From Paul Bradley Carr's Notes:
I‘m probably asked a half dozen times a month when I’m going to write another book.
It’s a perfectly reasonable question. It’s been five years since Sober Is My New Drunk (still getting royalty checks) and seven since The Upgrade (no more checks no idea what’s happening with the movie). About damn time I got back to work.
In fact, I decided more than a year ago what my next book would be about.
Even before Peter Thiel slithered into the White House and the tech industry had its Come To Satan Moment, I knew I wanted to write about the Evil-ization of Silicon Valley. Specifically about how rapidly the Valley has transformed from an idealistic nerds’ paradise into America’s new center of power. A place, and an industry, drunk on cash and now cutting a destructive and belligerent swath through international politics, the military, business, media and culture.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the transformation happened. Certainly it took me longer to recognize than it should have. Perhaps because the Valley is defined by constant change and it’s hard to identify permanent shifts, except in the rear view mirror. Or perhaps because I’m a shitty reporter.
When Sarah had her family threatened by Uber it still felt like a one-off: A rogue company, founded by an obnoxious frat bro, and staffed (for some reason) by a growing a team of former intelligence officials and Washington lobbyists who didn’t understand how things worked in the Valley.HT: Naked Capitalism
Similarly, when Mark Ames showed me a document proving that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar had funded opposition groups in Ukraine right before the Maidan revolution, I assumed Omidyar – the Pez dispenser guy! – must have been duped by his friends in the State Department. Tech founders simply didn’t go around instigating military coups.
Perhaps I saw the first glimmer of the real story when I dug out the White House visitor logs and saw how many times Omidyar’s name appeared, and who he met. Or when I noticed the growing line of tech billionaires leading to the Oval Office, the Kremlin and various Saudi royal palaces....MUCH MORE
