The narrative of the "solitary genius in the garage" is perhaps the most effective public relations tool of the last century. This romantic story, where pure innovation and the free market reward brilliant young college dropouts with trillion-dollar empires, serves as a perfect smoke screen. By focusing attention on a supposed individual meritocracy, this myth obscures the immense state, military, and intelligence machinery that served as the foundation, financier, and protector of what we now know as "Big Tech".
When analyzing the history of the so-called "Magnificent Seven" and their founders, a pattern emerges that is far removed from free-market capitalism. Instead, we find a symbiosis between the Deep State (moneychangers) and private corporations, designed to build an infrastructure of surveillance, data collection, and social control—all disguised as mass consumer services.
1. The Original Sin: The true origin of the internet
Reference: Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet by Yasha Levine.
The fundamental error is believing that the Internet was born as a tool of liberation. As investigative journalist Yasha Levine documents, the Internet was, from its inception, a military weapon. It did not originate with California hippies, but with the Pentagon during the Vietnam War.
ARPANET (the precursor to the Internet) was initially tasked with data processing for counterinsurgency: mapping villages, tracking dissidents, and predicting stochastic behaviors in hostile populations. Levine cites declassified documents proving that surveillance is not a bug in the system; it is its foundational feature.
The Google-CIA Connection
The official story tells us that Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google in Stanford dorms to "organize the world's information." Levine demolishes this childish narrative. Google was not a side project that later caught the military's eye; it was part of a military program from day one.
In the mid-90s, the US Intelligence Community (IC) was drowning in data. They funded the MDDS (Massive Digital Data Systems) program via the NSA and CIA. Page and Brin were direct beneficiaries of these grants. In their original paper, "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine," Brin explicitly thanks the NSF and DARPA.
As Levine argues, "Google is the privatization of the CIA's desire to index the world." They did not create the search engine to sell ads; they created it to help the national security state see everything. The ad model came later as a way to financially sustain this perpetual surveillance.
2. The Myth of Private Risk: The military iphone
Reference: The Entrepreneurial State by Mariana Mazzucato.
If the origin is military, the taxpayer is the one paying the bill. Economist Mariana Mazzucato destroys the personality cults of figures like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Her research reveals an uncomfortable truth for Silicon Valley libertarians: private venture capital is cowardly; it only enters the game when the State has already assumed the massive initial risks.
Mazzucato performs a forensic autopsy of the iPhone, proving that Apple did not invent its critical components. Each was funded by taxpayers:
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The Internet & HTTP: DARPA and CERN (Public funding).
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GPS: Developed entirely by the US Navy (NAVSTAR) for missile precision.
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Touchscreen: Born from research funded by the CIA and NSF at the University of Delaware.
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Siri: Originally a DARPA project (CALO - Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes).
Apple is not a creator of basic science; it is an integrator. The taxpayers payed the for R&D of decades, while Apple privatized the rewards, packaging military technology into a sleek design to extract what Yanis Varoufakis calls "feudal rents" via the App Store. Typical parasitic behavior.
3. Social media: The Shadow of the Pentagon
Reference: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff.
Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook represent the most disturbing intersection of consumer tech and intelligence agencies. The official version cites a network created in a Harvard dorm. However, the timeline suggests something more complex.
In 2004, the same year Facebook began its ascent, the Pentagon—via DARPA—officially shut down a program called "LifeLog." The goal of LifeLog was to create a database tracking a person's entire existence: relationships, communications, locations, and thoughts. The project was cancelled due to privacy concerns, yet Facebook emerged almost simultaneously offering exactly the same functionality, this time under the guise of voluntary user acceptance.
Shoshana Zuboff explains that this shift created "Surveillance Capitalism." The goal is no longer just selling products but extracting "behavioral surplus." These companies create an "instrumentarian power" that not only predicts the future but automates it, subtly modifying human behavior to align with commercial and political interests.
4. The Intelligence Contractors: Amazon and Palantir
Reference: The Contrarian by Max Chafkin.
Jeff Bezos started by selling books, but Amazon’s true power lies in Amazon Web Services (AWS). The turning point for the cloud's legitimacy was a $600 million contract with the CIA in 2013. Amazon is the custodian of the national security state's most sensitive data.
However, the darkest player is Palantir, founded by Peter Thiel (the "Don" of the PayPal Mafia). As Max Chafkin details in The Contrarian, Palantir was not a garage startup; it was an ideological project designed to privatize the CIA's intelligence functions.
In its early years, the only outside investor was In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm. Utilizing anti-fraud software derived from PayPal, Palantir created tools for "pre-crime" analysis. Their software, used by the LAPD, ICE, and the military, integrates disparate databases to track individuals, effectively creating a privatized "Eye of Sauron."
Unlike Apple, which commercialized military tech for consumers, Palantir client is the state and its monopoly of violence.
5. The "Rebel" Front: Elon Musk and SpaceX
Reference: The Entrepreneurial State by Mariana Mazzucato.
Elon Musk is often portrayed as the ultimate rogue entrepreneur. In reality, his companies exist thanks to massive government intervention. Tesla survived critical stages thanks to Department of Energy loans and regulatory carbon credits.
SpaceX is even more embedded in the Military-Industrial Complex. It is not a purely private adventure; it has been functionally absorbed by the state defense apparatus. Its primary clients are NASA and the DoD. The Starlink satellite network is a crucial geopolitical and military tool (technology of dual use). The US government has effectively outsourced its space dominance to Musk, transforming him into a defense contractor with excellent branding.
6. Nvidia and the Feudal Infrastructure
Reference: Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis / Trillions by Robin Wigglesworth.
Nvidia provides the brute force for this new world order. Originally doing graphics for games, their chips are now the engines of military simulation and AI surveillance. Yanis Varoufakis argues we have left capitalism for Technofeudalism, where "Cloud Capital" replaces real markets. Nvidia holds the monopoly on the "picks and shovels" of this digital fiefdom.
Furthermore, Robin Wigglesworth in Trillions explains how BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street inflate these companies. Through passive index funds (ETFs), these asset managers channel blind capital into companies like Nvidia and Microsoft, regardless of fundamentals, consolidating corporate governance into the hands of a financial oligopoly.
Conclusion
The "garage" origin story is a lie necessary to maintain the illusion that there's a free market where entrepreneurial minds can create multi trillion dollar empires. But the evidence provided by Levine, Mazzucato, Zuboff, and Chafkin reveals a unified structure:
1. The military state funded by taxpayers provides the R&D and security justification... National security!!!
2. Big Tech provides the platform for social control and data extraction. With the consent of the users... You know.. those tricky terms and conditions...
3. Moneychangers (BlackRock) consolidates the ownership and directs the flow of dollars to their own pockets.
These BIG TECH companies are not free-market miracles; they are the privatized extensions of the surveillance agenda of the international banksters, funded by the public, but owned by them.
References & Further Reading
Levine, Yasha. Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet. PublicAffairs, 2018.
Mazzucato, Mariana. The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths. Anthem Press, 2013.
Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. PublicAffairs, 2019.
Chafkin, Max. The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power. Penguin Press, 2021.
Varoufakis, Yanis. Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. Bodley Head, 2023.
Wigglesworth, Robin. Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever. Portfolio, 2021.
Pasquale, Frank. The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information. Harvard University Press, 2015.
