Building Tomorrow

Complaints about the control that social media companies exercise over their platforms has risen over the past couple of years. Some users complain that platforms like Facebook and Twitter should remove more offensive content; others complain that they remove too much, resulting in censorship of politically unpopular views.

There is an alternative to this kludgy, top-down model of content moderation. Minds.com is a more decentralized social network with a First Amendment standard for moderation that allows users to appeal bans to a jury of their digital peers. Minds also has a different revenue model from the big platforms, allowing users to boost posts with proprietary cryptocurrency payments. Our interview with Bill Ottman, founder and CEO of Minds, is a reminder that the future of the internet could look very different from the present.

What is the most successful social network? Who is innovating in the social media space? Why should you switch social media platforms? How does social media giants come between you and your audience?

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Matt Ridley joins the show today to talk about his new book, How Innovation Works. He argues that innovation is the defining feature of the modern age, but it is still very hard for us as a society to wrap our heads around that fact. Ridley argues that we need to see innovation as an incremental, bottom-up, fortuitous process that happens to society as a direct result of the human habit of exchange.

How has innovation transformed public health? What is the difference between an invention and an innovation? Is innovation slowing down?

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Technologist Alec Stapp joins the show to discuss why the US lagged weeks behind South Korea in testing for COVID-19. While the failures of the FDA and CDC have been grim, the show does find a silver lining in the crisis, that technology has greatly eased the transition into social distancing for many Americans.

How is our internet surviving during this global pandemic? How has the private industry stepped up to the plate to tackle COVID-19? Why was the United States late to the game to test patients for COVID-19? Is the FDA to blame for the lack of U.S. testing?

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Stop me if you’ve ever heard some version of the following argument: government mandates and funding gave us the __________ [insert: space shuttle, internet, Silicon Valley], so the government should spend $ __ billions/trillions on stimulating innovation and shaping industrial policy today.

But that argument is built upon a simplistic and sometimes flawed understanding of what actually happened in the past. The true story is much more complex. In this episode, Paul talks with historian Christophe Lecuyer about the military’s role in the creation of Silicon Valley. And he then sits down with Cato’s Peter Van Doren to discuss the track record for government industrial policy in the decades since.

What is silicon logic, user logic and competitive logic? Does the military use new technologies first? What are the advantages of Pentagon contracts compared to private contracts? What is the difference between research and development contracts and manufacturing contracts?

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If you watched the 2018 blockbuster Black Panther, then you’ve encountered a genre known as Afro-Futurism, in which predominately African-American authors use science fiction to explore black liberation in a technological advanced future. These are the kinds of stories that spark the creative energy of the next generation of engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs.

For this episode, we interview Dr. Moradewun Adejunmobi about Afro-Futurism and what it signals about future expectations. Then we talk to Justin Hamilton from Zipline, a drone startup in Africa that is making science fiction into science fact.

What is the power of science fiction? What is Afrofuturism? Why can't a drone delivery company who delivers life-saving treatments test their product in the United States?

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It’s easy to assume that things naturally improve. After all, in our lifetimes technology has advanced, life expectancies have risen, and standards of living have improved. Yet in historical terms, progress is a relatively new phenomenon, only invented a few centuries ago. And the danger is that if we take the idea of progress for granted, we might slow or even reverse the rate of progress. That would be a disaster given that we have an obligation to leave a society to future generations that is in better shape than we received it. Technologist Jason Crawford joins the show to talk about the ethical obligation to pursue progress.

What are the different types of progress? What is the history of progress? Is progress uniform? What progress have we made that is universally good? Is there an ethical imperative to pursue progress? What is sustainable progress?

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While fans of the show Silicon Valley might not have much regard for the role of venture capital in technological innovation, the reality is that venture capitalists do more than act as ATMs for startups. They provide crucial business, marketing, and legal expertise, all of which are necessary to actually get a product to market.

