A former Silicon Valley insider explains how MBA-style “spreadsheet management” is breaking software—and why it’s making tech, AI, and everyday products worse.

Darryl Campbell is a former tech industry insider who spent 15 years in Silicon Valley at companies including Amazon and Uber and at early-stage startups. He’s the author of Fatal Abstraction: Why the Managerial Class Loses Control of Software.

• What “managerialism” is and how MBAs took over tech
• Why software moved from serving users to extracting value
• Industrial-era management vs. internet-scale systems
• Boeing 737 MAX, Uber self-driving, and systemic risk
• Enshittification and the decline of product quality
• AI hype, weak ROI, and incentives to do harmful things
• Monopoly power, captured regulation, and why markets don’t self-correct
• Whether real innovation has slowed since the 1970s
• What comes next: backlash, regulation, or a paradigm shift

• The “managerial class” optimizes for financial metrics that don’t capture safety, quality, or real-world harm.
• Industrial-era management worked better because physical constraints forced slower feedback and respect for expertise.
• Software removes constraints: you can ship instantly at global scale, so errors and incentives can become catastrophes.
• Enshittification is a predictable outcome when monopoly power + financial targets replace user value.
• AI is under extreme financial pressure (huge capex vs. limited revenue), which encourages risky monetization.
• Traditional checks—shareholders, competition, regulators—often fail against near-monopolies.
• Meaningful improvement may require a broader public backlash or a major “paradigm shift.”

• “Anything, literally anything, is permissible as long as it makes you more money.”
• “It’s impossible to ignore… the only way to stay current is to pay us $200 a year for the rest of your life.”
• “It feels like we’re in a black and white phase right now, and I’m really interested to see what the color phase afterward looks like.

🎙 The Pod is hosted by Jesse Wright
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MIT Free Speech Alliance president Wayne Stargardt explains how a few high-profile cancellations can drive widespread faculty self-censorship—even at a STEM powerhouse like MIT.

Wayne Stargardt is the president of the MIT Free Speech Alliance (independent of MIT) and an MIT alumnus (Class of 1974) who focuses on academic freedom, free expression, and open debate at STEM universities.

• “Silencing Science at MIT” and what MIT faculty surveys suggest about self-censorship
• The Dorian Abbott Carlson Lecture cancellation (2021) and the alumni response
• Why faculty fear student retaliation (bias reporting, administrative escalation)
• FIRE campus free-speech rankings and what they measure
• MIT’s revenue model (research/endowment vs tuition) and why incentives differ from most schools
• K–12 socialization, in loco parentis, and why students arrive primed for “shout-down” norms
• DEI rebranding (“community and belonging”) and the claim that pressures went underground
• Risks to MIT: recruiting/retaining top faculty and research dollars
• MIT reinstating SAT requirements (post-2020 test disruption)
• MIT vs Harvard: data/analysis vs decision-making under uncertainty (“intuition”)
• AI as a tool: value depends on the questions/tasks you set

• Multiple MIT faculty surveys—asked different ways—cluster around ~50–55% reporting some self-censorship in at least some settings.
• You don’t need “many” cancellations: a few public examples can trigger self-protective silence across a campus.
• The Abbott episode was a catalyst: MIT was “caught by surprise,” and faculty + alumni backlash made repeat events less likely—but speakers may be quietly filtered out earlier.
• FIRE rankings reflect student attitudes + institutional policies; MIT’s rank improved partly because others worsened, not because MIT’s score surged.
• MIT’s finances reduce tuition dependence; the bigger vulnerability is faculty environment → research strength → prestige/funding.
• Administrative culture shift (more “professional administrators”) can amplify complaint systems when they’re sympathetic to activist norms.
• Stargardt is cautiously optimistic: broader American free-speech culture pushes universities either to course-correct or fade amid demographic headwinds.

• “You don't have to cancel too many professors at a university… they catch on real quick… and… self-censor.”
• “MIT is a multidisciplinary research institute, which happened to have a small specialized trade school attached to it.”
• “You don't have to cancel a whole lot of people to scare the faculty. You just have to cancel a few.”

🎙 The Pod is hosted by Jesse Wright
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In this episode, Jesse talks with Fordham University School of Law corporate-law professor Sean J. Griffith about why “go woke, go broke” hasn’t really played out—and why big, publicly traded firms can stay “woke” even when consumers or politicians claim there’s backlash. The core theme: modern corporate power often runs through managers, compliance systems, and financial intermediaries, not “owners,” and that structure changes what accountability looks like.

They unpack:

• Managerialism and the separation of ownership from control in modern corporations (why founders can still get pushed out, and why shareholders often don’t steer day-to-day governance).
• How “woke” agendas persist inside firms through HR/compliance, regulatory levers, and asset-manager/proxy-voting plumbing.
• Why vague, non-falsifiable goals (DEI/ESG/sustainability) can become a perpetual project that reduces accountability and can substitute for clearer objectives like returns—or even employee compensation.
• The politics of corporate speech and compelled trainings, including the Florida “Stop WOKE Act” litigation.
• The “what now?” question: what reforms (especially around intermediaries and voting) might actually change corporate behavior.

• “Woke doesn’t vanish; it rebrands.” Words change (DEI → “belonging,” ESG → “sustainability”), structures stay.
• Modern corporate governance isn’t “owners calling the shots.” It’s boards, managers, compliance, and intermediaries.
• Compliance departments can function as political “levers” inside firms—often not aligned with shareholder-return logic.
• Passive funds concentrate voting power. People hold the economic exposure, but big fund complexes often hold the vote.
• Vague goals reduce accountability. If you miss financial targets, point to ESG wins; if you miss ESG targets, point to financial realities.

• “Woke capitalism” as organizational inertia, not just marketing
• Managerialism and the separation of ownership/control
• Board governance: fiduciary duty vs stakeholder goals
• HR’s growth, compliance logic, and internal “mission” narratives
• Regulation as governance-by-proxy (disclosure rules, compliance guidelines)
• Passive index funds, voting power, and “engagement” with CEOs
• Proxy advisers and how voting guidance can steer outcomes
• Status incentives for executives (elite conferences, reputational capital)
• The Florida workplace-training case and corporate First Amendment rights
• AI and the possibility of “automating” bureaucracy (for better or worse)
• Political strategy: targeting intermediaries vs hoping markets self-correct

Sean’s article “Woke Will Never Go Broke” at Chronicles Magazine.

• Sean’s faculty page at Fordham University School of Law.
• Sean’s papers on SSRN (example paper page).
• Business Roundtable “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation” (2019).
• Securities and Exchange Commission climate disclosure rule (press release).
• Florida “Stop WOKE Act” workplace-training litigation (Eleventh Circuit case page).
• The Economist: “How HR took over the world… Will AI shrink it?”

Sean J. Griffith is a corporate and securities law professor and director of the Fordham Corporate Law Center. His work focuses on corporate governance, securities regulation, and related questions of institutional power inside public companies.

If you’ve ever wondered why “boycotts” don’t seem to change corporate behavior—or why the same internal programs persist no matter who wins elections—this episode is a deep dive into the

structure

of modern capitalism: boards, managers, compliance, regulators, and the intermediaries who often control how shares get voted.

🎙 The Pod is hosted by Jesse Wright
💬 For guest suggestions, questions, or media inquiries, reach out at https://elpodcast.media/
📬 Never miss an episode – subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
⭐️ If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review the show. It helps others find us.

Thanks for listening!