David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…Interesting. All right, before we move on to a couple of fun little last tidbits, I know you have, Ben, before we grade. Two more similarities I want to highlight, resonances between Standard Oil and the big tech situation. One is I'm just struck by that quote about Standard Oil of Indiana at the end and that the Young Turks in the ranks thought it was great when the breakup happened. I think part of what was going on there is the old guard became so ossified in their view of how the world worked and wasn’t seeing reality anymore. I think about not all the big tech companies, but again, to pick on Facebook, this really seems (on the outside) to be the case with Facebook right now, the Facebook files, and everything going on with the Wall Street Journal. It really seems like leadership there. Again, whatever’s right or wrong. When the Tarbell articles came out and Rockefeller and everybody were like, oh, we don't need to say anything here. They're playing this wrong. I bet there are a lot of people deep within the organization that are actually doing the work who are like, we should have a different strategy here, but can't have their voices heard. Anyway, that's one. The other one, similarly, that I want to highlight is the press. This dual, the angelic and the less angelic side of the press, people, and journalists and their motivations. This is playing out obviously real-time in so many places in tech. Yes, the press is doing great, super-valuable, incredibly important investigative work, and yes, they are also humans. And the New York Times hates Facebook.…

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