Why tech billionaires want a 'corporate dictatorship' (podcast with Gil Duran - audio & transcript - from The Verge) [View all]

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You'll find both the audio link and the transcript at the the link below.The excerpt below is part of the intro to the podcast.

https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel/707010/gil-duran-the-nerd-reich-tech-billionaires-authoritarianism-dictator

Hello, and welcome to Decoder! This is Jon Fortt, CNBC journalist, cohost of Closing Bell: Overtime, and creator of the Fortt Knox streaming series on LinkedIn. I’m guest-hosting for a couple more episodes of Decoder this summer while Nilay is out on parental leave.

Today, I’m talking with a very special guest: Gil Duran, an old friend, journalist, and author of The Nerd Reich, a newsletter and forthcoming book about the shifting politics of Silicon Valley and the rise of tech authoritarianism.

I’ve known Gil for a long time. We met at the end of high school and went to college together, and we were also colleagues at the San Jose Mercury News. Gil has had a fascinating career that spans both media and politics: he’s worked as press secretary and comms director for high-profile California politicians like Gov. Jerry Brown and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and he also advised Kamala Harris when she served as California’s attorney general.

Now, writing The Nerd Reich, Gil is focused on a new type of story, one he says has gone woefully under-covered by mainstream media. That story is the influence of tech money on politics and society at large, and the disturbing philosophical undercurrents that are driving it.

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