“The close relationship between Hoffman and the White House isn’t just about his being a major political donor. He and others like him have something more powerful than money to offer: a way for officials to connect with the largest possible audiences. In the nineteenth century, the bosses of political machines served this role; in the twentieth, it was media barons, especially in broadcasting and newspapers; in the twenty-first, it is people who have created vast online social networks.”

“Even in this age of inequality, there’s nothing as unequal as the distribution of success in Silicon Valley. One of Hoffman’s venture-capital friends, Mike Maples, Jr., estimates that of the roughly thirty thousand tech startups a year, only ten will wind up representing ninety-seven per cent of the total value of all of them, and one will represent as much value as all the others combined.”

“A waiter entered. “I have an algorithm,” Hoffman said. “If it’s a good place, order the special. If it’s a bad place, order what they can’t screw up.” They ordered the special.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/12/the-network-man?mbid=rss