Steven Boykey Sidley
Steven Boykey Sidley is a professor of practice at University of Johannesburg, columnist-at-large for Daily Maverick and a partner at Bridge Capital. His new book "It's Mine: How the Crypto Industry is Redefining Ownership" is published by Maverick451 in SA and Legend Times Group in UK/EU, available now. His columns can be found at https://substack.com/@stevenboykeysidley
Articles By This Author
Why does everyone hate billionaires?
It’s easy to hate billionaires. Although “hate” may be a bit strong, let’s rather say that most people are less than well disposed towards them. The narrative goes like this – to accumulate that much money is a mark of greed, or moral turpitude, or worse. It seems to violate some unwritten law of civil society. And there are indeed a great many odious representatives of the mega-rich class, and many who became billionaires by accident – they inherited it.
What happens to left-wing politics when AI decimates the working class?
Every political party of the left, everywhere, has the same word around which much of its messaging emerges. Workers. The British Labour Party is named for them. The Democratic Party invokes “working families” with regularity. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), enjoying their moment in the American sun, promise to fight for the working class against the billionaire class. It is the left’s founding iconography – the calloused hand, the picket line, the lunch pail. The worker.
The inevitable left-wing tilt of the Democratic party
Some readers who follow US elections might remember a backroom political strategist named James Carville, who is credited with having almost singlehandedly rejuvenated the Democratic
The second coming of nuclear power
The clamour for new energy generation has become loud enough that it is beginning to drown out everything else in its wake.
The reckless stupidity of the Anthropic Fable affair
The Anthropic Fable saga is so entangled in the messy centre of tech and politics that it is a challenge to see a clear narrative on which to hang the story. But it is important because it is a version of what was once called the military-industrial complex. (Dwight Eisenhower coined the phrase in 1961, and it was meant as a warning.) AI has redefined the meaning of the phrase, and the Fable affair is its poster-boy.
The US War with Iran – it was supposed to be easier than this…
There is a particular kind of hubris that afflicts powerful states on the eve of a war they expect to win quickly. It is the conviction that the enemy will behave according to the planner’s model rather than its own military and defence strategies. The Trump administration carried that conviction into Iran on 28 February 2026, and it has spent every week since discovering, expensively, how wrong it was.
God and the machine – AI enters the Vatican
Encyclicals from the papacy have traditionally been events of great gravitas for the 1.4 billion Catholic faithful. Being neither Catholic nor religious, I have had only a passing rather than a personal interest in them.
The AI backlash in the West is growing and China is thrilled
At the University of Arizona commencement this month, Eric Schmidt, the much-admired ex-CEO of Google, began telling graduates that artificial intelligence would reshape classrooms, hospitals and professions. The boos came back immediately, loud and clear. He was not alone.
The weary traveller and the fading charm of Airbnb
We took a break recently, travelling abroad to see family. So today I am taking a break from my usual beat in tech, AI and geopolitics to relate a story from my trip, and what it means for travellers, including many who read this column.
The truculence of the titans – Musk and Altman slug it out in court
There is something especially thrilling about watching two of the world’s richest and most influential tech CEOs go at it.