{"podcast":{"title":"Revolution.Social","slug":"revolution-social-7409931","podcast_index_feed_id":7409931,"rss_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/11425154c/podcast/rss","website_url":"https://revolution.social/","image_url":"https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/staging/podcast_uploaded_nologo/46229419/49a2b074e1d12f41.jpg","author":"Rabble a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath","episode_count":49,"summary":"A podcast about the future of social media and reclaiming our digital communities. Revolution.Social is hosted by technologist and community advocate Rabble, a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath — who was Twitter’s first employee and hired Jack Dorsey. In weekly interviews, Rabble will interview thought leaders, technologists, academics, and more about the need for a new social media \"bill of rights.\" Just as the original Bill of Rights protected individual freedoms from government overreach, we need fundamental protections from corporate control and surveillance capitalism. This is the start of a conversation about what developers are building, how they're building it, and what consumers need to be asking for. Guests will include Jack Dorsey (former CEO & co-founder of Twitter); Kara Swisher (host of On with Kara Swisher, co-host of Pivot); Cory Doctorow (science fiction author & former editor of Boing Boing); and Taylor Lorenz (founder of User Mag, host of Power User).","last_synced_at":"2026-07-09T16:20:23.930135+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931"},"episode":{"title":"Ethical Venture Capital: Why Social Media Needs a Conscience (with Brad Burnham & Zoe Weinberg)","slug":"ethical-venture-capital-why-social-media-needs-a-conscience-with-brad-burnham-zoe-weinberg","published_at":"2026-03-26T07:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931/ethical-venture-capital-why-social-media-needs-a-conscience-with-brad-burnham-zoe-weinberg","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931","url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/divine01/episodes/Ethical-Venture-Capital-Why-Social-Media-Needs-a-Conscience-with-Brad-Burnham--Zoe-Weinberg-e3l6ofj","audio_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/11425154c/podcast/play/121905075/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-5-23%2F426709643-44100-2-bd07711d4de24ab3.mp3","summary":"In an era of hypergrowth and enshittification, can venture capitalists win by investing with conscience? Today on Revolution.Social, Rabble talks to Union Square Ventures co-founder Brad Burnham and ex/ante founder Zoe Weinberg about digital agency, human rights, and tech that makes the world more inclusive and democratic. \"One of the broader objectives of ex/ante is to think about how do you move beyond surveillance capitalism?\" Zoe says. \"And the irony is not lost on me that venture itself is part of what created it. And so I think we have to be intellectually honest about that and also come up with a compelling reason why this time is going to be different.\" Brad is a legendary investor known for his work in the early Web 2.0 era, when Union Square Ventures backed companies such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Etsy. But with hindsight, he says VCs have a \"moral responsibility\" to anticipate the consequences of their investments. \"The more time we spent with these companies, the better we understood that the more people in our network, the more valuable that network,\" Brad says. \"What we didn't understand is that it was going to lead to the consolidation around Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon. We didn't understand that it was so powerful and there was so much value ... that there was no way that a startup could compete with those dominant players.\" Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 6:13 Brad’s Early Career and the Birth of Web 2.0 9:05 The Early Days of Union Square Ventures 11:01 Zoe’s Path From Conflict Zones to Digital Freedom 13:45 How Venture Capital Actually Works 18:46 The Evolution of Digital Marketplaces 22:09 The Shift from Open Protocols to Walled Gardens 29:41 Crypto as a New Economic Incentive Model 36:53 Is Technology \"Neutral?\" 40:33 Public Benefit Corporations 44:1…","meta_description":"In an era of hypergrowth and enshittification, can venture capitalists win by investing with conscience? Today on Revolution.Social, Rabble talks to Union…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3667,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/revolution-social-7409931/episodes/ethical-venture-capital-why-social-media-needs-a-conscience-with-brad-burnham-zoe-weinberg/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/revolution-social-7409931/ethical-venture-capital-why-social-media-needs-a-conscience-with-brad-burnham-zoe-weinberg.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}