In April 2019 I cautioned about the advent corporate surveillance. I went on to add a few postscripts that track the dystopian unwinding, but I thought I’d do a separate post lauding my prophecy here. Because who doesn’t need a Worker Productivity Score?
This week we learned that Microsoft really does want you to live you best life (or rather, Viva). And they can help us “address complex challenges and respond to change by shedding light on organizational work patterns and trends.”
Even better: Amazon is ensuring that all kinds of work will be addressed.
Last night I learned we won Big Game (confession: I learned this through Michael McFaul). While I did lead marketing at a football startup, I think mycolleagues would admit they’d hired me more for my communications skills than my knowledge of the game.
But of course, I had to reach out to my friend about it. The one who played football for Cal. Sure he’s remained deeply involved with Cal Football and even led significant fundraising efforts for Cal Athletics … but I had to be certain that he was aware of this development.
Once the banter subsided(ish), he concluded with this. Which really is just a sign of the times, is it not?
I believe Stanford cheated. Rigged!! Nobody gets two kicks blocked. Half the points were fraudulent. I want a recount of the points. Cal won if you only count the legal points! We should still have the axe!
In his book It Was All A Lie, long-time GOP political campaigner Stuart Stevens poses the question: how can the conservative right abandon “deeply held beliefs about character, personal responsibility, foreign policy, and the national debt in a matter of months” to follow Donald Trump?
And his conclusion is that it didn’t abandon these beliefs because they were never real in the first place; they were merely messaging tools for opportunistic gain, shielding a bald quest for power. In short, It Was All A Lie.
Amidst all the techno-utopianism, then, it seemed that this whole thing from Coinbase was a bit, well, off industry-brand?
That expansive-sounding tweet doesn’t really convey the actual post’s message. While putting forth some lofty goals (including enabling “belonging for everyone”), the linked post was actually written in order to define what Coinbase won’t do.
The post asks us to consider Coinbase’s mission “to create an open financial system for the world. An open financial system is one that is not controlled by any one country or company (just like the internet did for distributing information).” (source).
Well that is certainly lofty, too! In fact, their website goes on to say, “We think this is the highest leverage way to bring about more economic freedom, innovation, efficiency, and equality of opportunity in the world.”
And doing this massively significant, important work requires them to avoid certain things.
So Brian’s saying that, in order to bring about economic freedom, innovation, efficiency, and equality of opportunity in the world, it’s best to avoid broader societal issues and political causes.
Let’s set aside the myriad of issues with this and just say we think that Laszlo got it right. The world is different. It’s 2020 (and not 1970), people.
And shouldn’t that present those Silicon Valley Big Dreamer types with an exciting opportunity?
