#247: Seeing the Silver Lining in the Current Techlash

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2019

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Growing anti-tech sentiment both in the government and the general public has led to calls for policies that threaten to stifle innovation. Despite this rising techlash, there’s reason to be optimistic about the future of innovation, according to Jesse Blumenthal, director of technology and innovation policy at the Charles Koch Institute, who joins the show to discuss the latest developments in consumer privacy, antitrust, social media bias accusations, and more. For more, see CKI’s work on tech and innovation, and the Pessimists Archive podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm Ashken Kuzarian. On today's episode of the tech policy podcast, we're joined by Jesse Blumenfall. Jesse leads tech and innovation across the Coke network. Jesse, thank you for joining the show. Thanks so much for having me. Jesse, what does it entail leading the tech and innovation for the Koch network?
0:24.3	Sure.
0:24.7	So leading tech and innovation policy means a variety of different things.
0:28.6	It means I get to work with my colleagues at the Charles Cook Institute and Charles Cook Foundation
0:33.3	on the educational programs we run and the grantmaking we do to support think tanks and civil society groups and academic researchers.
0:41.4	It means I get to work with my colleagues at Americans for Prosperity, both the grassroots activists, our 36 state chapters, and our federal affairs team on some of the politics and policy around tech.
0:53.5	And it means I get to work with groups across our network, including the litigators and the
0:58.2	community organizations and our venture of philanthropy and all the different component parts
1:03.5	of our network.
1:05.4	When you do all of this work, that sounds like a lot of work, by the way, what are the
1:10.5	values and the principles that
1:12.0	are you basing your tech and innovation work on? Yeah. So for us, if you look over the course of
1:20.5	human history, we believe that innovation has the potential to improve people's lives. And if you
1:25.4	look over the last two, three hundred years, that innovation is in fact the root cause of why people's lives have gotten better,
1:34.9	why we live richer, longer, more fulfilling, more connected, better lives. And that we believe
1:42.7	that requires two things.
1:44.5	It requires a culture that's welcoming of innovation, and it requires a policy environment
1:49.5	that allows spontaneity and dynamism and experimentation to occur.
1:54.5	Tech policy is a huge field.
1:56.4	What are the issues that you focus on in your line of work?
1:59.6	Yeah, so building on those two sort of precepts, right, that innovation has the potential
2:05.8	to improve people's lives, but you need a lot of experimentation.
	...

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