“We are being lied to,” writes venture capitalist, Marc Andreessen ““We are told that Technology takes our jobs, reduces our wages, increases inequality, threatens our health, ruins the environment, degrades our society, corrupts our children, impairs our humanity, threatens our future, and is ever on the verge of ruining everything. We are told to be angry, bitter, and resentful about technology. We are told to be pessimistic.”

Not true, according to Andreessen’s just-published 15-page Techno-Optioomist Manifesto: “Our civilization was built on technology. Technology is the glory of human ambition and achievement, the spearhead of progress, and the realization of our potential. For hundreds of years, we properly glorified this – until recently…We can advance to a far superior way of living, and of being. We have the tools, the systems, the ideas. We have the will.”

Andreessen’s manifesto is a thought-provoking document. It is intended to serve as an antidote to the now-pervasive claims that everything about technology is evil, when it is obvious from the rate of adoption that technology has made almost everything better for most people. The notion that we have been hoodwinked into accepting all our modern technology is as plausible as suggesting that we all want to go back to living by candlelight and traveling in a horse-and-buggy.

Building A Stronger Case For Technological Optimism

Yet Andreessen is wrong that our future is inevitably positive. But he is clearly correct that if we proceed with negative expectations, things are bound to go badly.

Some have been quick to jump on the obvious flaws in Andreessen’s manifesto, including its one-dimensional view of the world in which technology and money are responsible for anything positive that has ever happened to the Human Race. It dismisses the many risks that may prevent the attainment of the nirvana he envisages,. It implies that billionaires becoming even richer will be good for everyone. In effect, it is full of amazing claims, numerous half-truths, and downright nonsense.

Let’s accept that while Andreessen’s manifesto, as it stands, doesn’t make the case for techno-optimism, but also recognize the validity of the attempt. Instead of dwelling on the manifesto’s obvious flaws, would it not be more constructive to ask Roger Martin’s vital question: what would have to be true for us to embrace an optimistic view of the future of technology?

What Would Have To Be True For Us To Be Techno-Optimistic?

First, we would need to set aside Andreessen’s one-dimensional view of the world. Technology is one dimension. But economics and markets are also important. And none of the benefits will accrue, and many of the risks will occur, if there is not imaginative leadership and management, that embraces change and innovation and is attentive to the downside risks.

Second, we would need to accept that the world is a multi-dimensional ecosystem and set aside Andreessen’s view of the world as “a machine.” (The word “machine” appears seventeen times, implying that the world functions mechanically with simple cause-and-effect logic.) The world is an ecosystem in which multiple factors interact unpredictably with outcomes emerging, often unpredictably.

Third, we would need to have a fuller view of what it means to have “a superior way of living and being.” Andreessen’s “superior way of living and being” is a lonely and dreary thing. There is no explicit place for music, literature. friendship, love, romance, beauty, or empathy. For Andressen, “beauty exists only in struggle.” The customer is not mentioned even once. The worker is only mentioned once, in relation to marginal productivity. “Stakeholder capitalism” is pronounced to be an incurably “bad idea.”

Fourth, we would need to have less faith in self-interest in money as the be-all and end-all of the human race. After dismissing love and force as reasons for acting, Andreessen concludes that money as “the only reason to do things for other people.” That may be an accurate depiction of how billionaires think, but as a description of the human race, it is woefully incomplete.

Towards the end of the manifesto, Andreessen does seemingly qualify his money-based vision of the world: “We believe extrinsic motivations – wealth, fame, revenge – are fine as far as they go. But we believe intrinsic motivations – the satisfaction of building something new, the camaraderie of being on a team, the achievement of becoming a better version of oneself – are more fulfilling and more lasting.” There is also talk towards the end of the manifesto “generosity of spirit to help one another learn and grow.” The inconsistency with the bulk what is written before these qualifications needs to be recognized and synthesized into a single coherent vision.

Fifth, we would need to condition Andreessen’s faith that “markets are the way to generate societal wealth for everything else we want to pay for,” with a recognition that the financialization of the economy over the last thirty years has led to grotesque and unsustainable inequality. The argument that “Technological innovation in a market system is inherently philanthropic, by a 50:1 ratio” ignores the distortions that occurred when money became the sole goal.

Sixth, we would need to recognize the naivete of belief that ‘”the market naturally disciplines… and prevents monopolies and cartels and … lifts people out of poverty”. The belief is dependent on properly functioning markets. Improperly functioning markets result in the exact opposite.

Seventh, we would need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that we can create the future by way of “the Scientific Method,” and by “testing ideas empirically.” We need to recognize that that the future needs to be created by considering what would need to be true for a better world to exist and in the process, consider the risks that things might go in a different direction and the steps needed to avert those risks.

Eighth, we would need to recognize that many of the flaws that Andreessen sees in today’s institutions, that are now “compromised and corroded and collapsing – blocking progress in increasingly desperate bids for continued relevance, frantically trying to justify their ongoing funding despite spiraling dysfunction and escalating ineptness” flow from the very single-minded pursuit of money that Andreessen himself applauds.

Ninth, we would have to recognize that the once-boring discipline of management has transformed itself into a people-oriented set of ideas that are the essence of cool The fact that there is no official name for this new kind of management doesn’t mean that it is any less real. For now, let’s just call it “management reimagined.”

Finally, we would need to have the self-awareness to understand how a creed of “ambition, aggression, persistence, relentlessness – strength” in the mouth of a multi-billionaire is going to sound to the rest of humanity.

And read also:

Why Maximizing Shareholder Value Is Finally Dying

How The Discipline Of Management Grew To Be Cool