@itzamyth.bsky.social
The glass is always full unless it's in a vacuum
AI cannot replace the very time-intensive work our newsroom does. We don’t use it to write our stories, our newsletters or our headlines.
Managing Editor @charlesornstein.bsky.social explains how we are using AI responsibly to aid our reporting.
What’s a technology that you think is overhyped? I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry. Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto. It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.
Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...
19.02.2025 16:42 — 👍 9776 🔁 3181 💬 162 📌 357
Book title: The Art of the Short Story: 52 Great Authors, Their Best Short Fiction, and Their Insights on Writing Book cover image: 5 authors line the top and bottom of the cover. Top: Camus, Mansfield, Garcia Marquez, Walker, and Singer Bottom: Baldwin, Gordimer, Hurston, Jackson, and Kafka. Book by Dana Gioia and RS Gwynn
If you’re a literary nerd, I can’t recommend “The Art of the Short Story” enough.
10.02.2025 13:54 — 👍 529 🔁 53 💬 17 📌 3Ask any (real) progressive, they will say the exact same thing about a centrist/establishment/moderate/neoliberal Democrat.
10.02.2025 06:04 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
“Democratic Wins”
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