♪ -next, a "kqed newsroom" special, revisiting some of our favorite conversations with authors... -each step along the way, they compromised the safety of the people using the product. -...from an insider's account of facebook's privacy scandals to the most documented undocumented immigrant. -i thought i wanted to exist. i didn't want to just be invisible. -most people you know... -plus, a journalist exposes what he says are the hiddenotivations of wealthy philanthropists out to change the world... -those very same people are monopolizing progress in america. -...while the man behind "the onion" uses satire to poke fun at tech billionaires. hello. i'm thuy vu. welcome to a special edition of "kqed newsroom" featuring authoredwhose writings have spaebate, discussion, and, at times, controversy. one local company that's no stranger to controversy is facebook.

more than 2 billion people around the world log on to facebook to do everything from sharing vacation photos to scrolling through news feeds and streaming live events, but its explosive growth has come at a price -- teta breaches affecting of millions of users, and misinformation campaigns to influence national elections have prompted hearings on capitol hill and a public backlash against the tech giant .d its ceo, mark zuckerbe now a book by an early facebook investor suggests regulation may be the only way to preserve privacy and protect the personal data thkey to the company's growth and profits. joining me now is the author of "zucked," venture capitalist roger mcnamee. nice to have you here. -thuy, it's a pleasure. and also, later, an investor, and you write about how in 2006, you advised him not to sell the company fo$1 billion because you thought the company could achieve its mission much better by staying independent. what did you feel facebook was back then? -i thought mark had found the holy grail

for creating a large netwk of people who want to interact with each other. he was the first sial network to come along that required authenticated identity. ace and friendster and the predecessors hadn't done that and had quickly been overrun by trolls, but with autated identity, i was convinced mark would build a company -you thought it could be a force for good. h, totally a force for good. -and what about now? what do you think of facebook now? -well, what basically happened was they discovered it was possible to build t network that connect whole world, and i think that was mark's goal at the beginning, as well, but along the way, they discovered that if they got rid of authenticated identity as a requirement, if they relaxed all the privacy settings that they had in the early days, they would grow a lot faster, they compromised the safety of the people using the product in order to get the bigger and bigger growth and more and more profit, and in the end, the real miracle

is that they got to 2 billion people on the network before we started to see the problems. i mean, it's a real tribute to how smart and clever they were. -but with the problems they're facing now, right, with data privacy, how they handle user data, the example of facebook, as the technology has evolved, it doesn't seem that mark zuckerberg seems willing to let go of the assumption that everyone will use and view facebookhe way he does. -yeah. -so is it possible for him to solve the probl if he g along with the way the product s changed? -thuy, this is exactly the issue, and it'sot just mark. it's not just facebook. the thing i discovered -- i began -- because i was so close facebook and i saw the issues first there, i thought originally it was just an issue being done to facook. what it really is is something that affects all internet platforms that are based on ising and attention, so google and instagram and youtube and twitter and snapchat are all affected, but the challenge here is thng success is a reinforhing,

nkand after a while, you tyou ks and other people don't. in my opinion, are forgivable. what i'm having trouble with is the resistance to change in the face of incontrovertible evidence. there are issues with democracy. there are issues with privacy. and there are issues with competition and innovation. and pretending otherwi f is harmful not just ebook and to google and instagram and the rest, it's harmful to society and it's harmful to everybody. -so if these companies continue to be resistant, as you say, what is the solution here? and if so, what should that regulation look like? -one of the ques oons we need to ask rig the top is, there are business practices that take place in our society that we have accepted without thought -- one is that companies that collect our da are allowed to sell it to anybody they want or trade it to others as facebook uld do. for example, why is it reasonable for people to collect our credit-card transaction data and sell it to somebody else?

i think we need to have a debate on that. same thing for geolocation data from cellphones. why is that legiti why should it ever be legitimate to gather data on minors, people under 18? this is a debate we need to have. for an alternative visioto . these guys, they're behaving like monopolists, and they're blockingl com. -so you support regulation? -i do. and what i really want to see, though, thuy, is i w see regulations that are not as complex as the european global data protectioregulation, but rather going after the specific problem such as the g and sharing of data that is so private that it shouldn't happen. right now, all of these guys hide behind this notion of consent, but it's like "me too" consent. it's people in power against people without power, so it's not what i would characterize as a fair trade. -well, you were an invtor early on, as i mentioned earlier, and you've made millions

