Tech bros and 'win win'

Another couple of snippets from Winners Take All. This first quote is from a tech writer called Greg Ferenstein who interviewed lots of technology founders and tried to distil their ideas into a *cough* philosophy.

"The basis of old government is the notion of a zero-sum relationship between different classes - economic classes, between citizens and government, between the United States and other countries. If you assume that inherent conflict, you worry about disparities in wealth. You want labour unions to protect workers from corporations. You want a smaller government to get out of the way of business. If you don't make that assumption, and you believe that every institution needs to do well, and they all work with each other, you don't want unions or regulations or sovereignty or any of the other things that protect people from each other.
"Most politics and most institutions are built on a zero-sum relationship between some people in the group. This ideology is unique - and the reason I call it Optimism is because of the belief that everyone can get along. Or everyone has, to be more specific, overlapping preferences."

I could not have articulated the "win-win" mindset better myself. If we're all on the same side all the time, why do we need unions or regulations?

Secondly here is a tweet from a Silicon Valley venture capitalist called Paul Graham that is quoted in the book:

"Any industry that still has unions has potential energy that could be released by start-ups"