Brendan O'Connor

One more reason to build real tech economies, h/t groups like @compdotco-op.bsky.social

“…Analyst Gil Luria of the D.A. Davidson investment firm told me the industry is now up to $100 billion of debt for building AI data centers.”

From the article: “Big tech companies are teaming up with Wall Street giants to build these data centers, and the debt they are using is being kept off the balance sheets of the tech companies…

All while making tech companies look more profitable by keeping this debt off their books. There’s a name for that, funny money (& other names I won’t use here), & last I checked it helped crash the economy for the Great Recession.

As AI companies continue to invest heavily, concerns about a bubble continue to grow As AI companies pour hundreds of billions of dollars into data centers, concerns grow that the industry is inflating a financial bubble that could harm the economy.

$100 billion of debt to build AI data centers, & we ain’t got money for people, & people-centric economies? Get the F outta here.

Huh maybe it’s not a good idea to have a monopoly on cloud infrastructure. Who would have thought? 🙄

WE WON: "This case -– perhaps the most important ever to fall w/in..this district court squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in US..have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally “yes, they do.”"

Thanks for the word back w/both of those Tommy, interesting…looks like you might be on an IG hiatus, saw those links don’t work right now?

Thnx for the perspective tho, look forward to continuing the convo…

One follow-up for now, what’s the not crossing the river twice piece? The other two seem more obvious…

Nice, all that sounds real interesting Tommy—will have to talk some more about it over a bite or a drink next time I’m up visiting my folks and we both got some time.

I love the sound of being about things that change opposed to static things…

Nice, late to the show here, but what’s process philosophy / theology Tommy?

So that’s just everyone then

Or that there aren’t good platform co-op models for this kind of entity?

I think you mean the former and not this, but just trying to check

Thanks for the dialogue. But yeah, do you mean in the sense that, for a social media entity that like Bluesky didn’t start w/a platform co-op type model, that it’s hard to know an alternative stakeholder model short of that?

Got ya I follow, though yeah not building from the ground up can be a death knell sometimes in some of my experience and missteps in co-ops and other spaces…

Also hard to not feel like those who own it wouldn’t always feel like talk of changes to their ownership is a low priority, you know?

Got ya, nice. Yeah, I think you mean the economic ownership of social.coop too, if so that is the kind of thing that comes to mind in terms of your Q of “how economic value will [or could] flow on this network,” but please correct me if I’m misunderstanding there…

(which of course is easy communicating in snippets as we are 😅—maybe there have been / shld be some public forums on these Q’s around @bsky.app )

But good communication still feels like a ways from what the platform co-op movement seems to have in mind ya know? Not trying to be funny, but feel like I may be missing something w/how you’re thinking about it…

Tho I’m far from one who feels democratic orgs means you vote on everything, & most functioning co-ops of course don’t do that.

Anyways, the origin story of Bluesky is not a traditional cooperative one in terms of funding or design

Can you help me understand what you mean a bit more @ntnsndr.in ? If Bluesky was a co-op, it sort of sounds like you’re suggesting they not worry about democratic practices like voting? But that feels core to the practice of economic democracy.

Then like most any co-op, we could vote on Board reps for members, & workers for workers. Certain decisions would be circumscribed for the Board, certain for member-wide votes…

Like other multistakeholder models, attn. would of course have to be given to % of seats on the Board, who else is on, etc

Hmm, interesting Q Nathan…I guess I wonder if there has been thought—for this or other social media cooperative-ish concepts (whether exit to community framing or otherwise)—to having members pay to be member-owners, and same for workers who want to be worker-owners…

That would have some $ flow…

Nice, good stuff! Be neat to hear anything that comes to mind or any thoughts on their approach to governance / legal structure that you’re open to sharing

2b of 2: ... on the Board and such a small number (4 it looks like), and as I asked before, whether you have considered some other structures like cooperative ownership, workers and users on the Board, etc.?

2a of 2: Do you all have a place where you could share about how you decided the business structure (eg, public benefit corp), why, the details of why certain folks are...

1c of 2: ... I think this could be powerful to consider (eg, the Univ. of CO Boulder's Media Economies Design Lab is a leader in this space and I'm sure would love to connect around these points if you haven't: www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/).

1b of 2: ...possibilities of worker and user-ownership such as a multistakeholder cooperative, and a certain number of seats on the Board to allow substantive, ongoing input from those groups). I know this is a little beyond the scope of "Community Guidelines" per se, but...

1a of 2: I hugely appreciate you all are asking for input! I would appreciate seeing a bit more about how Bluesky itself as a company is run, including the formal roles that are or may be able to be incorporated for users and workers (eg, I see you all are a Public Benefit Corp., but are there...

@ntnsndr.in sorry to hit you up so soon again, but have you taken a look at this feedback form, &/or been in any formal convos w/Bluesky? Seems like they'd do well to connect w/you & the @medlabboulder.bsky.social

I'll paste a couple of my pieces of input here in case you or others have thoughts.

Bluesky Community Guidelines Feedback Form Thank you for reviewing the proposed Community Guidelines. Your feedback is essential to helping us ensure Bluesky remains safe and welcoming in the core rules we enforce on the app. Please review th...

Folks should consider weighing in on @bsky.app communinty guidelines (& i'd suggest doing it in a way that gets at questions of governance, etc. too, eg potential roles for workers, users, etc. on the Board & beyond):

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...