Wendy Liu, Author of Abolish Silicon Valley
Owen Thomas, Business Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday July 1, 2020
5pm PST
Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism With Wendy Liu
Author Wendy Liu in conversation with Owen Thomas, Business Editor, SF Chronicle
Join author Wendy Liu and Owen Thomas (SF Chronicle) in a conversation addressing the vast inequality of Silicon Valley.
Going beyond the idiosyncrasies of the individual founders and companies that characterize the industry today, Wendy Liu delves into the structural factors of the economy that gave rise to Silicon Valley as we know it. Ultimately, she proposes a more radical way of developing technology, where innovation is conducted for the benefit of society at large, and not just to enrich a select few.
Speakers
Wendy Liu
Wendy Liu is a software engineer and startup founder who left the tech industry to pursue a master's degree in inequality from the London School of Economics. She has written about technology and politics for Logic Magazine, Dissent, and Tribune, and has been featured in articles on tech worker organizing for The Atlantic and CNBC. She lives in San Francisco.
Owen Thomas
Owen Thomas is the business editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. He supervises The Chronicle’s business and technology coverage. Previously, Thomas was the editor-in-chief of ReadWrite, a technology news site. His digital experience includes serving as the West Coast Editor of Business Insider, executive editor at the Daily Dot, and managing editor of Gawker Media's Business 2.0 magazine, the Red Herring, and Wired. Thomas has a bachelor's degree in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago.
Partners
Mechanics’ Institute
Founded in 1854, the Mechanics’ Institute is one of the oldest institutions on the West Coast of the United States. Its mission is to provide a center for intellectual and cultural advancement. Located in the financial district of San Francisco, it serves individuals and families throughout the Bay Area offering a vibrant library with full-time professional staff, expert instruction and competition in chess, and a full calendar of engaging cultural events, programs, and classes.
Goethe-Institut San Francisco
The Goethe-Institut San Francisco was established in 1967 and since then supports cultural exchange and dialogue with its American partners. The focus areas of the Goethe-Institut San Francisco include art & technology, film and contemporary art from Germany. In addition to cultural programming like exhibits, screenings, concerts and workshops, the institute organizes public discussions pertaining to contemporary social-political topics.
“C/Change – the next dimension” is a project implemented by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco and is funded by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany. It is a follow-up project to the hugely successful “C/Change”, which was implemented together with the Gray Area. The aim of “the next dimension” is to showcase the prototypes, that were developed in the last project by international teams and focus on feminist technologies, digital democracies and planetary futures. The new project also seeks to strengthen and increase the build network of technologists, designers and artists.
