On the week that the price of Bitcoin rose above $100,000 and Trump appointed David Sacks as his “AI and Crypto Czar”, has Silicon Valley finally succeeded in conquering Washington DC? In today’s That Was The Week summary of tech news, Keith Teare and Andrew review what appears to be a tectonic shift in power between Silicon Valley and Washington DC. Are “right-wing” Trump supporters like Sacks, Elon Musk and Mark Andreessen being invited to Washington by the MAGA movement to ransack the Federal bureaucracy? Or is this that grand historical moment when the real powers-that-be emerge from behind the curtain and impose their own digital neo-liberal regime in DC?
Keith Teare is the founder and CEO of SignalRank Corporation. Previously, he was executive chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd., a U.K.-based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. Teare studied at the University of Kent and is the author of “The Easy Net Book” and “Under Siege.” He writes regularly for TechCrunch and publishes the “That Was The Week” newsletter.
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.
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