People in Silicon Valley talk like they can solve every problem. They definitely can’t, says Crooked Media co-founder Tommy Vietor.
The hosts of ‘Pod Save America’ aren’t crazy about the idea of President Mark Zuckerberg
Techies think they can solve every problem but they can’t, the founders of Crooked Media told Recode’s Kara Swisher at South by Southwest.
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“I worry that there’s this sense, you can apply tech to any problem and that’s how we’re going to solve it,” Vietor said in an onstage interview with Recode’s Kara Swisher Tuesday at South by Southwest. “If I hear someone say that we’re going to ‘hack the refugee crisis,’ I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”
“There are very complicated problems involving human beings and governments and moral questions and it’s not that easy,” he added.
Swisher asked Vietor and his fellow co-founders Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett — who along with Dan Pfeiffer host the politics podcast “Pod Save America” — if they were intrigued by the idea of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg running for president. Zuckerberg has not announced any such candidacy, but the idea has become the subject of speculation as he pens 6,000-word manifestos and visits all 50 states in 2017.
The Crooked Media team was not enthused.
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“Here’s the thing,” Lovett said re: Zuck as POTUS. “I don’t know what’s going on over there, but Mark Zuckerberg has a great story to tell. He built a pretty impressive company. I don’t understand why he sounds like a senator in his fourth term. Just talk, man! Don’t be so afraid. Trump is president, say whatever you want!”
“I worry that people are going to take from this, ‘Oh, that billionaire-celebrity outside of politics can run for politics, so can I,’” Favreau said. “It’s about the personality, it’s not about the résumé. If there is a tech leader who goes out there and has a no-bullshit conversation with the American people about what we need to do, then, yeah, maybe they have a shot.”
But if Zuck really is mulling a political move, he’s not yet in the “no-bullshit” radius.
“The Zuckerberg thing is, they are so cautious, the statements are cautious, everything is calculated, it sounds so Washington right now,” Favreau said. “Maybe it’ll change.”
“They were talking about immigration,” Lovett interjected. “And they put out such an overworked — they’re good people, but somehow, it comes from the top, and you end up with something so overworked and so precious, that doesn’t say anything. What are you doing?”
Although he didn’t call out anyone by name, Vietor also criticized tech CEOs who have signed on to advise President Trump — a list that used to include Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and still includes Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
“You see all these tech companies dipping their toe and being a part of advisory panels,” he said. “I think that’s an incredibly bad idea. If you put your lot in with Donald Trump, you’re going to own a lot of the shit he does, even if you think you can distance yourself from that specific thing.”
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
