Silicon Valley, Alan Kay and the Debate Over Technology’s Changing Values

In September 2015, Founders Fund hosted a retreat at an eco-resort in British Columbia. Most attendees came from venture capital firms and companies supported by the firm, but several outsiders were invited, including computer pioneers, author Neal Stephenson and Alan Kay.

Alan Kay’s unforgettable breakfast conversation

One morning, I sat across from Kay at a long breakfast table. The man who invented the Dynabook—a concept that anticipated the modern personal computer—was describing his accomplishments when Founders Fund leader Peter Thiel sat down beside him.

Kay discussed optimizing the computer mouse and advising Steve Jobs. Thiel listened with growing disbelief as Kay, in full storytelling mode, recounted his experiences. Eventually, Thiel could not accept what he was hearing.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The mustachioed legend was stunned. He began explaining his background, then realized that his résumé would sound impossibly pretentious to someone unfamiliar with it. It was like asking Einstein or Mick Jagger to introduce himself.

Kay stopped mid-sentence and sighed. “I’m just an old man,” he said before returning to breakfast. Two worlds had collided, but they could not connect.

Did Silicon Valley ever believe in idealism?

I was reminded of that moment a few weeks ago while reading the headline of a New York Times op-ed: “Silicon Valley Was Right All Along,” written by Sharon Weinberger.

The essay argued that the familiar portrait of Silicon Valley as a countercultural movement dedicated to improving the world is false. In Weinberger’s view, the industry’s willingness to pursue enormous wealth, flatter authoritarian leaders and embrace deadly military technology reveals what it has always been. Her essay promoted her book, Valley of Death: How Big Technology Is Driving the Future of War.

“Silicon Valley’s values have not changed. Only the customers have,” Weinberger wrote. She argued that the industry’s current enthusiasm for military technology is “more a story of market adaptation than of political shift.”

Under that interpretation, the industry’s commitments to free expression and democracy during the 1980s personal-computer revolution and the 1990s Internet boom were little more than opportunistic branding. The goal, she suggested, was to sell products and capture the rewards.

Why the technology industry’s counterculture mattered

I disagree. In my view, beginning in the late 1970s, a new generation of technologists influenced by the counterculture drove innovation while embracing values that ultimately helped create the industry’s present wealth.

That movement inherited the computer field’s defense-industry roots. Pentagon funding continued to support innovation—DARPA grants helped foster the development of graphical user interfaces, the Internet and Google search—but the new generation was also defined by idealism, a hacker’s love of building things and disdain for conventional business practices.

Those ideas changed not only the computer industry but also American business culture. Before Apple Computer, corporate executives rarely appeared at work in anything other than a suit.

Denying the existence of that idealism is not merely inaccurate. It also conveniently removes the role of a new generation of defense contractors in shaping today’s technology industry.

Was Silicon Valley driven by values or by money?

When I shared my thoughts with Weinberger, she acknowledged that she may study technology culture more closely than I do from a sitting room in Washington, D.C. Still, she defended her argument.

“We are all products of our upbringing,” she said. “If you grew up in the peace dividend era, defense engineer jobs are lost, money from defense becomes less important, and you have different values.”

By that logic, the shift from missile-control modules to Macintoshes was driven not by changing values but by financial opportunity. Likewise, the recent return to high-tech weapons reflects less a philosophical realignment than an opportunity to sell Silicon Valley innovations to the Pentagon, she argued.

“Not all Silicon Valley workers woke up and said, ‘Defense is cool,’” Weinberger said. Instead, she believes the industry is characterized by a willingness to follow the money.

“Your number one goal is for your company to be successful,” she said. “Why didn’t Apple work with the military? Because they didn’t have to. They had a consumer market.”