Democracy? Or is the World A Corporation?

I don’t watch a lot of TVs, so my advertising investment is minimal.   Between the hospital and the Olympics, I have realized that the brands run the world—the large publicly traded food companies, car companies, and consumer products in general.  The narrative of all these ads is around saving the environment and being respectful to everyone, and there are few white bland men in them.  

These ads are seriously diverse and quasi hip in this weird way.  The Facebook ad is so ridiculous.  It should be an ad for their ads and certainly not the young hipsters they represent themselves as.  Showing the Olympics “in close and personal” is always annoying yet entertaining at the same time.  Keep in mind the ads are all the same.  It’s hard not to play the game of “who’s ad is this and who did it?” because all the narratives are the same. 

After coming off of reading The Cult of We Work, an absolutely disgusting display of company and board governance blowing through billions of dollars from limited partners is indescribable because it is egregious and, quite frankly, an embarrassing performance from people we all believe to be impressive in their fields.  Sure, people fuck up, but this is epic.  Hit me once shame on you hit me twice shame on me—shame on all of them.

There is nothing great about any of the above, but it defines democracy.   Things will change because the large companies realize what is important to democracy, selling the environmental issues, showing massive diversity, and dealing with issues of the day like equality.  Maybe the VC community will finally go back to why they began funding companies post-WW2 because the banks wouldn’t support long-term investments in software and infrastructure or brands.  It wasn’t their business model. Unclear what their model is today, but they should not be in the VC business. Maybe things will change, or maybe they won’t.

The world is changing, and the government is slow to catch up as usual from cryptocurrency to cannabis, but that’s democracy too.   It isn’t perfect, but it works.  It’s very messy; that’s what comes with the freedom we all enjoy.  There is a reason people are lined up at our borders.