A thought just struck me, but I wonder if the difference between the Billionaires of Today and the Monopolists of Yesteryear is that the wealth and power of the Billionaires are tied up in publicly exposed assets (stocks, etc) as well as networked wealth. Make the wrong political move, and people tank your stock into oblivion.
But what are you going to do to Carnegie? Not have steel? Rockerfeller says something antithetical to Elite Beliefs? Good luck getting oil.
This is relatively well known. Monopolists had very real wealth with a high floor value and controlled large portions of the supply chains needed to build big things that lasted.
The Silicon Valley 'elite' of today has wealth predicated on theoretical value calculations of things the world isn't even convinced it needs. Monumental difference, and it significantly changes how these guys operate and what legacy they leave.
Or they looked at the results and weren't seeing much progress vs their science investments, which also coincided with these billionaire social projects becoming politically unpopular.
For ex, from the article re the school:
> But former leaders of the school who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private information said Chan had grown distant in recent years as the school’s academic performance faltered.
> In 2017, a Harvard study funded by CZI found that by 2015 the growth rate of student achievement in English had significantly improved — but that there had been no significant change for math.
> the school met stumbling blocks. Two principals left in its early years, which three former school leaders said made it difficult to establish stability for students.
NYTimes said the refocusing on science investment vs social happened slowly over 5yrs and they haven't invested in any social ones in a few years. So this change has been in the works for a while...
Many of us did stupid anti-social shit when we were young, especially with computers. The mood of that chat felt like plenty of chats I had with friends, grandstanding and boasting. The sad part is that he hasn't grown as he's gotten older.
He doesn't seem to be trying very hard to outrun it either. Facebook is a toxic dump of human unintelligensia and Mark/FB/Meta only ever seem to resist any attempts to disinfect even small pockets.
Sure, but like some other founders he's doing little to morally redeem himself for his sizeable role in the normalization of engineering addiction while simultaneously creating a massive surveillance firm in the name of ad-tech.
Every bit of lip service about connecting people is overshadowed by "they 'trust me'. dumb fucks".
Why is that a terrible statement? Aren’t you in fact dumb if you just trust some rando’s website on the interent with all the details of your personal life? It’s not even wrong.
That’s still capitulation. When it’s fashionable, they’re one way. When it’s not, they’re the other. It’s not savvy, it’s cowardice.