as an investor ifacebook. how much responsibility do you bear some of what has happened, and what should have been your role in demanding more social responsibility inside the company -so, thuy, that is a completely legitimate question. i cont fue to own my shares ebook stock. i've sold some along the way, but i still own it. i was involved there from 2006 to 2009. the business model that created the problems didn't actually ftgin until many years i left, and i'm really angry at myself that it took me all the 2016 to see the problems, and so it is from that self-criticism that i have taken up this mantle. i'm no longer an investor. i'm a full-time activist trying to essentially take my ography, my experience, and the platform i have to try to aise awareness and help direct us to a good solution. -and tobs is an industry-wide m... -absolutely. -...as you've pointed out, but really, a lot of people -- a lot of the criticism has been leveled at mark zuckerberg because of the sheer power and reach of facebook, right?

but what about the role of sheryl sandberg? in her hiring at facebook. she had been offered a at the washington post. you said, "no, no,o, no. why don't you consider facebook instead?" she took the facebook position, and you say that, really, when it comes to the company's operations, mark leaves the business side to her. how much responsibility does she bear for what has happened? -well, to be clear, they're e leaders of the company so they bear a lot of responsibility, but the thg i want to make cle is that the managements of all of these companies n with an idealistic vision, right? in google's case, to collect all the world's information. in theof facebook, to connect everybody. and that was not the problem. the issue was the business model creates all kinds of side effects that currently these companies don't pay the cost for, so it's a little bit like a digital chemical spill, right? and right now, they're getting away without paying that cost, which the to. i don't think changing management,

whether you get rid of mark and sheryl at facebook, whether you get rid of larry and sergey at google, i do not think that's the answer. i think the answer is you have to change the business model and it would be better if the existi because they're the ones with the moral authority to make those changes. t-all right. a pleasutalk to you. roger mcnamee, author of "zucked." thanks for being here. y pleasure. -we turn our attenon now to a personal take on immigration. in 2011, jose antonio vargas, whose journalism career included a stint at thewashington post, revealed in a new york times magazine essay that he was living in the us illegally. since then, he has become perhaps the nation's most well-known undocut he's done two documentaries and appeared in numerous interviews to advocate for immigrants. and vargas has written a memoir, "dear america: notes of an undocumented citizen." an antonio vargas joins me now to talk about his new book. welcome. ha-thank you so much fong me. -it's been seven years since you announced that you were undocumented

in a new york times magazine essay, you've appeared in numerous interviews. why did you decide to write a memoir now? -i aually didn't. originally, i wanted to write a book about global gration. according to the un, there's 258 million migrants in the world, and i wanted to understand, what is the human right of people to move? and then the election of donald trump happened, and i was living in downtown la, and the building manager -- i was living there for like two years at that point -- texted me a few days after the election and said, "we'rectot sure we could proou if ice showed up in the apartment. you may want to move out." so then that's when i had to kind of face the reality that i've been here 25 years. i dn get detained and depor a- -that must have been a tough message to absorb. -and then i -- yes, it was, but it kind of forced me to do sometho,g that i never want to which i think people don't want to do, which is, like, mental health, right?

like, how do you a?ually feel what this i've been so busy runng away from it, i think, and juggling so many things... -and hiding. o -...so i don't haveal with it. so that's -- you know, the book, as you know, is structured lying, passing, and hiding, right? and so the book is really about what the psychological toll is of being in this country as an "illegal alien" according to president trump. -and for those who don't know your story, your mom put you on a ple from the philippines heading to the us to live with your grandparents when you were 12. yododidn't know you were mented until you were 16 and tried to get a driver's license. your book, you write just really candidly and sometimes heartbreakingly about your deep alienation from your grandparents, and you write, "the america they dreamed for me was not the america i was creating for myself." -i hreally try to understand why they did what they did, and when i was a kid, when i was 16, i didn't understand any of it. they had all the fake papers. my grandfather --

i grew up in mountain view, as younow, and so my grandfather thought, i come here, i work at the flea market on berryessa road as a janitor, and that i would marry a woman who's a us citizen and, poo right? but their thinking was i would work an under-the-table job. i would live kind of this under-the-table life. -and you did not want that life. -i did not want that. i didn't w because i thought i wanted to exist. i didn't want to just be invisible, right? and i thinme that was, like, the number-one thing. the moment i found out i was here illegal, i didn't want to surrender to what that was. -and so you exisfor a long . you won awards along the way, but there are some undocumented immigrants who are resentful of the america that you have created for yourself. you write about activists. you write about it in your book, about activists who want to know, "where were you, jose, when we were on the frontlines all the years fighting for immigrant rights? where were you?" -i was too busy lying, passing, and hidg.

