Technology elite see the world in a different light to other ultra-rich industry leaders outside of the tech industry, according to a new study.
German and US researchers studied global insights of the 100 richest people in the tech world, as listed by Forbes.
Among them were the leaders of the ‘big nine’ – Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Microsoft, IBM and Apple – who are the founders of some of the richest people on the planet.
The research, which included an analysis of the language used in the tweets of tech celebrities, showed that they tend to deny any links between democracy and money.
Elite Tech also has a more ‘meritocratic’ global outlook – where people’s success or power is related to their abilities – compared to the general population using U.S. Twitter.
The tech elite shares unique ideas that set them apart from other regions of the world’s elite, according to the study, which highlighted the richest technical leaders in the world. From top left to right: Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jack Ma of Alibaba, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Tim Cook of Apple
‘Our research contributes to closing a research gap in societies with rising inequalities,’ said the study’s authors, from two German universities and the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies in New York.
‘We find that the 100 richest members of the tech world express unique ideas that set them apart both from the general population and from other wealthy elites.
‘As a group, they tend to be worthy of democracy, connected to the well-being of their peers and relatively supportive of democratic society.
‘But their position in a democratic system is in opposition to each other – because of their vast wealth, they have an unfair influence on how selective income is spent.’
A shift in the global economy has taken place in the last half-century, marked by the rise of large technical firms and the so-called ‘big nine’.
But in addition to the strongest tech giants, the industry has spawned smaller computer hardware and software manufacturers and more recently app companies.
Those on the Forbes list made their money primarily in computer software, hardware, and internet-related technologies and services. Founders, executives, and investors in companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, Airbnb, eBay, and Microsoft are clearly represented.
For their study, researchers had spoken to all 100 of the 100 richest people in the tech world for face-to-face interviews.
However, after receiving strong responses, they turned to the internet to learn more about their topics in their own words.
Among those on the Forbes 100 list, they identified 30 members with an officially verified English Twitter account.
They scribbled and analyzed 49,790 tweets from the 30 holders of verified Twitter accounts, as well as the same number of tweets from a random sample of the general U.S. Twitter population for comparison.
They also analyzed 60 mission statements from tech elite philanthropy websites, as well as statements from 17 tech elites who signed up for the Giving Pledge, Warren Buffett’s philanthropic campaign, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates.
Global messages of tech wealth. Silicon Valley, on the west coast of the USA, is well represented
These statements were compared to other high-end elites not affiliated with the tech world that signed the Donation Pledge, including Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, Sara Blakely and David Sainsbury.
The Twitter text analyzes revealed the tech elite subjects tweeting with more emphasis on agitation, positivity, and temporality – a strong sense of existence within time – compared to the average user.
Their most common words were ‘new’ and ‘brilliant’ as opposed to the chattier ‘just’ and ‘like’ as the most common words used by the common users.
Tech elite also tended to refer much more frequently to their peers and other tech companies.
Researchers also measured the frequency and use of words related to ‘merit’ and ‘democracy’.
Merit words included ‘unique’, ‘excellent’, ‘value’, ‘virtues’, ‘benefit’, ‘sovereignty’, ‘value’, ‘perfect’, ‘important’ and ‘important’ .
Although the dictionary of democracy included ‘republic’, ‘autonomy’, ‘autonomy’, ‘sovereignty’, ‘republican’, ‘representation’, ‘exhibitions’,’ rallies’ and ‘gathering ‘.
‘We use a common “bag-of-words” (BOW) model that focuses on the frequency of words but avoids context and grammar,’ says the team. say.
Experts found no statistically significant differences in tech elite perceptions of the link between power and money or power and democracy, compared to the general Twitter sample.
An image showing the 50 most commonly used words in tweets of the tech elite. Researchers scraped tweets at two points in time (Nov 30, 2018, and March 8, 2019) and gathered back in time the maximum number of unique Tweets per account, which resulted in 49,790 Tweets out of the 30 account holders from the tech elite.
But tech elites have denied the link between democracy and money, a belief not shared by the typical Twitter users sampled.
The philanthropic statements from tech elites who signed the Donation Pledge tended to be much shorter than those from other wealthy signatories (1,796 words versus 2,422 words).
The tech philanthropists also tended to use more like-minded, meritocratic language as a group, with ‘education’, ‘work’, and ‘social’ appearing frequently in their statements along with emphasis on personal group, progress and impact.
According to the study’s authors, technical figures have a strong interest in ‘making the world a better place’, but this belief is often expressed by other wealthy people.
They promote ideas on how, in the words of Mark Zuckerberg, ‘can make the world a better place for future generations’ or, as Azim Premji of Indian tech company Wipro said, to ‘make a significant contribution to trying to create a better world for the less privileged millions’.
Top 50 most used words in tweets of the general US Twitter population (N = 49,790)
They also often use temporary words such as ‘today’, ‘day’, ‘year’, ‘years’, and ‘future’, and refer more often to a larger audience. more like ‘people’, ‘us’, ‘team’ or ‘world’.
Their language of judgment goes towards the positive, with words like ‘good’, ‘better’, ‘best’, and ‘correct’, and they usually have no negative adjectives.
The authors state: ‘The elite tech can be thought of as a “class for itself” in Marx’s sense – a social group with world-specific views, which in this case implies a meritocratic democratic ideology. , missionary and inconsistent. ‘
Researchers raised a number of limitations on this research – initially, they were unable to find everyone in their first 100-person sample for many reasons (for example, Twitter is blocked in China , and many older tech elite do not use Twitter).
It will also not be possible to manage that Twitter accounts are managed by professional PR experts, which may have influenced the language used.
It is also unclear whether the tech elite rejection of a relationship between democracy and strategic money or religion is real.
The study has been a magazine PLOS ONE.