A trillion dollars. Once the stuff of galaxies and government debt, now it’s just another Tuesday in late-stage capitalism…
A trillion dollars. Once the stuff of galaxies and government debt, now it’s just another Tuesday in late-stage capitalism. We used to look at that number with awe. Now it barely registers. That’s the point the number’s so big it’s meaningless. A measure of success detached from impact, purpose, or humanity.
I’ve spent a career watching how fame, power, and narrative twist together.
And nothing says “we’ve lost the plot” quite like celebrating a trillion-dollar payslip while the social contract frays at the seams.
AI was meant to evolve us free us from drudgery, open the floodgates of creativity. Instead, it’s freed billionaires from the inconvenience of people.
The machines hum efficiently; the humans are told to “reskill.”
Who needs a trillion dollars anyway? No one. Not even the man with the rockets, the robots, and the midlife crisis the size of Mars.
You can picture him, Smaug-like, sprawled across his stock options, muttering that it’s all for humanity provided humanity behaves itself.
The optics are grotesque. The hubris, operatic. Does he know how it looks? Does he care? Perhaps corporate fame won’t come in wage packets anymore, but in what you can really do for humanity. Because this new era of automation is beginning to expose those who built the plants and the illusion we’re starting to see the true concept of AI: a mirror, not a saviour.
A generation is emerging that doesn’t measure status in money but in meaning.
They want connection, community, creativity not accumulation.
When the robots have automated survival, someone will still need to make life worth living.
And that, inconveniently for the spreadsheets, still requires a pulse.