Tag: Books

Tech Must Get Over Its Superman Complex, Or We’re All Screwed

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Screen Shot 2018-11-12 at 5.52.38 PM

Detail from the cover of Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Everyone in tech loves Yuval Noah Harari. This is cause for concern.

A year and a half ago I reviewed Yuval Noah Harari’s Homo Deus, recommending it to the entire industry with this subhead: “No one in tech is talking about Homo Deus. We most certainly should be.”

Eighteen months later, Harari is finally having his technology industry moment. The author of a trio of increasingly disturbing books – Sapiens, for which made his name as a popular historian philosopher, the aforementioned Homo Deus, which introduced a dark strain of tech futurism to his work, and the recent 21 Lessons for the 21st Century – Harari has cemented his place in the Valley as tech’s favorite self-flagellant. So it’s only fitting that this weekend Harari was the subject of New York Times profile featuring this provocative title: Tech C.E.O.s Are in Love With Their Principal Doomsayer. The subhead continues: “The futurist philosopher Yuval Noah Harari thinks Silicon Valley is an engine of dystopian ruin. So why do the digital elite adore him so?”

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Fake News, Information Warfare and the Modern State: How Did We Get Here?

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Shift Forum Reads

Tufekci’s Twitter and Tear Gas: An essential read for students of technology, society, and politics


It took me longer than I expected to read Zeynep Tufekci’s Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, and longer still to write up this review (I began reading the book when it came out this past summer). That’s not necessarily the best way to open an essay on an important topic, but at least it’s honest. While its title promises a popular history of the kind of social media activism that sparked movements like #BlackLivesMatter and the Arab Spring, the book is in fact a far more nuanced, and often academic study of the impact digital platforms have had on political change over the past two decades. But if we are to understand more recent developments such as information warfare and fake news, we must bend into the work of scholars like Tufekci.

Hers is the kind of writing our democratic society desperately needs more of, at a time when it seems our leaders are determined to ignore the reasoned, methodical thinking Tufecki advances in her work. That’s frustrating, especially, I imagine, to the author, but then again, a sense of injustice is always at the heart of political protest.

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Pretty Sure That Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google Are Bad.

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Shift Reads

The new tech oligarchs are terrible for our economy, argues Scott Galloway’s “The Four.” Except …maybe not.

Scott Galloway has to be pleased with the timing of his recent book The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. Published just three weeks before Facebook and Google’s highly anticipated Congressional testimony, the book feels as timely as a New York Times OpEd calling for more regulatory scrutiny of our tech overlords. (There have been a lot of those lately).

But Galloway is no johnny-come-lately to the genre — he’s been dining out on “the Four” for years. He’s one of a very few consistent critics of tech whose arguments are based on principles of economics and business, rather than cultural (Foer) or social objections (Tufecki). In this his first book, he’s polished his arguments to a brilliant sheen. If you’re already skeptical of these companies’ power, you’ll come away from The Four convinced of the danger they represent to society. But if you’re not, it’s likely you’ll be more angry than won over by his arguments.

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Shift Forum Reads

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The books we’re reading at NewCo as we prepare for the conversation at the Shift Forum this February


NewCo Shift is committed to identifying and exploring the most pressing issues in business and society through a new Shift Reads program. At the NewCo Shift Forum this coming February, we plan to discuss and debate solutions to those issues — even if the conversation is at times uncomfortable. If you’re interested in Shift Forum’s new Reads program, be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here.

Fake News, Information Warfare and the Modern State: How Did We Get Here?

It took me longer than I expected to read Zeynep Tufekci’s Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, and longer still to write up this review (I began reading the book when it came out this past summer). That’s not necessarily the best way to open an essay on an important topic, but at least it’s honest. While its title promises a popular history of the kind of social media activism that sparked movements like #BlackLivesMatter and the Arab Spring, the book is in fact a far more nuanced, and often academic study of the impact digital platforms have had on political change over the past two decades. But if we are to understand more recent developments such as information warfare and fake news, we must bend into the work of scholars like Tufekci.

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We All Know Tech’s Too Powerful…

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Shift Reads

…But this is not the takedown we hoped for


I’ve been looking forward to reading Franklin Foer’s World Without Mind — here was a book by a respected member of the journalistic elite, taking on the story that’s consumed most of my life’s work. The book has been widely celebrated by most of the publications I read. Foer, one of several famous literary brothers, is perhaps most famous for clashing with Facebook founder Chris Hughes over the direction of The New Republic magazine. But with World Without Mind, he’s taking on not just Facebook, but the entire tech industry. Alas, while the topic is worthy, the book fails to make a case that will convince the leaders of tech that change is needed.

Instead, Foer focuses on the impact tech platforms have had on “culture,” a word he admits is difficult to define and even harder to defend. My reading of his view of culture is, essentially, New York-based literary culture, an establishment with which most of tech has an uneasy alliance. In the early days (which Foer does not seem to entirely grasp), tech sought New York’s approval. When Wired won its first National Magazine award, in 1994, we all flew to the ceremony. But despite being celebrated as successful, we quickly realized we’d never be accepted. Elitism is like that — the club will acknowledge you, but in the end, it won’t incorporate your new ideas.

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This AI Writing Bot Says I’m AWESOME!

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I’m speaking at a tech conference in New York City tomorrow. Yesterday, I had a tantalizingly odd conversation about a bio that someone assumed I had written. So I went to the conference website to look up my profile, and — Oh. My. God:

“He is one of the most successful authors of all times and his books can mesmerize. He is also an entrepreneur and after being so successful he still carries a decent behavior and very down to earth attitude. He is none other than the very talented Robert Reid.”

Self-confidence has a place in a bio. But certain lines should not even be approached. This one, for instance:

“He went to the very popular university called Harvard University for his MBA degree. He has been a superstar with his work. One of his books was named as Architects of the Web created stir in the market and it was outstanding. The book was solely focused on the Silicon Valley and was very well crafted and written by this genius.”

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Has Humanity Lost Its Purpose?

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No one in tech is talking about Homo Deus. We most certainly should be.

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Upon finishing Yuval Harari’s Homo Deus, I found an unwelcome kink in my otherwise comfortably adjusted frame of reference. It brought with it the slight nausea of a hangover, a lingering whiff of jet exhaust from a hard night, possibly involving rough psychedelics.

I’m usually content with my (admittedly incomplete) understanding of the role humanity plays in the universe, and in particular, with the role that technology plays as that narrative builds. And lately that technology story is getting pretty damn interesting — I’d argue that our society’s creation of and reaction to digital technologies is pretty much the most important narrative in the world at present.

But as you consider that phrase “digital technologies,” are you conjuring images of computers and iPhones? Of “the cloud” and Google? Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Netflix, Slack, Uber? I’ve always felt that this group of artifacts — the “things” that we claim as digital — the companies and the devices, the pained metaphors (cloud?!) and the juvenile apps — these are only the most prominent geographic features of a vaster and more tectonic landscape, one we’ve only begun to explore.

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Dataism and Homo Deus

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What happens in a world where we have conquered the traditional ills of pestilence, famine and disease, where technological platforms know us better than we know ourselves?

Prof Harari

Yuval Harari has written a provocative book, Homo Deus, which explores technoreligion and what he describes as data-ism.

Harari reckons we might see the rise of all powerful platforms that use their knowledge of us to their advantage (and our cost).

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