{"id":7512,"date":"2026-08-27T08:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T08:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=7512"},"modified":"2026-08-27T08:07:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T08:07:00","slug":"tech-bros-must-channel-the-moguls-of-old-to-get-back-in-americas-good-graces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=7512","title":{"rendered":"Tech bros must channel the moguls of old to get back in America’s good graces"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In the face of massive public resistance and anger, tech bros need to start thinking like Andrew Carnegie and the \u201crobber barons\u201d of the Gilded Age\u00a0\u2014 or even like Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n

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The tech world is in bad odor these days.<\/p>\n

Social media\u2019s addictive qualities have parents in such an uproar that Meta just agreed to pay out an $18 billion settlement, and data-center projects are facing rejection across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet for decades America\u2019s tech industry was cherished as a center of innovation, a world in which hard-working entrepreneurs started businesses in garages and produced things that made everyone\u2019s lives better.<\/p>\n

Because it was constantly innovating, it stayed ahead of government\u2019s ability to regulate it, resulting in \u201cpermissionless innovation\u201d \u2014 change that didn\u2019t have to ask first.<\/p>\n

And that seemed fine, as it brought us personal computers, spreadsheets, word processing, databases, laptops, cell phones, smartphones and social media.<\/p>\n

Silicon Valley was making us richer and more capable, and if it made a lot of money in the process, that seemed only fair.<\/p>\n

Until suddenly, not quite a decade ago, Silicon Valley\u2019s \u201cregulatory exceptionalism\u201d came to an end.<\/p>\n

Not because we resented the gobs of money Silicon Valley\u2019s tech lords were making, but because we began to doubt whether they were still working to make ordinary people richer and more capable.<\/p>\n

They were no longer seen as the hammer-wielding woman in that famous \u201c1984\u201d Apple commercial, but as the Big Brother figure up on the screen in that famous \u201c1984\u201d Apple commercial.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the widespread bipartisan resistance to data centers and Flock cameras is our distrust of the people behind them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As recently as last year, Anthropic founder Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman were publicly fretting that artificial intelligence could cause massive job loss and even human extinction: \u201cThere\u2019s a 25% chance that things go really, really badly,\u201d as Amodei put it.<\/p>\n

Today, on the verge of OpenAI\u2019s trillion-dollar IPO, both have changed their tune.<\/p>\n

Steve Jobs and his generation gave us tech that empowered individuals; our current tech lords produce tech that spies on us and engage in creepy talk about AI\u2019s disastrous potential \u2014 at least until it looks like saying so might queer the deal.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s room for suspicion here. \u00a0<\/p>\n

True, data centers are relatively benign, and the objections to them are mostly bogus (they use less water than America\u2019s golf courses, and they aren\u2019t being dumped on the poor; Loudoun County, Va., the richest county in America, has the highest concentration of data centers in the world).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Flock cameras are less trustworthy:\u00a0After experiencing extensive government surveillance to enforce draconian COVID policies, Americans have reason to feel skittish about accepting even more of it.<\/p>\n

But I think most of the problem here is that people actively distrust the tech bros themselves.<\/p>\n

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So if the industry wants to get back in America\u2019s good graces, it needs to learn from the moguls of the past.<\/p>\n

The \u201crobber barons\u201d of 150 years ago who built huge companies in industries like oil, steel, railroads and banking were phenomenally rich for their era.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With their wealth they made sure to build things for ordinary people \u2014 institutions and edifices that benefited regular Americans in their own communities.<\/p>\n

Andrew Carnegie built 2,509 public libraries, about half of which are still in service today, including dozens of branches in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also built and endowed arts centers like Carnegie Hall, Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., and more.<\/p>\n

Cornelius Vanderbilt endowed Vanderbilt University and numerous hospitals and schools.<\/p>\n

John D. Rockefeller founded the University of Chicago and Rockefeller University, funded hookworm eradication projects and gave land to create state and national parks.<\/p>\n

Julius Rosenwald of Sears, Roebuck & Co. collaborated with Booker T. Washington to establish nearly 5,000 schools for black children in the segregated South.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All this physical and intellectual infrastructure made people\u2019s lives better where they lived \u2014 and today\u2019s tech lords, with their enormous wealth, have a chance to do the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cDear Big Tech, build the community a new school and a new football stadium,\u201d Jesse Kelly advised this week. \u201cYou\u2019ll get your data center. You\u2019re welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Beijing figured it out: China is gobbling up Africa\u2019s resources after funding hospitals, soccer stadiums, airports and roads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(In contrast, African officials say, when you talk to US envoys you get lectures about climate change or diversity.)<\/p>\n

The tech world needs to go back to finding ways to improve our lives, either through its products or through its philanthropy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My advice to the tech bros: Make Andrew Carnegie smile.<\/p>\n

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee and founder of the InstaPundit.com blog.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Facing public distrust and an $18 billion Meta settlement, tech leaders must win back Americans by funding communities like Andrew Carnegie did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nTech bros must channel the moguls of old to get back in America's good graces - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=7512\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tech bros must channel the moguls of old to get back in America's good graces - 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