you know practically 8090 percent of Chinese have cell phones and all you need scaling once you've got the basic algorithms down you can scale speech recognition just by adding more hardware and as I said I'm looking at Gnome's article on the Silicon Valley is not your friend and I've been waiting for somebody to point out this Orwellian potential of speech recognition technology and if I could have just one last comment that goes to Gnome's point you know as I said I worked in Silicon Valley from the early eighty's to the early 2000 and 1st you think it's libertarianism but it really isn't it's selfishness Libertarianism is the say glee that people use to justify their selfishness and one beautiful Case in point is the United Way of Silicon Valley in 1905 went bankrupt because of lack of donations Wow Well I for some and Couple those points in with that one is that like I'm trying to argue that libertarianism as it's currently constructed is selfishness because libertarianism is predicated on the idea that it's a fair fair fight whatever fair market and so any any ideology that claims a should be. No not deal with the inequality itself obviously so it's selfishness I'm I don't think it's quite a big distinction there and your other point just as I did read that stuff about speech recognition and Weizenbaum it was with McCarthy They had this debate about it I'm going to reading that stuff thinking well you know maybe McCarthy was right because it was it is being used for Syria and lot of other things and it wasn't simply being used for big brother or big corporations but I hear you I guess it is scary I don't know when people ask me I know how you put these technologies back in the bottle that's always a question that wasn't I thought can really quite address like he definitely exactly described I'm right I find these in the book a lot I really find him a real hero because he was taking a moral view about the stuff but I don't know what how you stop scientists from doing this and I think it's almost like we politically have to come to terms with it's not 2nd easy to say don't look into these things it's more but politically we're going to say we're not going to tolerate this remark of a collect this allows day to be collected rather than say don't let technology it collects data happen you know what I mean I think it's almost like a political solution rather than a technological solution but you're totally right and I know you're talking about well thank you for calling Phil we've got just under 10 minutes left and I want to make sure we talk about a couple of our men in your book Jeff Bezos Let's talk about Jeff Bezos he owns Amazon He now owns Whole Foods and he now owns the Washington Post they always make a distinction that he personally owns Washington Post but though and Amazon the company oh yeah Ok Well no I totally out of power absolutely Now tell us a little bit about him because as you write he was he's not a tech guy he was a finance guy I thought I was actually so writing this book I was really so I have this idea that it's about Stanford in computer science so McCarthy in his character in term and who is a Stanford official who I feel is very important and I knew the book was kind of coming together and I was really excited when I saw like some like Jeff Bezos who is saying he's not a hacker people point out why is even the book he's not in Silicon Valley right Amazon's look in Seattle but in fact he has this connection because he got turned on the Internet through someone in David show. In the secretive person who runs it runs a founder of hedge fund called the Shaw who called desk 0 which he took it so he was part of McCarthy's lab he studied Ai computer science and he did a little research for a little while but then eventually joined became one of the early quantum investors who use computers to analyze imperfections in the market to make again billions of dollars and so that gave a thread because that's where Bezos kind of he came through that world and there's an article back in the early days where David Shaw talked about the 2 of them discussed that someone could become a middleman for the entire commerce of the Internet and so it's kind of well known that when you think of Amazon starting out with books but it was very clear that was a strategy from day one that books are a good way to start going to be shipped people very well the books books are can be kind of in warehouses and deliver them people used to that idea and then he used that I mean this was a very he speaks to a real conscious strategy a long long term to to dominate this area of e-commerce I think the Whole Foods That is the next is like are the trade on it offline commerce and the stress that in the total commerce Amazon still not a giant but it's to me it's worsening take your monopoly position one place online and try to keep moving offline I didn't know but I was interested to learn that Jeff Bezos and his partners in 1994 were choosing between Seattle and somewhere and Nevada and to put Amazon California was out of the picture because of its sales tax Yeah and that's obviously something that even Donald Trump will often that's an awkward thing when you find Donald Trump is sort of making similar points like your point about. Amazon having this connection the Washington Post so that disk is downstream says that he's not sure and he points out I think the answer that in fact they now they've actually evolved on sales tax I believe that like they know how to write but also I think now it almost becomes a competitive advantage their cool paying sales taxes other people kids start up but yeah they're always were thinking about dominating the marketplace and that was what was about. So we have Jeff Bezos worth according to Forbes $81000000000.00 Again Jeff Bezos Bill Gates and Warren Buffett own as much wealth as the bottom half of the population in the United States that's 160000000 people and over the years there's been a lot of really good reports about how Amazon workers are having a hard time making ends meet and I'm just finding this World Socialist Web site has information from the international Amazon worker's voice and it looks at 28 centers and 7 are full time warehouse Associates one is seasonal In fact when I was on Twitter this morning I saw an ad that said seasonal help wanted work from something like $1230.00 at night until 7 o'clock in the morning and the average pay is $12.00 to $14.00 an hour well get a little religious here a 2nd little bit because it is partly what you're getting at these points is this efficiency and is bearing down efficiency and I was almost