Enshittification: In Conversation with Cory Doctorow
Commonweal Ventures is thrilled to host Cory Doctorow for a discussion on his bestselling book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It.
Doctorow, an author and activist whose work has focused on technology, digital rights, and corporate power, coined the term "enshittification" to describe how online platforms decay over time: first they lure users in with good products, then degrade those products to serve business customers, and finally squeeze everyone to maximize shareholder returns. The book argues this isn't inevitable. It traces how political conditions like weakened antitrust, captured regulators, and diminished worker power lead to platform decay, and what we can do to reverse them.
As Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, described the book: "Cory Doctorow is a genuine tech hero. He has encapsulated here much of what's going wrong with the internet, and he suggests how the spirit of the original internet might be brought back. This is a great book for those of us hoping to make things better for everyone."
Doctorow will be joined in conversation by Nate Loewentheil, managing partner of Commonweal Ventures and former Obama White House advisor. The discussion will be followed by audience Q&A.
Schedule:
6:00 PM – Doors open, networking
6:30 PM – Moderated conversation and audience Q&A
7:30 PM – Networking
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cory Doctorow is a journalist, activist, and science fiction author. He spent more than twenty years with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where he served as European Director, and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. He writes the newsletter Pluralistic and previously co-edited Boing Boing. His nonfiction includes The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation (2023) and Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back (2022). His fiction includes the Little Brother series and more than a dozen other novels.
In 2024, the Media Ecology Association awarded him the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, and Cornell University appointed him an A.D. White Professor-at-Large. The word "enshittification" was named word of the year in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Nate Loewentheil is the Founder and Managing Partner of Commonweal Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in startups at the intersection of technology and government. He is an early-stage investor in companies like Robinhood and Roivant. He is a former Forbes 30 under 30 and Aspen Ideas Fellow and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Fast Company, among many other outlets.
He served in the Obama White House as a Special Assistant to the President at the National Economic Council, where he advised President Obama on emerging technology. Nate holds a BA from Yale College and a JD from Yale Law School.