DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF: Navigating the sad “Mindset” of the billionaire tech bros

Wild with Sarah Wilson

Douglas Rushkoff (author, cyberpunk OG (!) and documentarian) is named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, and studies humans struggling to live in an increasingly unhuman world. Which is to say most of us in 2023. I tracked down this big, excitable mind to continue an earlier WILD chat about billionaire apocalypse preppers (August 2022, with Mark O’Connell).

Rushkoff has a wild theory – which he spells out in his latest book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires - for why it is all such a “thing”. It’s The Mindset. He also has an antidote, equally wild: we just need to be more human. We get chatting circular economies, Timothy Leary and how fleeing to Mars is fear of the feminine. Also, stay tuned for a follow-up bonus episode (for my Substack subscribers) in which Rushkoff bangs out intimate life hacks.

Do listen to Douglas' podcast Team Human

Get your copy of Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

Listen to my previous chat with Mark O'Connell

If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page

Subscribe to my Substack newsletter for more such conversation

Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious Life 

Let’s connect on Instagram! It’s where I interact the most 

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