But while venture capital might seem obvious to us today, it was a radical idea in the mid-20th century. Paul interviews Spencer Ante about his biography of the founding father of venture capital, Georges Doriot, a French immigrant who revolutionized the way startups are funded.

What is the relationship between venture capital and start-up owners? Who was Georges Doriot and how did he change the world of venture capital? How is venture capital regulated by the SEC? What barriers do venture capitalists face?

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Most Americans have some idea that our university system, as expensive as it is, is still the envy of the world and a source of science and engineering innovation. But that wasn’t always so. Margaret O’Mara joins the show to discuss how these tech hubs developed in the mid-20th century through a combination of military funding and private research centers. The incentive for university-based research received another major boost in 1980, when Congress deregulated its patent holding policy.

This is the second in a three part series on the origins of Silicon Valley.

Why did California play such a surprising role in America’s innovation economy? How did World War II shape the growth of Silicon Valley? What is a non-compete agreement in an employer contract?

The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America, written by Margaret O’Mara

Animated timeline shows how Silicon Valley became a $2.8 trillion neighborhood, written by Corey Protin, Matthew Stuart, and Matt Weinberger

The Origins of Silicon Valley: Why and How It Happened Here, Stanford Engineering

Immigrants Built Silicon Valley, Building Tomorrow Podcast

On Innovation: Don’t Ask for Permission, Building Tomorrow Podcast

Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy, Free Thoughts Podcast

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This is the first of a three part series looking at the origins of Silicon Valley and how it became synonymous with technological innovation. The first pillar of Silicon Valley’s success is immigration. We bring on Alex Nowrasteh to discuss how immigration reform in the 1960s opened the door to a wave of skilled engineers and entrepreneurs from around the globe. Even today, a significant portion of tech startups are founded and staffed by foreign-born talent.

However, the recent turn towards immigration restrictionism is worsening the already problematic bottleneck on attracting global expertise to the US. Caleb Watney joins us to talk about how the flawed H-1B visa system is responsible both for worsening that shortage and for widening a competitive moat around the Big Tech companies that have the resources to navigate the visa morass.

What is the H-1B visa? Does our immigration system favor entrepreneurship? How many American college students are immigrants? What does our student visa system look like?

Why Silicon Valley Wouldn’t Work Without Immigrants, written by Farhad Manjoo

Tech as We Know It Would Not Exist Without Immigrants, written by Tom Humberstone

Why We Need State‐​Based Immigration Visas, written by Alex Nowrasteh

You Are Now Free to Move About the Planet, Free Thoughts Podcast

Trump’s Immigration Crackdown, Free Thoughts Podcast

The Libertarian Argument for Open Borders, written by Grant Babcock

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As the cultural economy (music, movies, television, and books) digitized around the turn of the 21st century, many critics worried about severe negative consequences, including declining creative output because of piracy and decreased aesthetic quality. Joel Waldfogel joins Paul and Aaron to discuss why those fears were wrong. Digitization has actually stimulated a renaissance in the cultural economy as both the number and perceived aesthetic quality of film, television, and books have soared. It has been a triumph of technological innovation enabling an expansion of the marketplace for the ultimate benefit of producers and consumers.

Are we overproducing movies because of digitization? Are we consuming culture too fast? Is piracy a customer service problem? Does the business model of Spotify prevent piracy of music? Why did music take such a huge hit from piracy when TV and movies took a much smaller hit in comparison? Do we want ownership of products or the ability to have access to stream of service? Why are people unbundling their cable services? Should we get rid of all copyright?

Digital Renaissance: What Data and Economics Tell Us about the Future of Popular Culture, written by Joel Waldfogel

How Does Spotify Make Money?, written by Rameez M. Sydeek

Music Piracy Remains a Problem in the Spotify Era, written by Anne Steele

In the Economy of the Future, You Won’t Own Your Kitchen, written by Pamela J. Hobart

Intellectual Privilege, Free Thoughts Podcast

Is Netflix Ruining Culture?, written by Pamela J. Hobart reviewing Joel Waldfogel’s book Digital Renaissance

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