A Little Tech History

I remember watching The Pirates of Silicon Valley. (The documentary, not the dramatization) It was a series of interviews about the Silicon Valley world in the 1970s – 1980s. It covered the birth of Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and other giants.

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You can’t tell their story without talking about Xerox. Xerox dominated the photocopier space and were a very big company. They set up a new lab in Palo Alto to experiment on technological moonshots.

Xerox PARC, as it was called, invented in just a few years, the following:

By all rights, Xerox should have dominated modern computing. Unfortunately, their executive staff thought it was all stupid. So they ended up selling or even just giving the tech away.

Without PARC, you would have no Microsoft, Cisco, or Apple. It was the younger generation who saw the potential of these new technologies. They took the new tech and built powerhouse companies.

Fast forward to the 90s. Microsoft did not see Facebook, Netscape, and Google’s potential. Microsoft was looking in the wrong direction at AOL. The new companies built upon the nascent internet technology and grew fast. Microsoft, Apple, and others failed to capitalize on their monopoly position.

Now more than 20 years later, it feels the game is changing yet again. The new technologies are the blockchain and AI. There does seem to be a different feel this time around. Back in the 80s, IBM and Xerox did not lobby congress to shut down Apple and Microsoft. In the 90’s, the government actually stopped Microsoft from interfering with these new companies. Microsoft barely escaped without being broken up like AT&T.

This time, Google, Twitter (x) and Facebook (meta), are aggressively lobbying the government to shut down would-be competitors. TikTok was singled out to be shut down despite being equally as bad as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and any other social media. The reason was that TikTok would not sell out to a US monopoly the way Instagram did many years ago.

The US congress first said, “TikTok has to sell to an American owner”. This is far from discouraging monopolistic practices, it’s actually boosting them. Then they said “if you can’t buy them, kill them.” Again, this is purely political lobbying at work. There is no real threat from TikTok. AOC recently explained the evidence for the ban was weak at best.

AOC is a treasure.

Then TikTok did a really cynical thing. They said they were going to shut down usage in the US on Sunday even though Biden said he was not going to enforce the ban. They named only “President Trump“ as the person who could fix it. This is despite the fact that he is not even president yet.

Then 1 day into the shut down, they went back online and said “thank you to President Trump”.

This is just naked pandering to a person who only values direct loyalty. Every tech leader is bending over backwards to give fealty to the new sacred ruler. Trump does not care about monopolies exploiting their position. He doesn’t care about the public good. He doesn’t care about anything other than enriching himself and being loved.

This is a depressing piece of history we are in right now. I can’t find many to root for. Democrats are led by old white people who enrich themselves all the time. Republicans are a cult that will lead us into a dystopian nightmare scenario.

There aren’t enough AOCs and Bernie Sanders to go around. There aren’t enough progressive capitalists who want strong regulation and open markets. There aren’t enough strong leaders who have a moral center.

I want to be optimistic and say we will figure out climate change. To say we will figure out democracy and make it fair. Unfortunately, when I look back at 50 years of tech history, the trend seems to be going in the wrong direction.

I am logging this moment for my own journaling. Let’s hope my fears one day look silly, and not prescient.

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