If I can get people to think Silicon Valley and think nuclear missiles and the Cold War and massacres in Vietnam instead of Silicon Valley, the Grateful Dead, and early computers, I think that will be a very large success.

Yeah. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. I'm your host, Paris Marks, and this week my guest is Malcolm Harris.

Malcolm is the author of a new book called Palo Alto, A History of California, Capitalism, and the World.

Malcolm was on the show last year to talk about Stuart Brand, but now he's back to talk about his new book, which is a really in-depth history of Palo Alto, as the title of the book suggests, but it also goes through these much deeper relationships that span throughout California,

throughout the United States, and throughout the world as we look at these capitalist forces

that are shaping the development of the global capitalist economy and how Palo Alto is a central node in what is

occurring through the past couple hundred years as all of this is expanding. I think this is a

really fascinating book because it gives us a different picture of the history of Silicon Valley

than certainly the one that were often kind of conventionally presented, but even when we talk about these critical histories, it doesn't draw all of the

threads that Malcolm's book does, which I think are really important to understand when we think

about the full impact of the tech industry and this area of the world, especially as these trends

that we see throughout this history

continue to reemerge time and time again. And knowing that history can be very instructive

then to how we react to what is actually going on in the present as these tech figures take

a more conservative turn, as they are increasing their relationships

with government and the military. And as we recognize that, you know, these potential kind of

countercultural and anti-government narratives of the past are probably not as accurate and as

truthful as they've made out to be. Now, recognizing that this is a long conversation, I'm going to keep

this introduction short, but that's just to say that, you know, I think this is a really

great and insightful conversation, and if you enjoy it, I highly recommend going to pick up Malcolm's

book because I do think it gives a really important picture of this history and one that a lot

of listeners of the show are really going to enjoy and I think

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