The Richest Person in the World Owns the Town Square

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

i'm a default musk hater, but i think the one thing that isn't said enough about him is. no one in the history of capitalism has ever become the richest person in the world by making a product that was fundamentally about preventing existential risk. And to not even raise the issue of, like, why would we want to have the richest people in the world own the town square? Like, he should have an answer for that, right? But it didn't. It didn't even seem to be an issue. He did not seem to have thought out any of the complexities. Think his whole ethose has always been about, you know, in an inspiring way, about

Why did Elon Musk buy Twitter? What does he plan to do with it? Is this the end of big social or a chance to reinvent it? This week, we’re interrupting our regularly scheduled programming to answer those questions with two of the smartest internet commentators we know: Eli Pariser, co-founder of Upworthy and author of “The Filter Bubble”; and Steven Johnson, writer, podcaster, and TV host.

RECOMMENDED:

Subscribe to Steven’s newsletter, Adjacent Possible: adjacentpossible.substack.com

Follow Eli on Twitter: @elipariser

Listen to our interview with Jill Lepore about Elon Musk’s sci-fi fantasies.

GET IN TOUCH:

What did you think of this episode? Send us your thoughts: podcast@nextbigideaclub.com

NEXT BIG IDEA APP:

You know what’s better than mindlessly scrolling through Twitter? Reading an entire book in just 12 minutes. Impossible, you say? Well, clearly you haven’t downloaded the Next Big Idea app, the only place in the world where you can hear book summaries read by leading authors themselves. Download it today: nextbigideaclub.com/app