Tech oligarchs as modern emperors

Why do tech oligarchs keep proclaiming that the end is nigh? From Elon Musk warning of the civilizational-level threat of the “woke mind virus,” to Marc Andreessen declaring that “any deceleration of AI will cost lives,” to Peter Thiel’s fixation with the Antichrist, billionaires are insistent that the stakes of their ventures are nothing less than apocalyptic. To better understand the paranoia of Silicon Valley overlords, Travis, Jake, and Julian are joined by Chris Marquis, Sinyi Professor of Chinese Management at the University of Cambridge and author of the book The Profiteers: How Business Privatizes Profits and Socializes Costs. Christopher Marquis https://chrismarquis.com/ Christopher Marquis at Jacobin https://jacobin.com/author/christopher-marquis The Profiteers: How Business Privatizes Profits and Socializes Costs https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-profiteers-how-business-privatizes-profits-and-socializes-costs-christopher-marquis/ecaf3d412fe119c2 Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium QAA episodes: https://www.patreon.com/qaa The first two episodes of Annie Kelly’s new podcast miniseries “Truly, Tradly, Deeply” will be released on the Cursed Media podcast network on the 29th of October. www.cursedmedia.net/ Cursed Media subscribers also get access to every episode of every QAA miniseries we produced, including Manclan by Julian Feeld and Annie Kelly, Trickle Down by Travis View, The Spectral Voyager by Jake Rockatansky and Brad Abrahams, and Perverts by Julian Feeld and Liv Agar. Plus, Cursed Media subscribers will get access to at least three new exclusive podcast miniseries every year. www.cursedmedia.net/ Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com) https://qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast. SOURCES Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/peter-thiel-lectures-antichrist Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private lectures: Warnings of ‘the Antichrist’ and U.S. destruction https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/10/10/peter-thiel-antichrist-lectures-leaked/ The Techno-Optimist Manifesto - Marc Andreessen https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/