Extracting value from the future: Data streams and the construction of technological tomorrows
Lead Research Organisation:
Goldsmiths University of London
Department Name: Politics
Abstract
Is data, as The Economist magazine describes, 'the new oil'? While oil companies have historically been highly profitable, perplexingly, many companies in the data economy are making losses. 83% of publicly listed US tech companies don't turn a profit, among them tech figureheads like Spotify and Dropbox. How do companies which burn through their investors' cash for long periods of time survive?
My PhD project directs the view to the importance of expectations in data-driven capitalism. The 'growth before profits' mantra driven by venture capital funds creates pressures to rapidly scale up operations. The means employed to pursue the end of rapid growth, however, have detrimental effects that reach well beyond the data economy. Recent scandals brought about by excessive data collection and the repurposing of data for political means have highlighted the necessity to gain a better understanding of this decisive development, and where it might lead us.
The tech industry relies on constant innovation to generate value. The success or failure of making expectations count about certain innovations determines how funding and investments are distributed in the present, and it establishes the conditions for generating future flows of revenue. Far more than being mere contemplations of tomorrow, the politics of expectations have very real consequences today.
So how do you make the future researchable? What are its present day manifestations? I'm focusing here on the mechanisms that structure financial outcomes. More precisely, I'm looking into the mechanisms through which expectations of the future become reified in financial infrastructure. Looking at the process of capitalisation, which represents the moment capital is created by attributing value to a thing, is uniquely suited for a study of this kind.
Capitalisation involves key actors in data-driven capitalism, most importantly entrepreneurs and investors. Between them the value of a company is determined by how many shares of the company the investor gets for an investment. At the heart of this valuation process are calculative devices (like discounting formulas) through which present value is understood as the discounted sum of future income streams. Calculative procedures become the point where technological future and present meet, and through which futures are imagined and foreclosed.
At the present moment, we are grappling to understand how the rise of tech companies has already changed the functioning of our economy and society. Positing that the dynamics of capitalist economies are best explained by the investment decisions made by capitalists, my research traces the transformative power of tech from its inception. By closely examining how a certain state came into being, it seeks to delineate the steps necessary to change social outcomes through the application of technology.
Insights from my research may benefit policy makers currently tasked with finding ways to control big tech. From monopoly market power to the value of personal data, an effective political response to the new realities tech created is conditioned upon a thorough understanding of the financial mechanisms that underpin it. Not least, by drawing attention to the role of expectations in financial decision-making, my research may indicate emancipatory potentials from what the current trajectory of big tech has made seem inevitable.
My PhD project directs the view to the importance of expectations in data-driven capitalism. The 'growth before profits' mantra driven by venture capital funds creates pressures to rapidly scale up operations. The means employed to pursue the end of rapid growth, however, have detrimental effects that reach well beyond the data economy. Recent scandals brought about by excessive data collection and the repurposing of data for political means have highlighted the necessity to gain a better understanding of this decisive development, and where it might lead us.
The tech industry relies on constant innovation to generate value. The success or failure of making expectations count about certain innovations determines how funding and investments are distributed in the present, and it establishes the conditions for generating future flows of revenue. Far more than being mere contemplations of tomorrow, the politics of expectations have very real consequences today.
So how do you make the future researchable? What are its present day manifestations? I'm focusing here on the mechanisms that structure financial outcomes. More precisely, I'm looking into the mechanisms through which expectations of the future become reified in financial infrastructure. Looking at the process of capitalisation, which represents the moment capital is created by attributing value to a thing, is uniquely suited for a study of this kind.
Capitalisation involves key actors in data-driven capitalism, most importantly entrepreneurs and investors. Between them the value of a company is determined by how many shares of the company the investor gets for an investment. At the heart of this valuation process are calculative devices (like discounting formulas) through which present value is understood as the discounted sum of future income streams. Calculative procedures become the point where technological future and present meet, and through which futures are imagined and foreclosed.
At the present moment, we are grappling to understand how the rise of tech companies has already changed the functioning of our economy and society. Positing that the dynamics of capitalist economies are best explained by the investment decisions made by capitalists, my research traces the transformative power of tech from its inception. By closely examining how a certain state came into being, it seeks to delineate the steps necessary to change social outcomes through the application of technology.
Insights from my research may benefit policy makers currently tasked with finding ways to control big tech. From monopoly market power to the value of personal data, an effective political response to the new realities tech created is conditioned upon a thorough understanding of the financial mechanisms that underpin it. Not least, by drawing attention to the role of expectations in financial decision-making, my research may indicate emancipatory potentials from what the current trajectory of big tech has made seem inevitable.
People |
ORCID iD |
| William Davies (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Nils Peters (Student) |