Dear XYZ,

Silicon Valley was a comedy series that was popular in the 2010s. It chronicled the journey of the fictional startup Pied Piper, with its CEO Richard Hendricks as the main protagonist.

2010s feels like very recent past, but technology companies and their overall tone and cultural impact have dramatically shifted in less than a decade. This was a time when:

• Google still had “Don’t be evil” as its motto
• tech CEOs generally supported progressive causes (or at least weren’t overtly right-wing or authoritarian)
• tech employees had considerable say over what they companies should (and shouldn’t) be building
• the world’s first trillionaire was a remote concept
• tech startups were founded by wide-eyed optimists who were trying to “make the world a better place”

Silicon Valley was made at a time when technologists, even the leaders at the biggest tech companies, could make fun of themselves. It’s somewhat difficult to imagine that happening today. Especially with the AI arms race, technology has evolved to take a more critical seat in serious conversations like global great power rivalry, national security, and human existential risk.

Lately, I’ve been reminded of a quote from Christopher Nolan’s 2008 film, The Dark Knight:

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain…

Harvey Dent

For those familiar with Batman lore, you will know that Harvey Dent later becomes the tragic villain Two-face. I’ve been wondering how technology companies somehow also seem to have gone through a similar process. Big tech of the 2020s has a more sinister tone as compared to being relatively light-hearted just a handful of years ago.

Of course, there are other societal changes that have happened alongside that precipitated the change. I wonder how historians would look back and make sense of this time that we’re living through, not just the early 2000s but the extremely rapid technological advances we’ve observed since the invention of modern computers and networking.

Perhaps it’s another version of the adage, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. As technology companies grow their economic strength and increasingly reach into every aspect of our lives, we become subject to decisions made by technologists. And our world become increasingly shaped by the values and beliefs of the leaders of these large companies. And at least for now, there doesn’t seem to be any countervailing power — most major governments only play lip service to regulating tech companies today.

More to say about this in the future.

xoxo,
K