Through charities, lobbying groups, and head-to-head fights with the FBI, tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook wield influence comparable to that of Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller
The late 19th century was a period known as the Gilded Age in America. As the railroads, mining industries and factories boomed, millions of workers were inspired to migrate from Europe, yet the wealth became concentrated among a small set of industrialists such as Andrew Carnegie, a steel magnate, and the oil baron John D Rockefeller. These men wielded massive power through business, political efforts and philanthropy.
Yet even Carnegie, whose ruthlessness earned him a reputation as a robber baron, would have been amazed by the power the heads of technology firms wield today, according to the Carnegie biographer David Nasaw.
Carnegie could never have imagined the kind of power Zuckerberg has, said Nasaw, a history professor at City University of New York. Politics today is less relevant than it has ever been in our entire history. These CEOs are more powerful than theyve ever been. The driving force of social change today is no longer government at all.
Tech CEOs have spent 2016 wading into politics when it suits their own ends, and even going head-to-head with the US government. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks CEO, opened the companys annual developer conference by calling out the anti-immigration stance of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.
I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as others, he said. I hear them calling for blocking free expression, for slowing immigration, for reducing trade, and in some cases, even for cutting access to the internet.
Instead of building walls, we can help people build bridges, Zuckerberg told the audience.
This was markedly political language for the usually private CEO, who has quietly supported lobbying efforts for a more liberal approach to immigration. And hes doing more than just politicized product launches: in December, he set aside 99% of his fortune a now untaxable $45bn to be spent to advance human potential, as the announcement claimed. That potential is whatever fits with Zuckerbergs worldview.
Facebook employees have asked Zuckerberg whether they should actively work to defeat Trump, according to leaked documents given to the tech site Gizmodo on Friday. More than 1.04 billion people use Facebook every day, and for many it has become their most important news source.
When the FBI won a federal court order saying Apple must help the agency break into an iPhone, its chief executive, Tim Cook, issued a public statement refusing to comply. Despite the sensitivity of the investigation into the San Bernardino terrorist attack, Cook tried to reassure the public that he was not talking about toppling democracy. We are challenging the FBIs demands with the deepest respect for American democracy, the statement began. This demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.
Do Apple the worlds most valuable company by market capitalization and its figurehead boss, Tim Cook, know how to protect democracy better than the American government does? Public sentiment has been on Apples side. The night Cook issued that statement, a small crowd assembled outside San Franciscos Apple store to express support , and at the companys annual shareholder meeting, he received a standing ovation. And after some very public back and forth, the government announced they had figured out how to open the phone without Apples help after all, essentially admitting defeat in a case that would have set a precedent in forcing a tech firm to weaken its own security to help the government.
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