he combined impact of the internet, celebrity culture and snark has made it all but impossible to be a hero anymore. Top athletes, movie stars and musical headiners are all picked to shreds online. All sins are public, and we are all digital paparazzi now.

But until now, one group has remained unsullied, its pedestal secure. Beyond reproach were the techno gods; the (mostly) men who’ve created the modern world through sheer genius and manic energy. They envision the future—and then go out and make it. Gosh! They obviously deserve their fame, their serious bank, and our worship.

But alas, the era of the techno god is now ending, too.

Consider the current state of affairs within their pantheon:

Bill Gates/Microsoft

He’s the original uber-geek. From the start, nervously ridiculed: “God, what a nerd!—but what if he’s right?” He was right--for quite a while. His company and his fortune are still immense. But Gates began falling from public grace the old-fashioned way—he cheated on his wife. That hardly makes him notable, but what’s more, he did it alongside notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Ick. One report says Epstein even gave Gates advice on how to deep six his marriage. Double ick.

Gates was a seer for his vision of the personal computer. And his charitable organization is still the biggest in the world. But the genius crown began to slip from his head as Microsoft missed key advances in the online world (the Internet, the cloud). And the Gates Foundation has made several missteps. At his peak, Gates famously wrote the book, “The Road Ahead.” Unfortunately, he hit some deep potholes on his road trip.

Jeff Bezos/Amazon

Bezos joins Gates on the list of wife-defectors, but again, many just shrugg. After all, he’s so rich…and Amazon.com did change the world. Sure, he’s secretive and none-too-generous with that vast fortune.

But to insiders, there’s a problem—the fact that his original business, the one we all order from, is effectively losing money right now. What prints all the profits is Amazon Web Services. How does that all shake out? Like Gates, he was a visionary, but one with concerning flaws.

Elon Musk/Tesla

Where to start? The man is a total mess. On one hand, it’s hard not to call him a genius: Tesla and Space X and Starlink and (maybe someday) Neuralink. But there’s also a downside. He resembles no one more than the fictional character Hannibal Lecter from the movie Silence of the Lambs. Lecter was a gifted forensic psychologist—maybe even a genius. But he also had the unfortunate habit of killing people—and then eating them. I’m not saying Musk is a serial killer, but neither he nor Lecter would be safe to let out in society. Musk has been cruel and incoherent in his ownership of Twitter, but his unforgivable sin was the polluting effect his Twitter misadventure has had on his other endeavors. Tesla stock lost two-thirds of its value last year. Angry Tesla owners are talking about dumping their cars. Investors are even angrier. Musk’s battery is depleted. He is now a synonym for failure.

Jeff Zuckerberg/Facebook (Meta)

Zuckerberg (like Gates, a Harvard dropout) has had a two-step fall from sainthood. First, he directly and repeatedly lied. He often promised he was intent on cleansing the rhetorical sewage from his waste site. That was never true; he never considered modifying the algorithms that enticed users with the digital catnip of fear and outrage. That was the formula that engaged and retained traffic. But that alone wasn’t the reputation killer. That came when he envisioned a virtual reality world (that he would control) called the Metaverse. He sank $36 billion into his vision—one that proved to be a pipedream. Meta stock was down by more than 60% in 2022, Backers are outraged, with many heading to the exits. The stink may never wear off him.

Sam Bankman-Fried/FTX

If cryptocurrency was a Ponzi scheme all along, Bankman-Fried was the Oz behind the curtain. His crypto “index”, FTX, unraveled due to the same structural weakness that applies to every crypto adventure—there was no controlling authority. No bank, no regulator, no government. The person some now call “Piggy” Bankman finally surrendered after hiding out at his parents’ home in the Bahamas. He avoided jail by posting a $250 million bond. (No word on whether any of the bond was paid in crypto.) SBF seemed to think that ignoring legal advice and openly admitting his fraud--throwing himself on the mercy of the court pf public opinion--might save him. It won’t. Not only is he going to jail, he might pull the entire crypto industry down with him.

Tim Cook/Apple

We now move into a subset of gods: heirs to gods. Tim Cook followed the variously flawed quasi-cult leader Steve Jobs in building Apple into the most profitable company in the world. But the whole Apple mystique is built around a tenuous core--the iPhone/iPad/Apple Watch business. Sales of those devices run 15 times the unit sales for their Mac hardware. The push into “services” (Apple Pay, Apple Care, Apple Music, Apple TV+, etc.) is a necessary diversification, but competition in these spaces makes continued dominance doubtful.

The real danger comes if consumers recognize the iPhone for what it is: a commodity. Sure, everyone you know has one, but globally it takes up only 16%-18% of the total mobile phone market. Some people have moved on. Others could never afford to get involved in the first place. Apple, at this point, is really a lifestyle brand, with more in common with Nike than Samsung. Its engineers and marketers must ingest heavy doses of hallucinogens to come up with new ways to convince devotees that the “new” iPhone is really better than the one you bought last year.

Cook’s challenge is trying to figure out ways to keep flying the flimsy flag of hipness…while finding new ways to print money.

Sundar Pichai/Google

Like Cook, Pichai succeeded founders who left him with a big challenge. In his case, not a product one, but a legal one. Google dabbles in many areas, but its cash cow is nourished overewhelmingly by internet search —it holds 92% market share. And consequently, search represents more than 80% of its revenues. That kind of share invites an avalanche of antitrust and monopoly probes. Throw in lawsuits and one place you won’t find tech layoffs is Google’s legal department. The company has thwarted any serious moves from the U.S. government. But the European Union is not going away. Pichai may be the techno god whose fate is decided not in the marketplace, but in the courtroom.

he techno gods are still different from other kinds of heroes. They’re still top-of-the-heap, and even in an era of social media, most really can’t be dethroned via shaming, ostracization or the cancel culture. They’re judged by different standards; however, one standard might prove lethal.

Just like Superman could be felled by kryptonite, the techno gods face their own superior force—the angry shareholder.

You can master the depths of the universe…but lift money from a rich man’s pocket, and you could lose your hand—and your crown.

Issue 21

Demise of the Techno Gods