The great things about America is the idea of aspiration, the idea that somebody can come

from nowhere and become someone and can build a good life in own a house.

That's not the trajectory in Silicon Valley anymore.

Even worse in Wyoming, they support policies that make it impossible for anybody who isn't

in the privileged classes to ever move upwards.

The reality is that Silicon Valley has become a center of almost everything that is now

assaulting the middle of working classes in the West.

Hello, welcome back to the Brendan O'Neill Show with me, Brendan O'Neill, and my special

guest this week, Joel Cockin.

Joel, welcome to the show.

It's my pleasure to be here.

Joel, it's great to have you back on.

I think it's been a bit too long since we last spoke.

A lot has happened in the world and a lot of stuff that I want to get your views on.

I think it would be remiss of me not to kick off with Silicon Valley Bank and the collapse

of Silicon Valley Bank because this is a very important moment and also it touches on

lots of the stuff that you write about in relation to the tech gurus, the changing nature

of capitalism, what's happening to the business world and so on.

SVB was a pretty crucial bank for the tech world, more than half of venture backed startups

did their banking there.

Now it's fallen apart, it's being bailed out and it's in a bit of a mess.

So I'll kick off with a broad question.

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