Séamas O'Reilly: The rise of 'stupid ideas' - and the fall of 'smart ideas'

"...imagine acquiring a platform on which nearly every single famous person on the planet, from Lebron James to the Pope, was an active user - then imagine inducing nearly all of those people to definitely broadcast that they would never pay you to do so..."

Screengrab from the Twitter feed of PopBase of Elon Musk replying to confirm that he is "personally" paying to keep blue ticks on the accounts of several notable people despite many claiming that they would not pay to keep their verified checkmark.

In The Startup Wife, Tahmima Anam’s satirical novel of 2021, a computer scientist named Asha creates an ingenious algorithm, which rapidly becomes a Silicon Valley sensation. 

Her brand includes WAI, a socially conscious social network which “brings meaning and humanity to [your] online presence”, and Obit.ly, a service that allows you to give specific instructions for the “management of your death online”.