The Monday Media Diet with Kevin Allison

On EU tech policy, Deep Work, and Innovation and Its Enemies

Kevin Allison (KA) is a longtime friend of WITI dating back to his days at the Financial Times. He’s currently helping businesses navigate the worlds of AI and geopolitics. I’m happy he’s with us this week. -Colin (CJN)

Tell us about yourself.

I’m the founder and president of Minerva Technology Policy Advisors. We help the world’s leading organizations understand and navigate the geopolitics of AI. Before I got into technology and geopolitics, I was a journalist at Reuters and at the Financial Times, where I covered Silicon Valley. My home base is Washington, DC. 

Describe your media diet. 

I read the FT for global politics and business news and the Washington Post for national news. We are fortunate where I live to still have beat reporters digging up local news stories at places like the Post’s metro desk and MoCo360. My wildly optimistic hope is that generative AI will finally convince people they should stop getting their news from random people on the internet.

For work, I read Euractiv to keep up on EU tech policy between trips to Brussels, Tech Policy Press for US tech news, Rest of World for global tech stories, and The Wire China for the latest on US-China. Stiftung Neue Verantwortung is a tech policy think-tank in Berlin that does incredible work on AI, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.

Backland Radio, which plays country, blues, rock, and gospel out of Farmer City, Illinois, may be the best radio station in the world. @CJN turned me on to FIP years ago, and it’s another regular on the dial. WTOP is a tightly produced, no-nonsense local news station that I listen to when I’m in the car.

What’s the last great book you read? 

Deep Work, by Cal Newport, is an exception to my otherwise strict rule against reading business books. Implementing Newport’s ideas for carving out time for deep, uninterrupted work is a constant struggle, but it’s essential. I keep coming back to it. 

What are you reading now?

What Hath God Wrought, a history of the US from 1815-1848, by Daniel Walker Howe. Thanks to Gerry Butts for the suggestion. 

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

I occasionally pick up a hard copy of the FT at the airport, as an indulgence. I read the comment and analysis section then flip to the back page and read the Lex column, which remains the sharpest written page in print. After that I read the Big Page and Lunch with the FT, if it’s a Saturday paper.

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

Calestous Juma, a grad school mentor who sadly passed away a few years ago. His last book, Innovation and Its Enemies, explains how disruptive technologies emerge and then evolve in tandem with the political and social forces that rise up to oppose them. Through this back and forth, we get the world we live in. It’s a pattern that has repeated for everything from the printing press to margarine, and it’s happening again with AI. 

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone? 

Lidl’s in-store rewards app. A friend of mine who uses it recently got a free ham. You have to love that kind of value.

Plane or train?

Train, but usually where I’m going I need to get on a plane first.

What is one place everyone should visit? 

I initially wrote, “go to Tokyo, walk around, and eat at literally any restaurant. You won’t regret it.” And I stand by that. But really, go anywhere there are people who look, talk, and vote differently from you. Get out of your daily routine and out of your information bubble and live differently for a while.   

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.

I recently pulled Innovation and Its Enemies off the shelf to reread its chapter on recorded music. It has fascinating parallels with what happened recently with the the Hollywood writers and AI. 

In the 1940s, union musicians in the US, most of whom played in local bands, went on strike against the major record labels. One reason was that they were concerned about losing out on work if venues played recorded music instead of hiring live acts. For two years during World War II, they refused to make new records. The strike obviously failed to stop the rise of recorded music. But it eventually led to a new royalty system for artists. It also created an opening in the market for smaller labels, some of which eventually popularized bebop, R&B, and modal jazz. 

No one who was listening to Glen Miller back then could have imagined the new sounds that would emerge in subsequent decades - Miles Davis, The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar. Today, superstar artists can make a fortune from recording, selling out live stadium shows, and making movies about it, and local musicians are still around. I think we are headed somewhere similar with AI. People are uncomfortable, because the future is going to be different in ways we don’t have good words for yet, but things will probably be okay.  (KA)

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Kevin (KA)

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