Human innovation scales up quite well. Some people were lucky enough to have a say on the design of this systems that changed the world. It’s unfortunate that they let greed erode their humanity.

This resonates with me to a frustrating degree. I think it’s part of the professional disconnect my dad and I have - he’s an engineer too, but the foundation of his career was in the boom days of Silicon Valley, largely during the 80s and 90s

being born into a little seed cash and enough comfort to go a while without working a straight job. As Julie says when someone repeats that Amazon was started in a garage: Ain’t no garages in the trailer park.

We need look no further than the “hackathon,” that sad facsimile of the days when we were all learning the basics so fast that the world could be ours with just a day or two of focused effort. Hype up an exciting atmosphere, assemble some folks with so few attachments in life that they have time to spend all weekend at a hackathon, and this ritual will summon up the old gods. The hackathon is the proof that people believe this can work, and it is the proof that it doesn’t.