Media Lab’s Storied History of Courting the Rich and Powerful
How a tight-knit group of elites shaped the Media Lab
This is a story about courting money from power. It’s about how the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab was founded and funded, by whom, and how. It’s a story about Nicholas Negroponte before it was about Joi Ito and Jeffrey Epstein. And most of all, it’s a story about gall.
Last week, at a town hall meeting that was intended to reorient the Media Lab in the wake of revelations about convicted sex offender Epstein’s donations and investments, Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the Media Lab, stood up to speak about “his privilege as a ‘rich white man’ and how he had used that privilege to break into the social circles of billionaires.” He reportedly doubled down on the recommendation that now former Media Lab director Joi Ito take Epstein’s money:
“If you wind back the clock… I would still say, ‘Take it.’” And he repeated, more emphatically, ‘Take it.’”*
This should come as no surprise. Pursuing the most monied and most powerful has been central to how the Media Lab was founded and how it operates.
If you want to understand how or why this could happen, you need to look at defense funding culture and the Media Lab’s prehistory with…
