Some Friday thoughts on the clouds and the Cloud Czars.
America’s economy rules the world, and the Cloud Czars rule the American economy. Rather than celebrate this, we seem more interested in ending it.
The Czars seem happy with the status quo. They shouldn’t be.
Our measurement of tech’s impact is completely wrong. We measure it by market cap. We should be measuring it in productivity, which thanks to tech is growing worldwide. When productivity takes people out of the middle class, they turn against tech. Tech needs to be wary of that.
How can they be wary? Instead of just asking what government asking what we can do to tech, we should be asking how government can help tech toward more useful innovations.
Software has brought an enormous portion of the world’s wealth to the United States. The industry’s 90-9-1 rule, its concentration of market power at the top of the stack, has brought enormous wealth and power to just a few companies. America’s rejection of corporate democracy has concentrated that power in a very small number of hereditary hands. We’ve let tech become an oligarchy and made tech leaders oligarchs. As a result, we have let too many become oligarchs, thinking only about themselves and not at all about society.
I believe the party that gets tech right will and should dominate our politics. Right now, both are getting it wrong.
Republicans see tech as content and power, with tech as the handmaiden to a new oligarchic rule. There are tech billionaires, like Peter Thiel, who like this very much. I have a word for these people. Assholes.
Democrats see tech as a threat when they should be seeing it as a growth engine. Rather than ask what tech can do for Democrats, they should be asking what Democrats can do for tech. That’s because technology’s needs line up well with the Democratic agenda. An open society, with minds free to wander. An open economy that welcomes anyone with a new idea. An open partnership that encourages tech to take on new markets, like recycling and the environment.
To their shame, many tech leaders like the status quo. They believe that by playing off the parties against one another, they maximize their power and keep government “off their backs.” They should be more demanding. They should be standing for what they need and working actively against the nonsense they don’t need.
Because of its market power, technology has no choice about taking political power. Racism, sexism, and fascism represent clear and present dangers to our Cloud Czars, because the values that made software grow are under threat all around the world, including in the United States. Maybe especially in the United States.
It’s time for our Cloud Czars to ask what they need from this nation, and for the people of this nation to ask how we can direct tech’s energies toward our mutual benefit. Stop being used by power. Start using it.
