Google’s founders envisioned being handed a city to control and license its technology

Evidence

In October 2017, Doctoroff appeared with Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reveal that Toronto would be the site of Sidewalk’s planned development. Its intent is to develop the right mix of technology that it can then license to cities around the world. “The genesis of the thinking for Sidewalk Labs came from Google’s founders getting excited thinking of ‘all the things you could do if someone would just give us a city and put us in charge,’” Toronto’s Globe and Mail reported Schmidt as saying, noting that “he joked he knew there were good reasons that doesn’t happen.” Then, just as quickly, the paper related Schmidt’s reaction when he first learned that Sidewalk, and by extension Alphabet, had secured this opportunity in Toronto: “Oh my God! We’ve been selected. Now, it’s our turn.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 724

Categorization

• XREF: This echoes the earlier-lawless-space theme and connects to the broader surveillance-capitalism ambition of governing whole urban environments; also connects to platform urbanism critiques elsewhere. — connects to: Google legitimated the ‘for-profit city’ as surveillance capitalism’s key urban ambition. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 712; Sidewalk Labs applied Google’s behavioral surplus model to physical urban space — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 720

Broader Connections

• Sidewalk Labs applied Google’s behavioral surplus model to physical urban space #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 720