Silicon Valley promised us progress. That’s not what it delivered.
The industry has set the narrative on technology for too long. They fed us the story that their technologies were making the world a better place, then they skirted labor laws, exploited workers, expanded surveillance capabilities, and boosted fascist politics.
The first step to challenge the world they’re building is to see their project for what it is. While there’s more critical coverage of the tech industry, it pales in comparison to the continued boosterism. Tech Won’t Save Us is changing that.
Every Thursday, Paris Marx speaks to a new expert to dissect the tech industry, the powerful people at its helm, and the products and services it unleashes on the world. They challenge the notion that tech alone can drive our world forward by showing that separating tech from politics has consequences for everyone, especially the most vulnerable.
Tech Won’t Save Us isn’t simply about tearing down tech. Inspired by the Luddites, it examines how technological development is constrained by capitalist imperatives, which include controlling workers and commercializing everything. But it’s also interested in radical ideas for a better world, and how technology fits into those futures.
Tech Won’t Save Us weeds through the crap and snake oil of the industry and discusses the human consequences of technology.
About the show
Tech Won’t Save Us is an award-winning left-wing tech podcast that began in April 2020 during the first Covid lockdown. Since then, it’s gained a global listenership of tech workers, academics, journalists, and people who want a different perspectve on an industry that holds so much power over their daily lives.
The show’s primary goal is to provide insights about technology and the tech industry that listeners are unlikely to hear on other tech podcasts and in most tech media. By doing that, listeners can see the industry in a different light, reconsider our relationship to technology, and question the narratives we’ve been fed about it for decades. The hope is that knowledge will enable action.
A healthy counter dose to the nauseating tech utopia idealism that usually surrounds Silicon Valley and enthusiast tech press coverage.
Meet the team
Paris Marx is the host of Tech Won’t Save Us. He is a Canadian technology writer and author of Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation. Paris writes the Disconnect newsletter and his work has been published all over, including by Time, Wired, Business Insider, NBC News, MIT Tech Review, and CBC News. It’s also been translated into more than ten languages. Paris holds a Master’s in Geography from McGill University.
Eric Wickham is the producer of Tech Won’t Save Us, editing and preparing new episodes for publication. He’s a podcast producer and journalist based in Toronto, and co-hosts Canadian media criticism podcast Big Shiny Takes. Eric has spent time working for radio stations in large and small markets, including at Canada’s public broadcaster the CBC, and has words published in Maclean's and Passage.
Other credits
Transcripts are put together by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry. Our website was created by Gabi Schaffzin. The logo was designed by Karen Mills. Tech Won’t Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network.