![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This paper reflects on the relationship between high-tech disruption narratives and uncertainty. My main argument is that an economic sociology of the future is incomplete without addressing the ‘demonic’ or rather eschatological elements apparent in the promissory twin rhetoric of disruption and inevitability that a number of contemporary technology firms employ. The conjuring up of liberatory high-tech futures implicates a political-philosophical perspective of the end game. It utilizes at once the productive power of uncertainty to create visions of ‘absolute riches’ and societal gain but at the same time narrows these futures down to one inevitable alternative to the status quo. Through the examples of two Silicon Valley disruptor firms, I argue that these eschatological narratives need to be opened to social scientific critique in order to examine their potential societal consequences above and beyond the narrow geographic confines of ‘the Valley.’
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Susi Geiger is a Full Professor of Marketing and Market Studies in the College of Business, University College Dublin, and holder of a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant, ‘MISFIRES and Market Innovation’, which studies activism in health care markets. Her research focuses on how complex markets are organized, with specific interests in technology and health care markets, and how they could become more equitable. She has published numerous articles on this issue, including in Organization Studies, Business & Society, Research Policy, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Marketing Theory. She has also co-edited the volume Concerned Markets (Edward Elgar, 2014).
Notes
1 Beckert (Citation2016) leans on Paul Tillich’s notion of the demonic as that which is both form-giving and form-destroying (c.f. Thatcher 1978 for a deeper analysis of Tillich’s ontology).
2 Available at https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/disruption [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
3 Available at https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=disruption [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
4 Incidentally, it also has been argued that Nietzsche is at the origin of a secular and anthropogenic eschatology, where man and not God is the harbinger of the future (Ausmus Citation1978).
5 When I started to focus on these two companies, in October 2015, Theranos had just been the subject of John Carreyrou’s investigative article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which accused them of wide-ranging deceit in their business practices (Carreyrou Citation2015). 23andMe, meanwhile, had been banned from diagnosing diseases in the US by the FDA due to regulatory scepticism over the diagnostic strength of their tests (BBC Citation2013).
6 Research: Our approach. 23andMe Media Centre. Avaible at https://mediacenter.23andme.com/research/ [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
7 Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged With Massive Fraud. SEC Press release. March 14, 2018. Available at https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-41 [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
8 “The consumer does not have a real voice in healthcare” Google Zeitgeist Interview with Anne Wojcicki, Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8NkU9Vh8jg [Accessed Nov 26 2019].
9 The Industrialist's Dilemma: Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe. Stanford Graduate School Video Series, 5 Feb 2016. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edmUKj7WrFU [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
10 Building a Customer-First Company: Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe. StartUp Elements, 29 June 2015. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQPV9Xgsj6c [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
11 Our Core Values: Think Big. 23andMe Media Centre. Avaible at https://mediacenter.23andme.com/ [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
12 It is noteworthy that the article in which this statement appears was printed in the Wall Street Journal in July 2015 – only a few weeks before that same journal started to dismantle Holmes’ tale of a consumer-led disruption of healthcare. If space allowed it, some observations on the complicity of mass media in promulgating techno-utopian determinism would be on order (Carreyrou Citation2015).
13 The Industrialist's Dilemma: Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe. Stanford Graduate School Video Series, 5 Feb 2016. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edmUKj7WrFU [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
14 Hoffman (n.d.): Embrace the Gatekeepers. Available at https://mastersofscale.com/anne-wojcicki-how-and-why-to-embrace-gatekeepers/, accessed on Nov 8 2019.
15 Anne Wojcicki: Co-Founder & CEO, 23andMe. (no date) Available at https://www.makers.com/profiles/591f26dda8c7c425e029ca6a [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
16 Building a Customer-First Company: Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe. StartUp Elements, 29 June 2015. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQPV9Xgsj6c [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
17 Imbert (2016). Theranos CEO ‘devastated’ amid lab testing issues. Available at https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/18/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmesim-devastated-we-didnt-catch-these-issues-faster.html [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
18 Available at https://www.theranos.com/leadership/board-of-directors [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
19 Roberts (2018). America's most-hated man, and its golden girl. Available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/03/15/what-makes-elizabeth-holmes-and-martin-shkreli-so-different/ [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
20 Elizabeth Holmes on Jim Cramer’s ‘Mad Money’ programme on CNBC, October 2015, shortly after the first Carreyrou article appeared in WSJ (Friedman and Loria Citation2015).
21 In the start-up world, ‘being dark’ or being in ‘stealth mode’ means that ventures work on their products and business ideas in secrecy. This is typically done at a very early stage of the venture’s development to prevent their product ideas from being stolen or copied by others. In the case of Theranos, this stealth mode lasted for over 10 years (Ioannidis Citation2015, Citation2016).
22 Available at https://mediacenter.23andme.com/ [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
23 Interview with a digital health consultant, Oct 2015 (personal communication).
24 HUCEnvironment (2012): Science and Democracy: Anne Wojcicki. Available at https://vimeo.com/channels/964760/40657814 [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
25 Available at https://theimmortalists.com/ [last accessed on Nov 26 2019].
26 Horton, J. S. and Priest, N. K. (2018): Silicon Valley's quest for immortality – and its worrying sacrifices. The Conversation Dec 10 2018. Available at https://theconversation.com/silicon-valleys-quest-for-immortality-and-its-worrying-sacrifices-101405 [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
27 Available at https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/23andme [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
28 DFJ's Draper: There's Nothing Wrong With Theranos. Bloomberg, June 24th 2016. Available at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-06-23/dfj-s-draper-there-s-nothing-wrong-with-theranos [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
29 Available at https://www.ft.com/content/41851362-5712-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2 [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
30 Available at https://www.nanalyze.com/2018/01/blood-testing-startups-next-theranos/ [Accessed Nov 6 2019].
31 DFJ's Draper: There's Nothing Wrong With Theranos. Bloomberg, June 24th 2016. Available at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-06-23/dfj-s-draper-there-s-nothing-wrong-with-theranos [Accessed Nov 6 2019].