i was too busy trying to create the successful version of what i was supposedo be, because i think since i found out i was here illegally when iedas 16, i had internal that i was supposed to earn something, right? and i wa honest in the book about that. you know, even when an activist said to me, you know, "you can't represent us. you're not even mexican." right? because this issue has been so married to latinos and specifically mexican. but, you know, look. like, i -- this book for me was a way of really exploring what all these issues are and where all the hurt is. -and you're very critical. you blame the media, too, for some of the hurt and some of the misperceptions. you're very critical about how mainstream media has covered immigr where do you think the media has failed? -i think i'm criof it because journalism is sacred to me, right? like, it was the first thing i ever thought of myself. ost. -i worked at the chronicle just a few blocks that way, right? and so journalism is very important to me. what we do is very important to me, and i think the fact

that we, in general -- --there are some exception have failed to really connect the dots between the 11 million undocumented immigrants like me thin this country and ho is connected to the 43 million immigrant population in america, so you can't separate the undocumented from the documented. this is actually not about immigration reform. it's about the changing america, right? -and with president trump in office and with more reporting on issues like the border wall and the family separation issue with central americarefugees, do you see some improvements in the coverage? -absolutely, and it's kind of embarrassing frankly that it took trump for most of our colleagues in the media to finally wake ri that this is a humats crisis. what trump has done and is doing is a culmination of all the policies that democrats and republicans have been a part of. this has been a bipartisan mess. it's not just trump. -and why do you thinyo they haven't deporte -i have no idea. i actually -- you know, when i first -- -you're not hard to find.

-i'm at starbucks usually, so they'll find me there. you know, after i came out seven years ago, a few months later, when i haven't heard anything from the government, i write that in the book. i called ice myself. i said, "hi. i'm jose antonio vars. i haven't heard from you." right? "what do you plan to do with me?" and the woman on the line was like, "no comment." -really? -she knew who i was, she said, but she was wondering, "why are you calling us?" l, i haven't heard from you." you know, as a journalist, i'm like, we have to follow up the sry. and so i come out. obama at the time was deporting 400,000 immigrants, and why wasn't i one of them? -how has your concept of being a citizen changed since you came out as an undocumented person? -so, i am not a citizen because i was not born in this country, the accident of birth, and i'm not a ci nzen because legally i . i would argue that there's a different kind of citizenship that undocumented immigrants subscribe to, and it's c.izenship of participati i actually think it's miraculous that undocveented immigrants get up day,

go to work, send their kids to school, and provide for their families tieven under this administ. i think that's -- -they need to pay taxes. -pay taxes. parts of their communities. i think that's miraculous, and i think that's a different kind of citizenship and, i would argue, a deeper kind of citizenship. -okay. jose antonio vargas. your new book is "dear america: notes of an undocumented citizen." thank you so much for being here. -thank you for having me. -now a not-so-benevolent view of philahropy. in an in-depth look, one journalist makes the argument that when today's corporate titans and political leaders try to change the world, they actually preserve the societal problems they say they want to solve. author anand giridharadas contends the rich and powerful are willing to fight for justice and equality but only if it doesn't threaten their positions at the top of the social order. his latest book is "winners take all: hathe elite charade ofing the world." and anand giridharadas joins us now in the studio. pleasure to have you. -great to be here. -well, in your book, you tackle the world of philanthropists

who want to do good and do well at the same time. ear all these buzzwords now, a world full of terms like "win-win," "make a diff,"ence," "thought leade yet you say that instead of making the world better, they're actually enabling inequality. how so? s an amazing thing that we do live in this age when billionaires are giving money away. his city right now, you know, 184 people signing the giving pledge, and every time you go to the mall, there's red iphone cases that are going to change the world and tote bags that are going to change the world, and yet this has been, for all of that elite generosity, an age of elite hoarding. this is the most unequal time in america in 100 years. last year, the top one percent's salaries grew four times faster than the bottom 90 percent. last year, 82 percent of all new wealth created went to the globp one perce, so the very same people who talk a lot about giving back, whytalk here in silicon valabon and starting companies that are going to save the world, those very same people are monopolizing progress in america.

