good links @tjg, I look forwards to reading the baffler article more carefully.
If I recall there was also a good treatment of this question in Zero to One ~ Thiel
^ same general topic, and I think a very good treatment of part of the "problem".
@arrdem: Thanks, that prodded me to finally read chapters of Thiel’s book. (And I sometimes binge on Neil deGrasse Tyson.)
Thiel and the Baffler article’s author actually had a fun discussion on this, with a lot of agreement (and some interesting disagreement): http://thebaffler.com/videos/graeber-thiel