The rise of the armchair saviors

Dear Readers,

When America has faced national crises in the past, we’ve looked to our leaders to pave the way through and give us hope that we will not only survive, but thrive once again. After 9/11, it was a certain New York City mayor. At the height of the nuclear arms race, it was JFK. After the Great Depression and during World War II, it was FDR. 

Of course, things are different now. We’re at the point of history where our political circumstance has left us cynical about our government’s ability to solve problems. Beyond that, many of us have whiplash from mixed messaging that seems to vary by the day - with states saying one thing, the federal government saying another, and public health officials filling in the gaps. 

No wonder people have shifted their faith to other kinds of leaders in this crisis. Some are looking to business people.

Their own most vocal proponents, a remarkable number of wealthy tech and business executives have breezily settled into this new role, spending their newfound free time on the internet, armchair quarterbacking the country’s response to the virus. 

Silicon Valley investor and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen argued in a recent blog post that the cause of the crisis surrounding the pandemic - not to mention our other problems as a society - are a result of collective inertia, and that it is “time to build.” His ideas are certainly more eloquent than the other answers that were being suggested that same moment (“let’s inject bleach”). But Andreessen’s solutions for our country have embedded within them certain troubling premises. Can the venture capital industry be a good imprint for how to save our country, when by its very design, Andreessen’s model of the world is built on incentivizing financial returns, rather than improving lives and ensuring equality of opportunity for all of us?  

Money no doubt solves many of these CEOs’ business and personal problems, so it is no wonder people like Andreessen believe their ability to make money qualifies them for the task of wiping out a pandemic and accompanying economic woes.

This hubris crosses over into other spheres, too. After touring military headquarters in Tampa, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told a four-star general and head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, “You absolutely suck at machine learning. If I got under your tent for a day, I could solve most of your problems.” (The general said he wanted to throw Schmidt out of the car, but refrained.) 

It’s not to say that tech might not aid the process of rebuilding our economy, or make the military more efficient. But looking to business for a miracle is disturbing because people who see themselves as saviors tend not to understand their own blind spots. While a government is purportedly supposed to act on behalf of the collective, business leaders today look out primarily for their shareholders. Throwing out answers to complex problems in 280 characters, which is Elon Musk’s pet Coronavirus pastime, is easy when you don’t have to take responsibility for actually solving them.

In a lesser-known corner of the Internet, bitcoin evangelist and wealthy investor Balaji Srinivasan flared his own peacock feathers on Twitter, reminding people he predicted the severity of coronavirus long before the media or the government. The hashtag #balajiwasright has been trending among voices that seem niche, but these retweeters represent thousands of engineers and cryptocurrency-enthusiasts whose jobs and net worths are backed by loads of capital from venture capital firms like Marc Andreessen’s, which just announced a $515 million crypto investing fund.

A divisive and sometimes nasty dialogue has broken out, with CEOs and prominent wealthy people asserting their competence with vehemence and certainty while not doing much to step into communities and solve the problems we’re facing. Often, their targets are the journalists who are actually spending their hours and days of confinement speaking to people about the conditions on the ground in factories, grocery stores, or hospitals. 

Being a leader takes more than giving critique, or having money. It takes more than trying to brag one’s way into being a hero. What is the point of being right, or being a technical or mathematical genius, or shouting “I told you so” from the rooftops, if that energy is not being channeled toward tangibly helping fellow human beings? There seems to be a level of insecurity baked into the “I told you so” attitude of the powerful, who, despite seemingly having nothing to prove, apparently still have something to prove.

CEOs can create economic value, and they can be wrong. Journalists can also be wrong. Politicians definitely get things wrong. But an unchecked billionaire CEO is far more dangerous than a journalist whose reporting can be fact-checked.  

As we face unprecedented information overload and a 24/7 news cycle, it is hard to view our leaders as heroes who will save the day this time. The more we know about someone, the more we see their flaws, their missteps, their fallibility. 

In many ways, we’ve rejected the idea of universal hero altogether, and instead align around the hero who matches the politics we identify with. Criticism of a powerful individual is seen as a personal assault on the people whose existence is validated by that powerful individual. Public heroes, in business, tech, or politics, are either heroes or antiheroes, depending on what beliefs you hold to begin with. 

No one person can save us. Maybe even Hollywood, traditionally known for selling us our beloved heroes, knows that in this case. In the film Contagion, it isn’t one hero who saves the day. Rather, a vaccine is developed over the course of a number of months by scientists working around the clock.

It is likely our own pandemic will end much in the same way. It won’t be a tech CEO bragging about how smart he is on Twitter - it will be the doctors, nurses, frontline workers, and scientists who are proven the heroes. Recovery from the economic crisis will be a matter of smart policy, hard work, and cooperation over the long haul. 

The hero of any story doesn’t generally end up being the person who has all the power. Even more rarely is it a billionaire holed up in a C-suite. 

On our radar this week…

A healthy media is built on the backs of local journalism - not blockchain, as some, ahem, CEOs might like to say. The worst coronavirus cluster infection in the US originated in a pork processing plant in South Dakota, and it was an anonymous tip to the local newspaper that made us aware of this threat to the national food supply chain. With advertising dollars drying up, local journalism is in more trouble than ever. Use this interactive tool to find a publication near you that could use your support. 

More on our story...

Lioness has been self-funded since its inception. Like many others, Covid-19 has hit us hard. We’re trying to raise money to take our vision to the next level, by creating a product that will help connect everyday people with journalists who can tell their stories. Our plans are detailed here, and if you have the means, we’d love your help to get across the finish line.

That’s all for this week! We look forward to hearing what you think! Send any reader responses, tips, or unsung stories of your own by replying to this email.

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