-so on the one hand, they're arguing for fixes, but fixes within the current broken system as opposed to trying to fix the system totally. -when the winners of our age get interested and involved in social change, they change change. they're rarely content to just write a eck and support an organization that they think is doing good work. they shape it. they shape the narrative. they write books about their theories of change, and because of who they are, that becomes influential. so silicon valley disruption becomes change. higher taxes, mmm, that's not change. -because that doesn'tnefit th. -oh, it hurts them. you know, a charter school that they can get involved with, put their name on, mentor a few black kids and say -- they boast that they got them into stanford. that's the kind of change they le. equally funded public schools for all, which would mean that marin and palo alto actually don't get better schools than everybody else? that-is it a matter ofrested in. cognitive dissonance, then, or is there an actual moral lapse or evil intent?

-it's a mix. there are -- i rfan, i found this won e-mail from 2007 among the goldman sachs leadership that was unearthed through an investigation, coming at them that's about their role "hey, we got to try to pitch this reporter ons gives philanthropy," so they understood that a little bit of giving lubricates the engine of continued taking. but i think here in silicon s v. i think there's a lot of people, from mark zuckerberg to elon musk to others, o are earnest in their desire to make the world a better place and who have an almost messianic faith in their own power to make itetter and who therefore are totally blind to those situations in which what is good for them actually dfoerges from what is goothe world. facebook is one of the most idealistic companies in amehistory. it's also the first company in american history to perhaps compromise and tip a federal election, there's no accident, as far as i see it, that these sery companies that aidealistic and talk about making the world better have been so instrumental

in building a winner-take-all economy that works for very few people -- them. that you don't believe market-based philanthropy works. so what aryou arguing for? are you arguing for more government intervention, more government spending, and, as an extension, then, higher taxes? -yes, among other things, sod we should stop being shamed of those things. taxes is the price of civilization. i think rich people in this aycountry probably need to a lot more than they're paying to get into line ost of the other rich countries. apple has $285 billion offshore while we have 7,499 homeless pple here in the city of san francisco. if the city francisco were a country -- the five-county area around san francisco were a country -- it'd have the ninth-highest population of billionaires among countries, and yet it's hard to walk down the street ho without encounteringless . there is something that has gone badly wrong

wheninners of our age have built a winners-take-all economy, an economy that predictably, reliably punishes most americans and deprives them of the american dream, and then, having built that economy, reinvent themselves as the only people who can fix it, the people w disrupters, who are change agents who are going to make things better. -you're also v of well-meaning liberals. you think that they actually paved the road for the election of donald trump. can you explain that? r -they paved the road nald trump in two ways. one, a lot of rich liberals have pushed the idea that they can save us -- the billionaires, rich people who caused the very problems that we had can save us, and they pushed a lot of fake change that didn't actually change real problems in america. social mobility was declining. people were angry about trade, angry about globalization. and by not fixing a lot of our problems, they created sfor donald tr. but secondly, they gave donald trump a lot of his playbook. the "i alone can fix it"busn is especially capable of fixing it. that came from these philanthro-capitalists.

the idea that the people who broke things are the best able to solve them, at alone, that came from donald trump. and finally, the idea that the people who -- that people can fight for the least among us, while enriching himself -- win-win. thth idea did not start rump. that idea started with billionaires who have been promising phonily to save us for years. -all right. anand giridharadas. thank you so much for joining us. your new book is "winners take all: the elite charade of changing the world." pleasure to ha you. -thank you so much for having me. -turning now to something lighter, scott dikkers is the founder and longest-serving editor-in-chief of the popular online satirical utlet the onion. it's never shied away from taking jabs at public figures. now dikkers is aiming his sarcastic wit at elon musk in his book, "welcome to the ture which is mine." and often flamboyant ceo of the companies tesla and spacex. and right now, the onion's scott dikkers joins me in oue studio. nice to ha here.

