"I thought I was a joke or a test!"

Douglas Rushkoff was led into a room at a desert resort where five mysterious billionaires awaited him. They peppered the media theorist and author with binary questions: Bitcoin or Ethereum? Virtual reality or augmented reality? Alaska or New Zealand?

This experience sets the stage for Douglas's newest book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, which focuses on "The Mindset, a Silicon Valley-style certainty that they and their cohort can break the laws of physics, economics, and morality to escape a disaster of their own making—as long as they have enough money and the right technology."*

Today's episode explores the derivative and meta focus of today's financial and technology industry, so much so that the New York Stock Exchange has been purchased by a derivates exchange and Facebook has changed its holding company's name to Meta.

Additional Topics Include:

•  Why Alphabet will survive and Meta will fail (05:18)
• Will new technologies replace human labor or just camouflage it? (12:02)
• The 2000 merger of AOL and Time Warner (18:14)
• Is a scorched earth mentality necessary? (20:32)
• Why do billionaires donate so inefficiently (27:07)

(Editor’s note: Topic times don’t account for sponsor ads and may appear a few minutes later in the episode on your podcast player)

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• Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!
• My new book, Skip the Line, is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!
• Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.
• I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltuchershow.com

------------

Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to “The James Altucher Show” wherever you get your podcasts: 

• Apple Podcasts
• iHeart Radio
• Spotify

Follow me on social media:

• YouTube
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn