Ordinary Unhappiness 160: Very Special Boys feat. Adrian Daub
12 snips
Sep 26, 2026 
Adrian Daub, Stanford humanities professor and author of What Tech Calls Governing, returns for a sharp conversation about Silicon Valley’s shift from utopian promises to billionaire power. They explore tech masculinity, childishness, dominance without responsibility, AI’s promise to cancel adulthood, and the strange public fantasies of very special boys. Also: aging, vulnerability, homosociality, and resistance to technological inevitability.
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Silicon Valley Sold Capitalism As Transformation
- Adrian Daub began studying Silicon Valley after editors uncritically repeated its sales pitches about transforming capitalism.
- His students revealed that workplace idealism often concealed long hours, harassment, weak governance, and political complicity.
Tech Leadership Turned Against Its Own Workforce
- What Tech Calls Governing examines tech leaders’ radicalization against employees, middle management, regulation, and democratic accountability.
- Daub distinguishes a widely shared tech ideology from a smaller billionaire elite seeking direct political power.
Billionaire Neediness Becomes Labor Extraction
- Billionaire neediness becomes a management tool when founders extract free emotional labor by appearing lonely, incompetent, or socially helpless.
- Their personal decline invites sympathy while their wealth lets them weaponize that sympathy against everyone else.