-it's great to be here, thuy.. -well, you know, there are lots of tech giants you could have chosen to skewer in yr book. why did you choose elon musk? -he's the funniest. he's the weirdest. and he's the one that has the most kind of public image. yo, a lot of these guys hide in their billion-dollar lairs or whatever, wherever they live. -but musk loves to tweet. -he's kind of -- yeah, he's out there. he's tweeting. he's doing stuff. so i figure, you know, if you're in the public sphere, you're going to get mocked a little bit. -well, in your book, you include a number of what you call inspirational quotes from elon musk, and one of them is, "the key to success is to ask yourself, 'what's the most ludicrous, most anine, most futile thing i could possibly do,' then make it happen." you don't like any of his ideas? -oh, no. i think his are kind of cool. like, i think on some level you have to admire someone that you satiriz but you also have to find them pretty ridiculous, because if it's too mean-spirited, then it's not funny or interesting, you know, so... -and you also poke fun at mark zuckerberg, as well.

he's not spared. your book includes a so-called foreword from him where he says, "if you partake in this book, you must urfirst, give me all of person" it's kind of a funny line until you think about, you know, the data breach they just had recently affecting 50 millionsers. -yeah. you know, there's so many times you'll write something, and you'll think it'r absurd and ridiculousatever, and then something in real life will happen. it's like, "oh, i guess it wasn't that absurd after all." -we live in politically turbulent times right now. does that make sate easier, since you seem to have no shortage of targets nowadays? -satire is easy al because there's always terrible people. there's always awful things going on in the world, and the point of satire is to point those things out with humor. underneath, humans are always going to be pretty ao each other, so there's going to be plenty to satirize. and, you know, what's worse is when things are so absurd that the satire you write just comes true all the time. you think you're writing something crazy and absurd,

and then it coue in real life, so i don't know. it's kind of the gold standard for me when thatappens. -you've also written that, "good satire alicts the comfortabl and comforts the afflicted." can you expand on that? how do you decide who or what to target? -yeah, so, if you go after an oppressed group or somebody who's down and out, like, it's just not funny. nobody wants to see but if you go after authority figures or billionaires whatever, everybody wanto see , so, yeah, it's pretty simple. and a lot of times, stuff i've done, especially stuff for the onion, has been perceived as very edgy and maybe inappropriate or whatever, and that's when, you know, you're making fun of the wrong target or whatever, but the subtext is always going after e right target hopefully, like, if you do it right. -what's the difference between humor and satire? -humor is just funny, like, "try noto laugh" videos, you know, aunt myrtle slipping and falling in the backyard.

everybody loves that. or, liu know, a funny piece by dave barry about how, you know, "i can't believe i'm 50," or, "i hate taking out the trash. don't you hate taking out the trash?" that's humor. but satire is when you find something wrong with humanity or with the world, like you said, some kind of injustice, and you point it out through humor, so there's, like, a secret nugget. nobody wants to be preached to. nobody wants to bethold what's wrong wit, but they all want jokes, so the jokes are like the honey the spoon, and the satire, you know, the subtext is lik the crumpled-up medici that they're getting with the honey. -and is your goal to create something that's more enriching, more lasting, maybe evn the injustice is so horrible, something that maybetenti? -yeah, because that's the other thing about humor is that it's a reallrrated coping mechanism in times of tragedy. itre a thing that kind of nds us that we're human. because when there's a tragedy, we kind of revert to lizard brain or whatever,

so, yeah, i think it's super valuable. -so, one of the things that elon musk wants to do is send people to mars. is that something you would -- -the moon is for chumps. let's make that clear. we're going to ms. mars is cooler. all right? -i was going to ask, would you ever want to go? i think i know the answer. -absolutely not. no. earth isy nice. we have trees and water. for now. -all right. scott dikkers. founder of the satirical news outlet the onion. and also your new book called "welcome to the future," poking fun at elon musk. thanks so much for being here. -ywelcome. great to be here. -that will do it for us, but before we go, we'd like to share with you some news. kqed is renovating our canrent building in san sco, so for the next two years, we taping our program out of a new studio, but we will still bring you the same in-depth discussions and analysis of important issues, and you will still be able to find all of our corage online at the same place -- kqed.org/newsroom.

i'm thuy vu. thank you for joining us. and we look fo to seeing you next week from our new studio. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

robert: partisan warfare. i'm robert costa, welcome to "washington week." anough and tumble week i politics as the president andof speaker the house clash. esident trump: crazy nancy. i tell you what. i have been watching her for a long period of time. she's not the same per she's lost it. >> i pray for the president of the united states. i wish his family or administration or staff would a have intervention for the good f the country. robert: as mr. trump heads to tokyo where issuesn trade and north korea hover. next. announcer: this is "washington week." funding is provided by --