Stanford Grads Say Big Tech Is Creating a 'Modern-Day Draft’

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Stanford Grads Say Big Tech Is Creating a 'Modern-Day Draft’"

Uncanny Valley | WIRED | July 21, 2026
Host: Katie Drummond
Guests: Eva Jones & Amanda Campos (Stanford Walkout Organizers, Class of 2026)

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Overview

This episode of Uncanny Valley explores the generational and ethical clash between newly graduated students at Stanford University and the entrenched influence of Big Tech companies, particularly Google. Host Katie Drummond sits down with two walkout organizers, Eva Jones and Amanda Campos, to discuss the motivations behind the high-profile graduation protest against Google's CEO Sundar Pichai, broader student discontent with Silicon Valley's grip on education, and the emerging movement to resist pipelines funneling elite students into defense and AI industries. The conversation exposes complex tensions around power, activism, ethics, and the future of youth agency in shaping technology and society.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Protest Big Tech at Graduation?

Timestamps: 02:44–12:49

• The Walkout’s Spark: Hundreds of Stanford students walked out and booed Google CEO Sundar Pichai during commencement, protesting Google’s U.S. government contracts, particularly with ICE and the Israeli military through Project Nimbus.

  • Amanda Campos: "We knew that Google was one of the companies really providing the technological backbone for what the UN Commission has found to be a genocide, for the continued surveillance and apartheid that Israel imposes on the Palestinian people." (12:52)

• Not Just an 'AI' Protest: The objection was broader than AI; it was a repudiation of Silicon Valley’s willful complicity in systems they see as violent and exploitative.

2. Personal Journeys into Activism

Timestamps: 04:05–09:20

• Backgrounds & Motivations:

  • Amanda Campos: Came to Stanford from Brazil to study environmental policy; expected to innovate solutions, but was shocked by the prevalence of fossil fuel funding and corporate ties.
  • Eva Jones: From rural Oregon, pursued hydrology, water resources, and feminist philosophy; envisioned Stanford as a "place to pool together minds and resources to tackle existential threats."

• Path to Organizing:

  • Eva: Arrived as a “student organizer,” quickly opposed the administration during anti-sexual violence and pro-Palestine actions.
  • Amanda: Became an organizer after recognizing "it was needed" due to the institutional environment.

3. Stanford as a ‘Pipeline’ to Big Tech

Timestamps: 09:20–12:49, 24:40–29:07

• Theo Baker’s ‘How to Rule the World’: Describes Stanford as a “funnel into tech jobs and Silicon Valley.” Guests dismiss the focus on elite clubbiness, pointing to the darker reality:

  • Eva Jones: “Defense-propelled career pipelines at these universities…fuel really violent technologies and systems of control.” (09:45)

• Modern-Day Draft:

  • Eva Jones: "It's a modern day draft. When the technology that our students are being asked to create... are fueling these massive exploits of military violence, that is a modern draft of our minds, of our intellectual labor, of our intellectual time and capital." (27:32)

4. The Power and Limits of Student Action

Timestamps: 12:49–18:30

• The People's Commencement: Walkout participants held an alternative graduation ceremony celebrating resistance and community.

  • Eva Jones: “The People's Commencement was a place where we, as students of conviction…got to celebrate the education that we forged at times in opposition to the university and its corporate sponsors.” (14:10)

• Family Reactions:

  • Both students described initial parental hesitation shifting to pride after witnessing the alternative ceremony.

5. Strategic Organizing & Media Attention

Timestamps: 18:30–21:12

• Media Virality:
  • The walkout attracted widespread press organically; the organizers focused on "doing the right thing and spreading the message." (18:48)
  • Eva Jones: "What was really important to us was to show the depth of the student movement here… this is a movement of consciousness and solidarity that is worldwide." (19:35–20:03)

6. Student Body Response & Institutional Culture

Timestamps: 22:30–29:07

• Not Universal Agreement:

  • Some students resented the timing of the protest; others supported it but were wary of organizational repercussions.
  • Students voiced that the administration, not students, selected Pichai as commencement speaker, which deepened resentment.

• Exploitative Career ‘Funneling’:

  • Both guests highlighted how Stanford’s system effectively lures students into ethically fraught industries through career fairs and normalized narratives of success.

