Silicon Valley: from heroes to zeroes?




Academy of Ideas show

Summary: <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Silicon Valley used to be regarded as the global hub of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation. It was the home of the world’s best technologies, new products and services. Yet today, Silicon Valley’s tech companies seem to have become the twenty-first-century equivalent of mediaeval robber barons. They are condemned for fleecing customers, evading taxes, and pocketing monopoly profits. Once associated with freedom, Silicon Valley is now condemned as the agency of global surveillance. Has it gone from overhype to over-reach? Or given emerging new technologies – such as express transit systems, autonomous vehicles and biotech – is the criticism mostly unfair?</span></p><br> <p><strong><span style="font-size: 12pt;">SPEAKERS</span></strong></p><br> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">JAMIE BARTLETT</span><br><span style="font-size: 12pt;">director, Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, Demos; author, Radicals; presenter, BBC’s The Secrets of Silicon Valley</span></p><br> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">DANIEL BEN-AMI</span><br><span style="font-size: 12pt;">journalist; author, Ferraris for All: in defence of economic progress</span></p><br> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">ANDREW BERNSTEIN</span><br><span style="font-size: 12pt;">author, The Capitalist Manifesto: the historic, economic, and philosophic case for laissez-faire; affiliate, Ayn Rand Institute</span></p><br> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">LAUREN RAZAVI</span><br><span style="font-size: 12pt;">managing director, Flibl; award-winning writer and consultant</span></p>