Modern technology companies have been the darlings of the business intelligensia. The shine appears to be coming off some of them what with Facebook apparently destroying Western democracy by accident; mobile phones addicting children like Cocaine Cola; and Uber, WeWork and Netflix deciding that profitability is for losers.
What these oscillating bouts of adulation and incrimination obscure is how traditional many of these companies are. The structure of these companies tends to follow a predictable pattern.
The Despot
At the top is the Despot. This individual may be a/the Founder (Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Jobs the First) or a charismatic individual who came in later but is seen as critical for the organization's success (Elon Musk, Jobs the Second). The Despot may not rule alone. The Boy King of Menlo Park has a Grand Vizier leaning in to help him. Jobs the Second had a Cook to manage his supply chain and an Ive to design his beautiful things. But the Despot exerts huge levels of control across their kingdom. They may pen commandments (aka leadership principles) that their subjects must follow. They may leave the details to their subjects but their word is law. To understand such people, it is more helpful to visit Angkor Wat or Versailles than it is to read Drucker.
Increasingly, they have used new equity structures to protect their thrones. Alphabet and Facebook stock exists in a number of "classes". Regular people can buy a share of the company that they can trade but gives them no voting rights ("class B shares"). The majority of Class A shares - those with voting rights - remain with the Despot. This makes it very hard for the company boards (whose normal role it is to initiate palace coups when necessary) to depose them should things go wrong. Why have investors given them such power? Well, we live in the Age of the Cult of the Founder. A kind of Ayn Rand LARPing. These people are smarter than everyone else and we must trust their supernatural intelligence.
Of course, the figure of the Despot is not new to either technology (Bill Gates, Larry Ellison) nor to business in general (Carnegie, Ford, Rockerfeller). What is perhaps unusual is the amount of power granted the Depot and the relative lack of scrutiny these figures have received until recently.
The Elect
Next in the hierarchy are The Elect. These are the full-time employees of the organization. They are the smartest people in the room and work for the best company in the world (and whether they merely imply this or tell you outright depends on both their self-awareness and the number of drinks they have in them).
They work insane hours (because that's what virtuous people do these days) in the gilded cages that their companies have constructed. They have a life of good salaries and stock options and free lunches and massages and the various insurances that people need. They compete ferociously with each other. They are mostly products of the same elite educational institutions. They differ from their banking peers in that while they love capitalism, they worry about inequality and bad stuff happening to people (worrying being different to doing). They differ from their management consulting peers in that they spend less time in hotels and aircraft.
When I ask people how's it going, they often say they are "living the dream". Which begs the question: whose dream? Like anyone, The Elect love products that are aimed at them. So they make products like that. As Wordsworth so nearly tweeted: "Bliss it was in that expensively casual office to be alive but to be 27 with stock options was very heaven". It seems that we are all living inside the dreams of The Elect.
As noted, this Tech Elect is not the only such group to exist in our world but it is relatively new and it has risen to prominence relatively quickly. The bankers have lost their lustre since 2008 but still make incredible amounts of money. The management consultants grind away - the group most likely to survive any economic disaster (perhaps the cockroaches of the elite).
The Serfs
Who sits below The Elect? Well, these companies need a lot of non-sexy work done. Apple needs someone to make their phones. Facebook and YouTube need someone to clean the fascism, spectacular violence and child pornography of their platforms. Amazon's warehouses need stocking. Uber needs drivers. But to expect The Elect to do these tasks is both unreasonable and expensive. So these tasks are outsourced to third-party manufacturers and service providers, contractors, and the regular public. These people do not get the free lunches and massages and stock options. They get relentlessly monitored and screwed on price. In an ideal world, their work would be undertaken by machines - but until AI delivers that promised paradise, the tech companies are stuck with them. Best treat serfs like machines and hope that they turn into them of their own accord.
Again, serfs are not new either in the agricultural, industrial or services sectors that have made up our economies and societies. Perhaps they have more opportunities to speak than their predecessors did. Do we have the will to listen?