This is the kind of crap we learned about when studying the "Robber Baron" era in the US public school system. Well, I mean, we were _supposed_ to learn it - evidently a lot of folks did not.
Inspiration for why to stay in school so that you too could become a robber baron. Like all history, learn the previous failings so that you can avoid them.
Thank you, that's a very fair point, and I apologize for my *-centric" viewpoint and such a short quip. That is not what we're aiming for in conversation on this site.
I took a giant shortcut, without providing sources, that was meant to indicate that we are in a situation that closely resembles the "Gilded Age" or "Robber Baron" era in the United States.
I was intending to point towards the actions of individuals in the analogous position of those "Robber Barons", in particular here, Elon Musk.
This dude used the data from Twitter, fed it to xAI (xAI spent lots of CapEx from investment on GPUs). Mix mid-"AI" training on such a ridiculously valuable dataset for free == cool models. Cool models + data stream of Doomscrolling == Higher valuation.
This just seems like a "nepo-baby" hit it big on some meme coin and bailed out Daddy.
Elon Musk is, essentially, bailing out himself using investor money from another company he runs by assigning a very highball evaluation to the company he's been destroying.
I don't know how you can get closer to the robber baron ideal than being able to distort the market like that.
