[Short] Ep 1. Daron Acemoglu, Nobel Laureate in Economics 2024 || Today's Tech Era and the Gilded Age of 1890s

Join Anirudh and Daron Acemoglu, Nobel Laureate in Economics 2024, in this insightful discussion as they delve into the looming specter of a second 'great divergence' fueled by the growing dominance of big tech companies over information, wealth, and power. Drawing parallels with historical precedents from the industrial era, we examine the ramifications of wealth concentration, rising inequality, and control over transformative technologies on society and politics.Link to the Full Episode: https://youtu.be/FqF5sUI_4jsIn the opening episode of The Great Tech Game podcast, host Anirudh Suri is joined by Daron Acemoglu to discuss how nations can succeed in the age of AI.Daron Acemoglu, Nobel Laureate in Economics 2024, is professor of economics at Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and bestselling author of How Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (2012) and more recently Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (2023).Acemoglu is one of the world’s foremost economists, but also one of the best thinkers about why nations succeed or fail and how technology, innovation and institutions shape our world. In this episode, Suri and Acemoglu have a wide-ranging conversation to set the stage for the rest of the podcast. They discuss Acemoglu’s books, dissect the concept of the Great Games in history, delve into the capabilities that are required to win across all Great Games, debate whether human creativity will remain relevant in the age of AI, and much more.They draw out parallels between the pre-WWI Gilded Age era and today’s technology age. They explore the spectrum of techno-optimism and techno-pessimism, and tease out the nuances of the current phase of techno-optimism that is gripping large parts of the world. As inequality rises, they discuss how divergences amongst nations and within nations will shape our geopolitics and domestic politics. They discuss the state of democracy and the need for new institutions to manage the tech-driven world we live in. Acemoglu offers a detailed roadmap for how technology can be shaped and redirected and harnessed fully for humans. The episode concludes with Daron’s book recommendations for those interested in technology, geopolitics, economics and history. #AnirudhSuri: Managing Director, India Internet Fund; Author, The Great Tech Game: Shaping Geopolitics and the Destinies of Nations (HarperCollins, 2022); and Nonresident Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Follow Anirudh here: X (formerly Twitter): anirudhsuriYoutube: @anirudh_suriLinkedin: anirudhsuriInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/anirudh_suriFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnirudhSuri.in Website: www.anirudhsuri.comBook and Podcast: www.greattechgame.com To learn more about Daron Acemoglu and his work:Website: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/daron-acemogluTwitter: https://twitter.com/DAcemogluMITDaron Acemoglu is an Institute Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also affiliated with the National Bureau Economic Research, and the Center for Economic Policy Research. He is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the British Academy, the American Philosophical Society, the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the European Economic Association, and the Society of Labor Economists.He is the author of six books: Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (with James A. Robinson), Introduction to Modern Economic Growth, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (with James A. Robinson), Principles of Economics (with David Laibson and John List), The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (with James A. Robinson), and Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (with Simon Johnson).