In fairness, no one really knows if Anderson would navigate our current social media environment with more or less grace than the current bozos.1 He left the game in 2009, when social media was still widely and unreservedly viewed as a force for social good. His scandals were of the comical and momentary sort; his politics — if he has them — have always seemed wan and vague.
But the fact that Anderson did retire from tech, and at the tender age of 38, testifies to a political philosophy and a set of values that feel almost radical today. People like Musk and Zuckerberg are hell-bent on amassing unprecedented, indecent stores of power and wealth. Anderson isn’t exactly curing cancer, by comparison … but he’s at least bucked the gospel of infinite extraction.
H/T: Nick Heer