Karen Hao

So they know they're doing the myth-making.

And also, I think many of them lose themselves in the myth because they have to live and breathe and embody it day in and day out.

And so when, you know, Dario says he thinks that 10 to 25% of the future could be catastrophic or whatever, the probability is 10 to 25%.

He is actively engaging in the myth-making, but also he's losing himself in the myth.

Like, I think if you were to ask him, do you genuinely believe that?

He would be like, yes, I genuinely believe that.

Because there's been a blurring of when he's saying something just to say something versus when he actually believes what he's required to believe in order to then continue doing the things that he's doing.

I mean, that is actually what they say.

This is what famously Dario Amede does.

Yes, and it's because, you know...

it goes back to each of them kind of distinguish themselves a little bit as the brand that they need to project.

He does get a lot of credit for that.

I don't think...

It truly matters, that question, the answer to that question, because to me, even if you were to swap all the CEOs for someone that people would say is better at running these companies, it doesn't fix the problem that I identify in the book, which is that there is a system of power that has been constructed where these companies and the people running these companies get to make decisions that affect billions of people's lives around the world.

And those billions of people do not get any say in how it goes.

Yes.

But at the speed and pace at which these companies operate and at the sheer scale and size, they're able to also spend extraordinary amounts of money, hundreds of millions in this upcoming midterms, to try and kill every possible piece of legislation that gets in their way and craft legislation that would codify their advantage.

And so to me, I think sometimes as a society, we obsess a little bit with

are these leaders good or bad people?

And to me, the bigger question is, is the governance structure that we've created a sound one or that allows broad participation or an anti-democratic one that has consolidated this decision-making power in the hands of the few?