Dystopian Silicon Valley and the Wisdom of Richard Hendricks

Has a decade really gone by? That was the thought racing through my head when I started to read the “decade in tech” retrospectives pouring in this week. More on those later. 

But first, make sure to check out this week’s trifecta of big stories. These long reads about Amazon’s Alexa challenges, Facebook’s big hardware gamble and Google cloud’s moment of truth made big headlines and were meticulously reported over months by our team. Each one was also expertly edited by Nick Wingfield, who had a busy week. (Gotta give the editors some love, too, sometimes :)) 

If you follow those companies at all, now’s a good time to subscribe!

A Lesson for Tech in the Next Decade

So, back to those “think pieces” about the last decade in technology. With less than two weeks left in the decade, publications have started firing them off. And, my, they have been depressing.

The New York Times declared the 2010s the decade tech “lost its way.” The Atlantic lamented about all the “promises unfulfilled.” BuzzFeed chronicled how technology has left us alone, distrustful and unengaged.  They felt a little like script fodder for HBO’s “Silicon Valley.”

I have yet to read an article—or see a television show—about how technology changed some things for the better over the past decade. Such an article might point out how technology has also made many people healthier and safer and helped no small number of businesses. This week alone my wi-fi-enabled home security camera saved me from a possible break-in at my home and my boys’ great-grandfather got to see photos of them on his Apple Watch from 2,500 miles away. 

But I’m not going to wax on about the unmitigated benefits of technology here. These essays published by other media raise some important points that are worth discussing. 

My problem with them is they do nothing to help us figure out what to do about the challenges. Because if you think the last decade was disruptive, just wait for the next. 

Isolation caused by mobile devices will pale in comparison to isolation from augmented and virtual reality. Disinformation will be so pervasive that people will retreat from the public sphere. Instead, criminals will spread dangerous and fake content through channels—probably encrypted—that cannot be policed.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d rather live in 2020 than 2010, and I’m betting 2030 will be pretty sweet. You will all be reading this newsletter—yes I’ll still be writing it—through your AR glasses with your morning coffee. Or perhaps magically it will all be downloaded into your brain. (Have no fear: probably not.)

But we need more discussion of what we have learned to be better prepared for what’s next. So far, the lesson seems to be the need for more regulation. The implication is that this decade went wrong because technology companies had unfettered and unchecked power. 

That may be true and I agree it's necessary; but it's not sufficient. Tighter tech regulation isn’t going to revive industrial growth, solve climate change, make us feel connected again and accomplish the dozens of other things these authors lament the tech revolution hasn’t fulfilled.

One thing that would help is a different mentality among founders. In that regard, they could learn a lesson from the great Richard Hendricks.

Hendricks is, of course, the founder of the fictitious Pied Piper portrayed in HBO’s “Silicon Valley.” The show masterfully hit on so many themes over the course of its six-year run. And in the glorious finale, he taught us all something that might serve us well in the decade ahead. (Spoiler warning.)

Moments away from the sort of breakthrough, multi-billion dollar success that has always eluded Hendricks, he sacrifices it all and “does the right thing.” Humanity is saved. He ends up a dirt poor Stanford professor.

At first, I hated the ending because it wasn’t realistic. And then, I loved it, because I realized it inverted everything. Everything (yes everything) in the show seemed plausible in the real Silicon Valley except for that sacrifice. 

And that’s pretty sad. The conventional wisdom in the real Silicon Valley is that if you don’t build something, someone else will. So, even if there may be adverse consequences, you might as well release it and try to control it and make some money. 

Hendricks made the opposite choice, and the world was spared from catastrophe. He seemed content with the choice, as content a neurotic, nerdy founder can ever be. 

I don’t believe individuals can or should stop the march of technology. Nor do I think it is sufficient to say that we should just trust people to “do the right thing.” We need more checks than that. But I’d like to think that ten years from now, pulling the plug on some dangerous technology won’t seem like a crazy plotline twist. If so, we’ll have more to celebrate and less to fear. 

 This Week's The Information Articles. To read these articles, subscribe here.

• Amazon Learns a New Skill: Making Money From Alexa by Priya Anand and Amir Efrati
• In Defense of Deep Fakes by Sam Lessin
• Google Brass Set 2023 as Deadline to Beat Amazon, Microsoft in Cloud by Nick Bastone, Kevin McLaughlin and Amir Efrati
• Why Salesforce's Benioff Will Step Down as Co-CEO in 2020 by Kevin McLaughlin
• Tech IPOs in 2020: Five Things to Watch by Carleton English
• The Information Team’s Favorite Tech Stories by The Information Staff
• To Control Its Destiny, Facebook Bets Big on Hardware by Alex Heath
• Didi Chuxing Aims to Jumpstart Growth After a Rough 2019 by Yunan Zhang
• The Information’s 411 — Boz and Effect by Tom Dotan

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