Zuckerberg’s transition from geek to jock heralds the dawn of the alpha age
Zuckerberg’s masculine makeover is emblematic of how Silicon Valley – previously the bastion of Californian idealism – has fully pivoted towards the Trump era, says Eliza Filby
Back in early 2019, before the world had any inkling of what lay ahead, I attended a conference called: Disruption. It took place in a futuristic, windowless dome, and the event was opened by Bob Dylan. Well, a hologram of Bob Dylan at least, belting out his disruptive anthem, “The Times They Are A-Changin”. Throughout the conference, we were served up a future of driverless cars, AI singularity and 3D-printed gourmet meals.
Then, as we know, reality intervened. The pandemic plunged many of us into a very different, far less exciting reality at home in our sweatpants, relying on the delivery guy. Everyone scrambled to process what had just happened. Buzzwords like “the new normal” emerged. After the pandemic, as war in Europe, runaway inflation and social upheaval took hold, we were told to buckle up for the ‘perma-crisis’ age. Some pundits clung to clichés – “the only certainty is uncertainty” – while others flipped with fleeting Tiktok trends, from nannacore to the brat era. Viral vibes were where it was at. Everything felt chaotic, untethered.
Trump’s return to the White House, though, has cemented a certain trajectory many dismissed as a fluke in 2016. And with one major difference: Big Tech is on his side. It seems we are now in an era shaped not by coherent ideology, but by ruthless realism and one that will play out in geopolitics, in tech and, yes, at work. All this chimes with the values of Generation Z who, far from being idealistic ideologues, are emerging into the most transactional, money-driven, conservative generation in a while.
One of the clearest signs of any new era is not its heralds but its converts. That’s why Mark Zuckerberg’s three-hour podcast with Joe Rogan felt as significant as any stream of consciousness Trump has served up. It’s emblematic of how Silicon Valley – previously the bastion of Californian idealism – has fully pivoted towards pragmatism… and with a distinctly masculine edge. Welcome to the Alpha Age.
Zuckerberg leans in
Social media, born barely two decades ago, once promised to unite us. That dream first soured with Cambridge Analytica, forcing Zuckerberg into damage-limitation mode, sending out positive vibes to regulators and governments plus hiring nice Nick Clegg along with an army of fact-checkers. But Zuckerberg’s recent removal of both, and his new commitment to ‘verification by the community,’ isn’t a course correction, but a reflection, in his own words, of a “cultural tipping point”. Just as his former colleague Sheryl Sandberg instructed, Zuckerberg is now ‘leaning in’.
2024 was the podcast election because it enabled viewers to see candidates freshly unfiltered, devoid of soundbites and in an exposing long-form medium – and it’s a trend that is already infiltrating the business world (comms directors, hold on to your hats!). Zuckerberg’s comments about renewing masculinity in the workplace and the new course for Meta grabbed the headlines last week, but if anything, it was his banter with Joe Rogan about pig shooting with a bow and arrow, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competitions and admiration for men with muscular necks that told us so much more. Like Bezos, Zuckerberg’s transition from coder to meathead, from geek to jock, has been a long time coming.
2024 was the podcast election because it enabled viewers to see candidates freshly unfiltered, devoid of soundbites and in an exposing long-form medium – and it’s a trend that is already infiltrating the business world
Perhaps we might take some comfort that this masculine right-ward shift has historical echoes. In the 1970s, idealistic ’60s counterculture gave way to a hard-nosed realism fuelled by economic anxieties, geopolitical pragmatism and anti-feminist backlash. Cultural conservatism came in the form of new icons, from bodybuilding Arnold Schwarzenegger to Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry, alongside the nihilistic Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. They had their trad wives back then too; in Mary Whitehouse, Phyllis Schlafly and yes, eventually Margaret Thatcher (in presentation at least) who, like today’s emerging icons, were an alluring mash-up of traditional female ideals with modern-day capitalistic opportunism.
The Alpha Age is coming to your workplace
But in the 2020s, our workplaces are potentially where this shift plays out most divisively. Could we see a growing chasm between “feminized” and “masculine” work cultures? Or even across entire sectors? WFH policies, childcare provision and DEI programmes on the one hand, and return-to-office mandates, AI displacement strategies and pro-natal policies on the other. In this climate, declining birth rates will be increasingly weaponised as a dereliction of female duty and misguided feminist independence. And before we assume that resistance will come from the young, Generation Z are already more likely than Baby Boomers to say that feminism has gone too far.
But as always, economics tells the truest story. Over the past 15 years, as the career ladder has collapsed and the lower rungs have disappeared, technology has pushed many into the role of solopreneurs, selling their skills and labour directly with little stability. The new age of alpha male realism has a false narrative at its heart. Young people celebrate self-made wealth, lionise crypto, hustle culture and masculine-centric entrepreneurship. But this obscures the harsher reality: an economy increasingly dominated by wealth inequality, global competition, AI displacement and structural barriers. The problem with the new message of merit-only based opportunity is that the truth is increasingly bleak: we are in an economy that rewards those at the top while tightening entry requirements at the bottom.
Some may welcome this shift, believing the age of idealism went too far and that a dose of reality is overdue. But let’s not pretend that all is real in the age of realism. Beneath the surface lies a contrived mythology – a narrative that romanticises individual dominance, masks systemic inequalities and further erodes the fabric of society.
Eliza Filby’s book Inheritocracy: The Bank of Mum and Dad is out now