Evan Williams: Silicon Valley's "Don Quixote"

“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place. I was wrong about that.”

In his talk with the New York Times, Evan Williams, a Twitter founder and a co-creator of Blogger, comes across a bit disillusioned. Aimed mostly at giving people a voice, his creations meant to do good, but that hasn't work out too well. Blogger has been sold to Google for an undisclosed sum after a major blow-up with another co-founder. Twitter has became mainly about narcissism and exhibitionism. Some believe, for example, that the micro-blogging site made Trump's presidency possible, and Williams apologizes for that. Not to mention the spread of trolling, hate speech, graphic content, live-streamed violence or fake news.

"After fame and fortune come regrets. Mr Williams is trying to fix some things. (...) This is a moment for patches and promises," writes the New York Times.

The 45-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur is "trying to fix this mess" and repair the damage the Internet has done to contemporary society. He believes that Medium, a social and collaborative platform for publishing he currently leads, could play a role in fixing the broken world of content sharing. But Medium is not doing that well recently — had to lay off a third of its staff at the beginning of 2017. The article leaves you with an impression that Medium is just another Utopian dream of Silicon Valley's "Don Quixote". But maybe the world needs dreamers ...?