电影里的科技老板：从英雄到反派

Have you noticed? This autumn, several films are about the bosses of technology companies.

Mm, I have.

Not one of them is a hero.

Right.

I think this is a, a big change.

It wasn't like this ten-odd years ago.

Ten-odd years ago?

In 2014 there was a film called The Imitation Game, about Turing.

Mm, the man who helped break the Germans' codes in the Second World War.

Right, the film made him a hero,

Mm.

Lots of people went to see it, and it won a big award.

But Turing wasn't a boss.

Yes, he was someone who invented things.

But back then, the people in films who worked in technology were changing the world,

Mm.

They were good people.

And now?

Now look at The Social Network.

The first one was from 2010, about how Zuckerberg started Facebook.

That one, I've seen that one.

This October the second one came out.

It's still, still the man who wrote the story for the first one, and this time he made the film himself too.

Mm.

The film follows a woman who used to work at Facebook.

She took the files from inside the company and showed them to everyone,

Oh.

The Zuckerberg in the film is cold.

Cold.

Right, not at all like a hero.

Mm.

In the first one, he was still just someone starting a company,

This one is exactly what I wanted to talk about.

Worldwide, the first one sold about $225 million of tickets,

Mm.

The second one, so far, about 17 million.

17 million.

Less than a tenth of the first one.

Your big change, most people, most people never even went to see it.

I admit that, not many people saw it.

But...

And the people who did go, who are they?

You tell me.

People who already, already didn't like these companies.

Whatever they thought going in, they still think coming out.

Mm, fair point.

But a film isn't finished once you've seen it.

I only knew about Turing because I saw The Imitation Game first.

Mm.

In a few years, when people talk about Zuckerberg, what they think of may be that cold face in the film.

Oh, that's you.

Not just me.

There's another film, about a woman who started a blood-testing company.

Later she went to prison for cheating people.

The film-makers followed her the whole time and filmed the few weeks before she went to prison,

Mm.

It's really her, not someone playing her.

Oh, they say that one is very well made.

Right, very good.

There's one more, about, about the boss of OpenAI, Altman, about how he was suddenly pushed out at the end of 2023.

This one, this one shows what I mean even better.

How so?

Amazon's film company was going to make it.

This June, it didn't want it any more,

Mm.

Not long after Amazon agreed to invest $50 billion in OpenAI.

You mean, it was because of the money...

Mm...

I'm only saying, the big film companies are either owned by technology companies or depend on technology companies' money.

What Amazon said was that it would be better for another company to do it.

And this film didn't die,

Mm.

Another, smaller company took it, and says it will still come out this year.

Oh, a smaller company.

Right, small.

Small, but it still gets out.

Mm.

OK, the films have changed, I agree with that.

Before they filmed heroes, now they film...

Right, problems.

Right, problems.

But the films changed, people didn't.

When I got up this morning, the first thing I did was still look at my phone.

Mm, me too.

See,

Mm.

We keep using it while saying they're bad.

Using their things and how you see them are two different things.

To these bosses, it's the same thing.