thing to begin the book with a quote from the Bible about the idea of Gleaners in this idea of the Bible says that when you harvest a field you're not supposed to go back a 2nd time and get with the scraps you miss it's this will leave that for the cleaners or poor people whose only who can who can eat something a little obscene about a lot of seeing about trying to extract every penny in values or even the idea of working only with contractors or part time employees what does that I mean what or part time police forces do when they're not when it's not Christmas I mean I understand you efficiency is really important and that's kind of what we're trying to are and other things but I mean is a really beyond the pale to argue that there are other values that could trump a fish and sea I mean anyway well and also the point is they're making billions of dollars right you didn't write a lot about Elon Musk but you did write that long Musk captured this nonpolitical political perspective in a post in 2012 on Twitter he said I'm neither anti conservative nor anti liberal just don't like group think ideas should be considered on their own merits pick out every great quote that I love that makes it all ones I like would have some. Myself I talk that all the time is politics and not politics and I think you know I must in that quote like kind of goes on Twitter goes on to sort of say Yeah I think ideas from both sides like I like liberal ideas about gay marriage and you legalize pot I like conservative ideas about fiscal responsibility and low taxes and like that's just libertarianism it seems like you're being open minded but it's really just a very coherent idea ideology only don't say it's not political I mean well and what's interesting is as people praise Tesla for their electric cars Tesla was very quick to say we'll go to Puerto Rico and put down cellar panels which they did but then you have a lot of reporting in the last month here's one from Bloomberg Tesla is a hotbed for racist behavior employees Tesla production floor is a hotbed for racist behavior says an African-American employee who claimed in a lawsuit saying that black workers are dealing with pervasive harassment another piece from c n b c The u.s. Agency in charge of enforcing labor laws just recently filed a complaint against Tesla saying it found merit to workers complaints about unfair labor practices so again you look back to how people are treated and these companies and I do think it also and the baseless chapter I talk more about the Times piece that talk about white collar employees and his response I thought was really telling because he said this can't be going on because these employees will get other jobs are not treating them well you often will hear that about women being underrepresented in tech company like well if that was true then the big companies just only hire women programmers they would be so successful they pay them a little less because they do job I mean they just think of it all as a truly fair frictionless market with no history no in structural problems it's it must be very comforting to look at the world that way but we do see that it's real . The issue of wages what do you think it would take to pressure these companies to actually pay workers a living wage and we could have a whole debate about what is a living wage right now in Silicon Valley I mean if you're a janitor or a cook. What is a living wage Right yeah you know I I think they look at the bottom line I don't know why they don't do more out like you're saying of the way they define good being good actors and using their money for good does not seem to relate to the community so much and the people right around them I don't know what will change other than kind of Reg You know collective action collective response to this and sort of not non-acceptance you know that and how I mean since you've been you've finished the book you've been going on book tour when you talk about this hyper individual listen how do you tackle that one tackle it knew how to do you take it on Oh I do think I mean yeah I think you need to. Emphasize community and community building Yeah not in the Like a Bird way of I think it's a long answer but I very it's a real tricky question I think it's not quite just turning off your devices but you know looking around you and being at the Thetic unmindful and definite kind of shedding the very hyper individualistic you know approach these devices encourage you have to somehow break it and where do you see us going I mean as we're also connected to all of the I Am i was a mystic like I said because I think this the Russian election is given a real the fact that democracy is at stake and people are sort of see that and are worried that the secret of companies and secret algorithms are controlling how people might vote and you know I think politicians are waking up to I really I have some reason for hope I think it was much more abstract argument I started books years ago I think today it is speaking to a better audience so I'm hopeful. Now on as a former tech columnist at The New York Times his new book is The know it alls the rise of Silicon Valley as a political powerhouse and social wrecking ball now and thank you for coming into your eyes or thanks or they're nice to see you thanks for joining us. On the next your call here the story of cross of Arkansas where citizens are fighting for their lives against Georgia Pacific the paper and chemical giant owned by the billionaire Koch brothers experts have linked toxins from Georgia Pacific paper mail to high rates of cancer in the town but when residents turn to the e.p.a. They don't find a relief they need the director of the documentary company town and one of the people who fought back on the next tour call with Rose Aguilar and you. In order to boost my brain power I drink a cup of coffee. And a couple of. Cards through and. Do it yourself brain stimulation on the next big picture Science big picture science this afternoon at 1 pm right after 12 noon here on 91.7. I'm pull heavenly host of b.b.c. News on today's program as Peru's former president begs forgiveness for his human rights abuses we ask one of his victims if he's prepared to pardon and the B.B.C.'s leading correspondents give their 28 predictions as b.b.c. News Hour 2 o'clock this afternoon. Local artists and performers have a place to connect with you your end of year gift to local public radio helps amplify the creativity of the bay area please make your tax deductible gift at. Dot org And thanks Francisco it's 11 o'clock. 2017 still devastated by Hurricane Maria with an uncertain.