It was so good and quotable that I recorded it and created a transcript via Google and Claude. #
I've been emailing with Josh Marshall at TPM for the last few weeks, saying that we can't just keep building on what the tech industy has given us as a news distribution system. AOC touches on this in her answer -- she says the tech people control the algorithms, and they do. But the web doesn't have algorithms, and we have enough standards available to create a very good network that isn't owned by anyone. #
I was at one time motivated by money, the same way politicians are motivated to attain higher office, but I had an impulsive idea when the web popped up that I am not doing it for money anymore. I'm doing it so we can change our political and work communication so it gives power to the people, not to the tech industry. At that time we were already dealing with the excesses of tech, I knew it well because I was an an insider. #
They are welcome to make products for it, but they can't control the users. That's what I envisioned in the 90s and 00s. The ads won't be as important as what people say, because the price of using the web is very low. But we got snookered anyway. The VCs were only motivated by money, and to maximize that, they needed maximum control, and they got it. People like being part of big things, and Twitter was and still is big.#
We're now at the next turning point. AI is creating new pathways for ideas to flow. It's all wide open right now, more open than it's been in over 20 years. Right now we could put a twitter-like product there that you can set up in a few minutes, run it yourself, and or join one that's run by a friend. And they federate immediately. All based on the open standards of the web. Every component replaceable. No big central thing to be owned. #
But Josh, we can't do it without your help. AOC doesn't know us. She probably doesn't think how the web could route around the algorithms. But she, and you should be thinking about that, and Heather Cox Richardson too, because we can create the people's tool for the change she wants, which is the change I want, and you want too (I read your columns). But we have to work together to make it happen. #
BTW, all politicians should swear by what she says. And we should never care about polls. We should only care about results. #
I recorded the interview, Claude did a light edit of the transcript. I highlighted the part about the algorithms. #
You know, it's funny, because, in this op-ed that Jeff Bezos paid for in the Washington Post, there was this line where you had mentioned earlier about me as a potential 2028 contender, and in the context of that, it was very clear this was a veiled threat, right?#
So the elite think: if you want this job, you just stepped out of line. And we want you to know where the real power is. And it's in the modern-day barons who own the Post and own the algorithms. And we're gonna— we'll make an example out of you.#
And what's funny about that is that they assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat. But my ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country.#
Presidents come and go. Senate and house seat elected officials come and go. But single-payer healthcare's forever. In many ways, it's forever work, right? Forever work is what we should follow, and so anyways, I— the way— but to put a finer point on your question, is that when you aren't attached, right? When you haven't been, like, fantasizing about being this or that since the time you're seven years old, it's a tremendously liberating thing. Because I get to wake up every day and say, how am I going to meet the moment? And conditions change radically all the time. So, I make my response— less out of an attachment to a positional, like, you know, title or position and working backwards from there— but I make decisions by waking up in the morning, looking out the window and observing the conditions of this country and saying, what move or what decision can I make today that's going to get us closer to that future— stronger, faster, better than yesterday?#
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