Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism, on Zoom
Author Wendy Liu in conversation with Owen Thomas, Business Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle

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TECH AND THE CITY SERIES, co-sponsored by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco and Gray Area

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Abolish Silicon Valley is both a heartfelt personal story about the wasteful inequality of Silicon Valley, and a rallying call to engage in the radical politics needed to upend the status quo. Going beyond the idiosyncrasies of the individual founders and companies that characterize the industry today, Wendy Liu delves into the structural factors of the economy that gave rise to Silicon Valley as we know it. Ultimately, she proposes a more radical way of developing technology, where innovation is conducted for the benefit of society at large, and not just to enrich a select few.

Wendy Liu is a software engineer and startup founder who left the tech industry to pursue a master's degree in inequality from the London School of Economics. She has written about technology and politics for Logic Magazine, Dissent, and Tribune, and has been featured in articles on tech worker organizing for The Atlantic and CNBC. She lives in San Francisco.

Owen Thomas is the business editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. He supervises The Chronicle’s business and technology coverage. Previously, Thomas was the editor-in-chief of ReadWrite, a technology news site. His digital experience includes serving as the West Coast Editor of Business Insider, executive editor at the Daily Dot, and managing editor of Gawker Media's Business 2.0 magazine, the Red Herring, and Wired. Thomas has a bachelor's degree in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago.

The Goethe-Institut is the cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany with a global reach. We promote knowledge of the German language abroad and foster international cultural cooperation. We convey a comprehensive image of Germany by providing information about cultural, social and political life in our nation. Our cultural and educational programmes encourage intercultural dialogue and enable cultural involvement. They strengthen the development of structures in civil society and foster worldwide mobility.

Gray Area is San Francisco's leading media art center, merging art, science and technology towards social transformation. Their new initiative Patch responds to the ongoing global crisis by bringing the creative community online to explore new ways of connecting, learning, and preserving intimacy through live streaming, online education, and virtual spaces.

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