Part 3 will be available soon.
Part 3 will be available soon.
Tech Oligarchs
6 Parts
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Part 3 will be available soon.
How Big Tech and the American left broke up
Investigation'Tech Oligarchs' (2/6). The myth of the brilliant and 'cool' inventor long concealed the true nature of Silicon Valley's leaders, who have resisted democratic efforts to regulate certain aspects of the technology sector.
The ranch was hard to find. In this stretch of California, less than two hours from Silicon Valley, the internet drops out, meaning no GPS, and none of the gas stations stock road maps, now relics in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). After driving more than 100 miles north of San Francisco, past sun-scorched hills and fields covered with solar panels, you eventually come upon the narrow road where 19th-century stagecoaches once ran.
That was where the ancestors of Jerry Brown, who emigrated from Germany in 1849, operated a stop where weary travelers changed horses. "The arrival of the railroad destroyed this little road, its inn, and completely changed the landscape, trade, everything," Brown said. A century later, Brown turned the old stop into a country home. Now 87, the former California governor cuts a striking figure – good-looking, cultivated, and very much a product of the Democratic Party's old-school WASP elite. He spends his days reading political books and bottling oil from the olive trees that fill the valley. Just a few hours from the tech oligarchs, Brown remains a symbol of a more rural, historical, and politically grounded California.
He knew the tech world well. "They almost all gravitated around me as they always have around elected officials," he said. Mark Zuckerberg and the Apple giants long funded his campaigns: "After all, they claimed to care about the country and were among the richest." Brown cut the ribbon at their headquarters, including Tesla's, in Palo Alto. Elon Musk, he said, was "one of the few who never really responded" during his Democratic Party fundraisers.
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