Live from P&T Knitwear: Of Platforms and Politics

In the 1990s, we were promised that the internet was going to decentralize wealth and power. How did we end up with what feels like the exact opposite of that? Tim Wu, author of the new book, The Age of Extraction — an examination of how tech platforms extract value, shape attention, and concentrate power — joined Bradley earlier this month for a live discussion at P&T Knitwear, moderated by Nate Loewentheil, Managing Partner of Commonweal Ventures. "If you look through the history of democracy turning into dictatorship," says Wu, "a lot of it goes through the path of monopolization of key industries, the build-up of a huge amount of wealth and an anger among the people. When democracy cannot fix that or make the system seem fair, the strong man has a lot of appeal."This episode was taped at P&T Knitwear at 180 Orchard Street — New York City’s only free podcast recording studio.Send us an email with your thoughts on today’s episode: [email protected] sure to watch Bradley’s TED Talk on Mobile Voting at https://go.ted.com/bradleytusk.Subscribe to Bradley's weekly newsletter and follow Bradley on Linkedin + Substack + YouTube.