This essay in the Financial Times is a really profound and important one. We fetishise these (almost invariably) young men, imbuing them with almost superhuman powers of insight and foresight. We believe their fantastical claims that their technologies will forever change humanity, and that they are on a par with the greatest inventions and developments in human history. We allow them to create and propagate often harmful inventions, ignoring the real human cost to their whims.
Yet these misanthropes are not always the geniuses they claim to be. They do develop some useful technologies, but often the few gems are part of a huge amount of dross. We need to understand and accept that these young men are not our new philosopher kings. They are lucky individuals who had the good fortune of growing up in a time of low interest rates (hence the often silly amounts of money thrown at them, and the seeming repudiation of the need for their technologies and businesses to prove themselves in the open market). We need to tamp down our unfettered admiration of them, and subject them to the same skepticism we reserve for everyone else.
Above all, we need to call them out when their products and services serve up real harm. Do not tell us about your Martian visions when your product causes death and destruction on earth, right here and right now. Do not bamboozle us with acronyms to blind us to the lack of foresight inherent in your invention.
Let’s treat these people exactly as they are - successful tinkerers, who develop products that are part of the great river of human development, and not some ox bow lake of unprecedented genius.
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