Silicon Valley’s history of efforts to replace public services or make them more efficient has produced mixed results.
On November 12, United States president-elect Donald Trump announced he would appoint Elon Musk , the world’s richest man, to lead a newly constituted Department of Government Efficiency alongside fellow tech billionaire and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The new department will be tasked with reining in government bureaucracy, curbing government spending, and reducing regulation.
Replacing public services In 2013, Musk himself proposed a new form of public transport called the “hyperloop” to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco. And Musk’s SpaceX is his attempt to out-compete the publicly funded NASA in building rockets.Uber has made a series of attempts to replace public transportation.
Silicon Valley tech companies have long espoused “disruption”, the idea of overthrowing a moribund status quo with innovation. Unlike public bureaucracies, the argument goes, companies can “move fast and break things” to find new and more efficient ways to deliver services and value. In the case of housing, the tech industry disruption has made existing problems worse, with Airbnb and other short-term rental companies contributing to the housing crisis.
But these gaps also reflect the lack of diversity in Silicon Valley itself. Tech remains mostly white, mostly male, mostly upper-middle class, mostly highly educated. This impacts the kinds of problems Silicon Valley sees and the kinds of solutions it produces. Musk has said public transit is a “pain in the ass” where you have to stand next to potential serial killers. Of course, in many places public transport carries no such stigma. What’s more, many of those who might like to commute in private jets may have little choice but to subject themselves to the vagaries of a public bus.
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