As life-changing as technology has been over the years, what really ropes people in are the personalities behind it all. Nobody would make a The Social Network movie if Mark Zuckerberg's dickbaggery weren't so pervasive that it honestly needs two more films to cover. Nobody would pay nearly as much attention to Elon Musk if he weren't shooting cars into space or smoking weed with Joe Rogan.
Which brings us to Tom Anderson -- better known as your first friend on MySpace. He sold MySpace for about half a billion bucks and has been living it up pretty much ever since. But here's the key difference: "MySpace Tom" didn't use that money to start newer, more dystopian misadventures. He's just taking travel photos around the world on Instagram and playing with his drone. And not even in a weird "tech-bro spying on you" way.
MySpaceTom goes out and generally respects YourSpaces to which he's traveling instead of, say, using a devastated Puerto Rico for a VR demonstration, a la Zuckerberg. He's perfectly content, just producing cool photo content. Good for Anderson. Zuckerberg takes his employees on weird-ass field trips around Palo Alto, while Anderson's out exploring Earth. He really did become the anti-Zuckerberg.
This effectively makes him the only tech guy to do it "right," in the broadest sense possible. He beat the money game -- he started a company and sold it. Unlike some sites, it's not currently being used to gather data or ruin people's lives, and everybody involved effectively got the win. The extent of Anderson's threats of wasteful spending includes offering to pay for Tim Lincecum to continue to play baseball in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos is the bare minimum definition of charitable and underpays his workers to the point of abuse.
You hear from average people that if they came into a huge influx of cash the way some of these billionaires did, they'd yeet themselves away from society entirely and retire -- and that's basically what Anderson has done. He's not making any weird pushes at the government, he barely touches his Twitter account, and he's certainly not yelling coronavirus misinformation into the abyss like Musk.
What it all boils down to is this -- who do you think is actually having fun and living their best life with their incredible wealth? Is it Bezos (Old Lex Luthor)? Zuckerberg (Young Lex Luthor)? Musk (Justin Hammer)? Or Tom Anderson? Yeah, we've got our pick.
Top Image: Tom Anderson
Recommended For Your Pleasure
Isaac Cabe
·
