Stop feeding the algorithm, stop feeding the billionaires

I don't remember if I've mentioned this or not on the blog, and it's relevant to this post, so I'll say it again just in case. I have coffee every Tuesday morning with four guys in their seventies. I'm the "kid" in the group because I'm only fifty-one. We talk politics, laugh a lot, drink too much coffee and I answer a lot of tech questions. That's been happening more this year because of AI and the rise of the ever-present politically repugnant tech billionaires showing up in the press (the mainstream press - they've been in the tech press forever). One of them heard a story on NPR yesterday about Gil Duran's new book, The Nerd Reich and came in hot about it, upset that he had no idea that the "grey" tech billionaires were so intent on taking over the country. And after talking about how I've actually met some of them and, hell, worked at the same company as at least one of them, we started talking about what it means to be a tech "billionaire" and how most of their money isn't…