Capital is Cheap, This is The Last Scarce Resource

USV’s Albert Wenger

Capital is now cheap: look at the ridiculous valuations, the enormous amounts of money chasing a small set of ideas, look at how fast humanity is able to build and manufacture. In the 21st century, over (not under!) production has become the dominant issue for some countries.

We are entering into a world where capital is no longer the scarce resource. So what is? Albert Wenger (@albertwenger) argues that it is ATTENTION. This is the resource whose allocation will determine the fate of humanity and we are completely squandering it.

Albert is one of the partners at USV, a legendary venture capital firm that invested early in X (then twitter). And yet it is precisely companies like X, now argues Albert almost 20 years later, that have wreaked havoc upon our scarce resource of attention.

As a lifelong student of philosophy Albert thinks about technology in terms of centuries if not millennia. In this interview you are going to learn the tsunami waves that are about to hit humanity as we adjust to this post-capital world and Albert’s radical proposals to steady the ship.

Topics We Cover:

1:44 If You Want Privacy, Forget About Progress

8:12 We Need Philosophy to Check Technology

16:50 Privacy Is Not A Value In And Of Itself

23:48 The Economy of Attention

30:27 Three Freedoms To Guide Technology

39:03 Markets Can’t Fix Attention

1:01:44 AI’s Are Human

1:13:47 A Post-Nationalist World

1:19:48 AI In The Service Of Philosophy

1:31:33 Philosophy Is A Business Asset