The Importance of Venture Capital in the Tech Economy

Paris Marx is joined by Edward Ongweso Jr. to discuss how the venture capital industry works, why the technologies it funds don’t deliver on their marketing promises, and how that’s once again being shown in the hype around AI.
 
Edward Ongweso Jr. is a freelance journalist, co-host of This Machine Kills, and guest columnist at The Nation. You can follow Ed on Twitter at @bigblackjacobin.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Edward wrote about the problems with venture capital and what the AI hype shows us about the industry for The Nation. Earlier this year, he wrote about the tantrum VCs threw after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.
• Paris wrote about where Elon Musk’s vision for the X superapp comes from, why his Twitter rebrand isn’t going so well, and why ChatGPT isn’t a revolution.
• In 2020, Sam Harnett wrote about the problem with tech media’s coverage of the gig economy.
• Uber used to want to be the “Amazon for transportation” and the “operating system for everyday life.”
• TIME reported on how OpenAI lobbying watered down EU AI rules.
• Marc Andreessen wrote his pitch for “Why AI Will Save the World.”

Support the show