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Last week, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg introduced their plans to duke it out in a cage battle. But this potential feud is much less necessary than what it tells us about how Musk is influencing the foundations of engagement in Silicon Valley.
First, listed here are 4 new tales from The Atlantic:
A Race to the Bottom
Something unusual is going on on Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram.
For years, he posted periodic, traditional dad-and-CEO fare: anniversary photographs together with his spouse. Photos of his children and canine being cute. Meta product bulletins.
In latest months, although, Zuckerberg has been posting extra about preventing. Not the type that includes firing again at critics on behalf of his oft-embattled social-media empire, however precise mixed-martial-arts coaching. Earlier this month, he posted a video of himself tussling with a jiujitsu champion. On Memorial Day, he posted himself in a camouflage flak vest, flushed after an intense military exercise. And final week, Zuckerberg and Elon Musk mentioned they had been going to have a cage battle. The males apparently have ongoing private tensions, and Meta is engaged on constructing a Twitter competitor. But asserting in public their intent to battle takes issues to a different stage.
If you rolled your eyes on the cage-fight information: honest sufficient. The thought of two middle-aged executives, every dealing with an onslaught of enterprise and public-image issues, actually duking it out is a bit on the nostril. But the battle itself—and whether or not or not it occurs—is much less necessary than what it tells us about how Musk is reshaping Silicon Valley. Musk is mainstreaming new requirements of conduct, and a few of his friends are becoming a member of him in misguided acts of masculine aggression and populist appeals.
Leaders corresponding to Musk and Zuckerberg (and, to some extent, even their less-bombastic however fairly buff peer Jeff Bezos) have currently been striving to embody and mission a particular taste of masculine—and political—energy. As my colleague Ian Bogost wrote final week, “the nerd-CEO’s mighty body has become an apparatus for securing and extending his power.”
The two executives’ cage-fight announcement is “a reflection of a really tight monoculture of Silicon Valley’s most powerful people, most of whom are men,” Margaret O’Mara, a historian on the University of Washington who researches the tech business, advised me. In different phrases, the would-be members embody the business’s bro tradition.
Zuckerberg’s latest curiosity in waging bodily battles marks a departure for the CEO, who a couple of years in the past appeared extra desirous about emulating somebody like Bill Gates, an govt who parlayed his entrepreneurial success into philanthropy, O’Mara added. Zuckerberg has been very well-known since he was fairly younger. His early years on the helm of his social-media empire—“I’m CEO, Bitch” enterprise playing cards and all—had been calmly, and typically ungenerously, fictionalized in The Social Network by the point he was in his mid-20s. He has consciously curated his picture within the years since.
For a very long time, Zuckerberg led Facebook as a “product guy,” specializing in the tech whereas letting Sheryl Sandberg lead the adverts enterprise and communications. But overlapping crises—disinformation, Cambridge Analytica, antitrust—after the 2016 election seemingly modified his method: First, he struck a contrite tone and launched into a listening tour in 2017.The response was not resoundingly constructive. By the next summer season, he had hardened his picture on the firm, asserting that he was gearing as much as be a “wartime” chief. He has struck numerous stances in public through the years, however coming to blows with enterprise rivals has not been amongst them—but.
Musk, in the meantime, has a historical past of such stunts. At the onset of the struggle in Ukraine, he tweeted that he wish to battle Vladimir Putin in single fight, and he apparently has ongoing again ache linked to a previous battle with a sumo wrestler. That Zuckerberg is taking part in alongside reveals that the foundations of engagement have modified.
Musk has incited a race to the underside for Silicon Valley leaders. As he turns into extra highly effective, some different executives are quietly—and never so quietly—following his lead, cracking down on dissent, slashing jobs, and trying to wrestle again energy from workers. Even as Musk has destabilized Twitter and sparked near-constant controversy in his management of the platform, some friends have applauded him. He widened the scope of what CEOs might do, giving observers tacit permission to push boundaries. “He’s someone who’s willing to do things in public that are transgressing the rules of the game,” O’Mara mentioned.
During the primary few months of Musk’s Twitter reign, few executives had been keen to reward him on the file—although Reed Hastings, then a co-CEO of Netflix, did name Musk “the bravest, most creative person on the planet” in November. A number of months later, Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, advised Insider that executives round Silicon Valley have been asking, “Do they need to unleash their own Elon within them?” The Washington Post reported this previous Saturday that Zuckerberg was present process an “Elonization” as he makes an attempt to enchantment to Musk’s base, the proposed cage battle being the most recent occasion in his rebrand. (Facebook declined to remark. A request for remark to Twitter’s press electronic mail was returned with a poop emoji auto-responder.)
Whether or when the cage match will truly occur is unclear. Musk’s mom, for her half, has lobbied towards it. But whether or not Zuckerberg unleashes his “inner Elon” in a cage or not, each males are looking for to seize consideration distinct from their enterprise woes—and succeeding.
The tech business has lengthy supplied broad latitude to bosses, particularly male founders. Musk didn’t invent the thought of appearing out in public. But he has continued to maneuver the goalposts for all of his friends.
In a video posted on Twitter final week, Dana White, the president of Ultimate Fighting Championship, advised TMZ that he had spoken with each males and that they had been “absolutely dead serious” about preventing. He added one thing that I consider will get to the center of the matter: “Everybody would want to see it.”
Musk responded with two fireplace emojis.
Related:
Today’s News
- In an audio recording obtained by CNN, former President Donald Trump seems to acknowledge holding classified national-security paperwork.
- Chicago’s air high quality momentarily grew to become the worst amongst main cities on the earth after Canadian wildfire smoke blanketed the area.
- The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which took impact at the moment, expands protections for pregnant employees, requiring employers to accommodate pregnancy-related medical circumstances.
Dispatches
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Evening Read
Who’s the Cutest Little Dolphin? Is It You?
By Ed Yong
Across human cultures and languages, adults speak to infants in a really explicit means. They increase their pitch and broaden its vary, whereas additionally shortening and repeating their utterances; the latter options happen even in signal language. Mothers use this exaggerated and musical fashion of speech (which is usually referred to as “motherese”), however so do fathers, older kids, and different caregivers. Infants favor listening to it, which could assist them bond with adults and study language quicker.
But to actually perceive what child speak is for, and the way it developed, we have to know which different animals use it, if any.
More From The Atlantic
Culture Break
Read. “The Posting,” a new brief story by Sara Freeman, explores the implosion of a wedding. Then, learn an interview about her writing course of.
Watch. No Hard Feelings, Jennifer Lawrence’s R-rated rom-com, is in theaters now. And thank goodness for it.
P.S.
Last week, my Daily colleague Tom Nichols visited us within the New York workplace (very enjoyable!). We began speaking about how pleasant and even useful it may be to jot down whereas listening to film soundtracks. Different songs can complement completely different writing vibes—throughout faculty, for instance, I discovered the frenetic instrumentals of the soundtrack to Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel invaluable whereas writing papers within the library.
So whereas writing at the moment’s publication, I fired up the soundtrack to The Social Network in my AirPods. I like to recommend you do the identical the following time you must enter deep-focus mode. It was on theme, sure. But it’s additionally an amazing album in its personal proper; the composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross received an Oscar for Best Original Score when the film got here out. Listen to its elegant and moody tracks, then take within the cowl of the Radiohead tune “Creep,” sung by a ladies’ choir, within the film’s excellent trailer.
— Lora
Katherine Hu contributed to this article.