Sean Parker and Jim Breyer at Techonomy 2011

By streamliner Nov 15, 2011

Overview: what's going to be different in next 3-5 years?
On two systems: citizen empowerment versus states
- SP mentions his companies: Votizen and Causes
  - Funds in politics are a proxy for votes -- if you can aggregate voting power another way you can remove money from the system.
  - Not a huge believer in direct democracy, e.g. California referendum.
- JB: emerging countries, governments will also take advantage of "citizen connectedness."
  - Rio de Janeiro's "command and control" center helps monitor and respond to issues in favelas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favela
  - Backed many higher-ed learning companies in China, India, Brazil, etc. Citizen empowerment will come from training and learning.
    - One of the worst ways for a university to spend money: build an overseas campus.
Can governments use these same new tools to oppress citizens?
- SP: "Less intrusive than tapping someone's phone."
  - But ultimately users choose to make their information available.
- What's scary: "isolated wackos" will no longer be isolated.
  - Some justification for "unlimited amounts of surveillance."
What will the media/entertainment universe look like in the next 3-5 years?
- JB: Media industry economics are rapidly deteriorating.
  - Social networks allow new consumer experiences, opportunities for media companies to understand what to serve to their customers.
- SP: Record labels systematically failed to embrace new models -- have lived in a storefront business.
  - You need a free tier of experience, coupled with social factors.
  - Goal to get back to where music was ten years ago.
- JB: Art world will be equally disrupted.
On employment: will work evolve into more of an individualized marketplace?
- JB: Government mandates and large companies won't solve the problem.
  - An explosion of small group/individual employment worldwide.
- Etsy sellers are not in Palo Alto or Cambridge... are all over the world.
  - Is a job in Brazil the same as a job in the U.S.?
SP: What happens next is bureaucracy: a handful of very large, very successful companies.
- "These little startups are ridiculously overfunded."
  - Easy access to capital diffuses the best tech talent.
  - Institutional investment in seed stage is overwhelming, and it will end badly.
- Will see serial entrepreneurs who have cracked the code: relationships with large entities (Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft)
- Marketplaces will create entrepreneurs; but it's a paradoxical growth into large entities. (Expansive allusion to World War I.)
- Not helpful for a young entrepreneur in such a mature industry to get a check from an angel.
Audience: what other industries (beyond media) might be disrupted?
- JB: opportunity in structured/unstructured data. Finance, credit reports.
- SP goes on a diversion: Most wealth is built through equity, securities, etc. But bankers often get big bonuses -- so raise taxes on them.
  - SP: hasn't been much innovation in retail banking.
- SP: Politics. Campaigns and special-interest groups (which are all about money).
  - Most people don't even know who their elected officials are.
  - Gargantuan disruption coming where the guys who raise the most money don't win.
Audience: will jobs be created around the world or in the US?
- SP digression: likely to see money-printing in Europe, and a global currency war. A very bad thing.
  - Investment in the consumer internet won't overcome this.
David Kirkpatrick to Sean: "How do you become so amazingly conversant in so many things?"
- SP: anything you want to know from any perspective is available online. Need to teach kids how to learn differently to take advantage of this.
- Operates under the assumption that everything written is somewhat misrepresented, clouded. Requires second-guessing of everything.
Audience (Andrew Keen) to SP: Can companies like Airtime actually eliminate loneliness?
- "Eliminate inefficiencies in pairing of people and the fostering of relationships."
- Sean wanted a girl in high school who was into punk rock and Spinoza and Nietzsche... but couldn't find her.
Conference ending comments.

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