Tech Billionaires Think They’re Better Than You w/ Rob Larson

Tech Won't Save Us

Paris Marx

Silicon Valley, Books, Technology, Arts, Future, Tech Criticism, Socialism, Paris Marx, News, Criticism, Tech News, Politics

4.8 • 626 Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2020

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Paris Marx is joined by Rob Larson to discuss how tech billionaires use philanthropy to massage their images, how they're creating a world that leaves nearly everyone else worse off, and how we need to respond with an online socialism to bring tech platforms under worker control. Rob Larson is the author of “Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley” and an economics professor at Tacoma Community College. He also recently wrote about how billionaire-funded philanthropy is a public...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Who cares what these idiots think is going to happen?
0:02.5	Who cares what they wrongly believe is going to take place?
0:04.9	Well, we have to care because they're powerful and they control platforms and they're the billion't Save Us, a podcast that wonders why the press is so
0:29.1	a historical about Bill Gates.
0:32.0	I'm your host, Paris Marx, and today I'm speaking with Rob Larson.
0:35.6	Rob is an economics professor at Tacoma Community College in Washington State and the author
0:40.9	of BitTirons, the political economy of Silicon Valley.
0:44.3	You can follow Rob on Twitter where he tweets as at ironic professor.
0:48.2	Today we're speaking about billionaire philanthropy, their response to COVID-19, the political
0:52.9	economy of Silicon Valley and how tech firms got to be the way they are,
0:57.7	and how we can move toward an online socialism. If you like our conversation, make sure to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.
1:05.5	You can follow the podcast on Twitter as at Tech Won't Save Us. You can follow me, Paris Marks, at Paras Marks. Enjoy the conversation.
1:13.2	Rob Larson, welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. Thanks, man. It's my pleasure to be here.
1:17.4	Great to speak with you. So I wanted to start. Obviously, you wrote this recent book called Bit
1:23.6	Tyrants, the political economy of Silicon Valley. That is really fantastic and kind of goes
1:28.9	through each of the major tech giants, how terrible they are, how they became the giants that they
1:35.5	are today. And obviously you have this particular focus on the tech billionaires who built them.
1:42.9	So I wanted to start by asking, you know, what are you
1:46.5	seeing these tech billionaires up to right now with the COVID-19 pandemic kind of going on?
1:52.9	Like, how are they reacting to it? Who is getting credit that they really don't deserve?
1:58.9	I'm sure there's many of them. But maybe for once, though, like some of them
2:03.1	are actually getting the anger that they also rightfully deserve. But yeah, so what do you see in there?
	...

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