Survival of the Richest | Douglas Rushkoff

The James Altucher Show

James Altucher

Education, Business

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"I thought I was a joke or a test!"Douglas Rushkoff was led into a room at a desert resort where five mysterious billionaires awaited him. They peppered the media theorist and author with binary questions: Bitcoin or Ethereum? Virtual reality or augmented reality? Alaska or New Zealand?This experience sets the stage for Douglas's newest book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, which focuses on "The Mindset, a Silicon Valley-style certainty that they and their cohort can break the laws of physics, economics, and morality to escape a disaster of their own making-as long as they have enough money and the right technology."*Today's episode explores the derivative and meta focus of today's financial and technology industry, so much so that the New York Stock Exchange has been purchased by a derivates exchange and Facebook has changed its holding company's name to Meta.Additional Topics Include: Why Alphabet will survive and Meta will fail (05:18)Will new technologies replace human labor or just camouflage it? (12:02)The 2000 merger of AOL and Time Warner (18:14)Is a scorched earth mentality necessary? (20:32)Why do billionaires donate so inefficiently (27:07)(Editor's note: Topic times don't account for sponsor ads and may appear a few minutes later in the episode on your podcast player)------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book Skip the Line is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltucher.com/podcast.------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to "The James Altucher Show" wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsStitcheriHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on Social Media:YouTubeTwitterFacebook ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!Are you interested in getting direct answers from James about your question on a podcast? Go to JamesAltucherShow.com/AskAltucher and send in your questions to be answered on the air!------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book, Skip the Line, is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltuchershow.com------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to "The James Altucher Show" wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsiHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on social media:YouTubeTwitterFacebookLinkedIn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	So Douglas Rushcough was invited by five mysterious billionaires to give a talk and he ends up
0:16.1	in a room just sitting with them and they're asking all sorts of questions implying they're
0:22.2	worried about the worst possible scenarios for the world and how they can protect themselves
0:29.0	like will their security turn on them? How big their bunker should be? What countries they should
0:34.3	live in? Why are billionaires so worried about the worst-case scenario? Douglas Rushcough and I talk
0:40.4	about this and talk about his latest book, Survival of the Richest He's Been Writing Books on Digital
0:46.4	Media and the Internet for a good 30 years since I first read his writings and so pleased to
0:52.8	have him on the podcast to discuss this latest book which is such an interesting topic and here it is.
0:58.1	This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James
1:06.6	Altiger show. Douglas I've been a fan of your work for decades. It's such an honor having you on
1:17.0	the podcast. I remember back in 1992 you were off and if I'm not mistaken you were off and commenting
1:23.3	on the well. Do you remember the well? Oh yeah. So I was reading your stuff even back then.
1:28.5	And I, where did I hang out? Mostly on writers on the well and minds and grateful dead
1:38.7	conference. Yeah, so I was I was always in the writers reading that. There was a lot of writers who
1:46.7	then went on to be like you, like tons of books and yeah. It's very good people. Be bare and
1:53.3	Taisa and Howard Reinhold was in there. Howard Reinhold, the Vando 2000 people. Yeah.
2:01.6	Yeah. Brad Barlow was in there a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So I am fascinated by this book and on the one hand
2:09.2	it's part history of not the digital world or the computer age but digital media specifically.
2:15.9	It's part a history of your evolution as a kind of thinker about digital media and it's also part.
2:23.9	I would say pessimistic like like you just write with the book the billionaires have these
2:28.8	optimistic dreams and visions that create their billions but then it somehow takes a dark turn
2:34.9	as they obtain what you call the mindset. I mean, I would argue that in a some sense they're the
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