Tim Wallace

“so far the record is pretty clear that tech leaders have largely abrogated their responsibilities around the deleterious impact of their products, either in pursuit of more growth and profits or to duck any incoming flack. That was especially clear in the 2024 election, as companies such as Meta and X drastically cut back on their safety and moderation teams. A stark contrast from the 2016 election, when social media companies felt pressured to evaluate how their lack of moderation may have affected the results.”
― Kara Swisher, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story

“She had thought often of Ada’s words about inventing new endings to stories and choosing joy over sorrow. In recent years she had decided her sister had been in part wrong. Suffering and death and loss were inescapable.

And yet, what Ada had written about joy was entirely true. When she stands before you with her long, naked limbs and her mysterious smile, you must embrace her while you can.”
― Eowyn Ivey, The Snow Child

“But no laws regulate almost all of it, despite the Biden administration giving it a shrugging try—efforts that are sure to be wiped out under Trump as the rich get richer and the most powerful get more so. A bummer, right? But not unexpected if you have been paying even the slightest amount of attention for a while.”
― Kara Swisher, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story

“As inane as he looked, it was the best investment of time and money of Musk’s life, his net worth rising $200 billion by the end of 2024, with tens of billions after that and more to come in the future as a loud part of the administration as “efficiency czar,” who would remake the government in his image. That appointment was announced soon after Trump won, in yet another stunt-like manner, as the head of DOGE—the Department of Government Efficiency—with fellow look-at-me billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy. I quickly dubbed the effort the Department of Grandstanding Edgelords, which, given its undefined power, staff, and efficacy, sounded more like something out of an episode of The Apprentice.”
― Kara Swisher, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story