7. Clear Demands on Stanford and Google

Timestamps: 29:07–36:53

• For Stanford:

  • Divest from companies involved in violence.
  • Foster “places for learning for the sake of justice.”
  • Strengthen spaces like environmental justice centers and community centers for marginalized groups.

• For Google & Big Tech:

  • End contracts with ICE and CBP.
  • Drop Project Nimbus and other collaboration with Israeli military.
  • Amanda Campos: "Drop Project Nimbus and terminate the contracts with ICE and the CBP, very clear, explicit calls to begin with." (32:47)

• On Google’s Slogan:

  • Eva Jones: "I would ask Google to make good on its slogan since its founding that was dropped in 2018, which is don't be evil Google. Whether it's your contracts with defense and weapons manufacturers… don't be evil." (36:12)

8. What’s Next: Life & Advice After Graduation

Timestamps: 37:45–40:43

• Current Work:

  • Amanda Campos: Environmental justice advocacy in Richmond, CA.
  • Eva Jones: Working in water quality monitoring and communications for a water justice organization in East Palo Alto.

• Advice to Incoming Students:

  • Eva Jones: "Find people of conviction… find your own path. It may not be the easiest path, but if it is your own, I promise you it will be worth it." (39:06)
  • Amanda Campos: "I highly encourage you to organize, to actually fight for the Stanford that you want to have and that you deserve." (39:43)

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Memorable Quotes

• “AI is quite literally not only causing job losses, it's quite literally killing people.” — Amanda Campos (12:35)
• "We understand that these corporations…are extracting minerals from across the world and exploiting workers…this is, you know, the ethical future of humanity." — Eva Jones (20:03)
• “It’s a modern day draft…of our minds, of our intellectual labor…to fuel these massive exploits of military violence.” — Eva Jones (27:32)
• “I would like to see a university as a place for learning for the sake of justice. And it's crazy that that is a bold thing to say.” — Amanda Campos (30:18)
• "Don't be evil, Google. Your employees don't want to be a part of that." — Eva Jones (36:12)
• “Organize. It definitely saved me in my Stanford experiences…do not let yourself get lost in that.” — Amanda Campos (39:43)

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Notable Moments & Timestamps

• [04:05] Amanda describes expecting Stanford to be a place of change, realizing the role of fossil fuel money
• [12:49] Walkout was about more than AI: direct action against Google’s contracts with the US and Israel
• [14:10] Creation and description of “The People’s Commencement”
• [18:48] Media coverage of the walkout surprised organizers
• [24:40–26:36] Discussion of student body’s divided response and the systemic funnel toward big tech careers
• [27:32] Eva coins the concept of the 'modern-day draft'
• [29:51–32:04] Amanda recalls the university president's comment: "the mission of the university is not social justice"
• [32:47] Concrete demands for Stanford and Google
• [36:12] Call for Google to return to “don’t be evil”
• [39:06–39:43] Advice for new students: organize, find your own path

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Conclusion

The episode exposes profound frustration among elite university graduates over the normalization of ethically compromised careers in tech and defense, and vividly illustrates a new generation’s commitment to collective resistance. Both Jones and Campos advocate for re-envisioning higher education as a force for social justice, and for rejecting the “modern-day draft” of intellectual labor into the machinery of exploitation and surveillance. Their message to current and incoming students is clear: organize, resist, and find meaning beyond the career ladders Silicon Valley wants you to climb.

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Transcript

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[Katie Drummond]

From Wired, this is the big interview where we get to know the people beyond the headlines, conversations that explore the intersection of technology, power and culture. I'm Katie Drummond, Wired's Global Editorial Director,

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Trustees, Senior Class Presidents. Thank you for the invitation to address you today and to the distinguished class of 2026. Congratulations.

[Amanda Campos]

Oof.

[Katie Drummond]

That is the sound of Stanford University students walking out during their graduation ceremony last month and booing commencement speaker Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google. It was one of several commence ceremonies this spring where students took vocal and demonstrative stands against Big Tech, especially against the proliferation of AI. Students booed former Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the University of Arizona, Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta at Middle Tennessee State University, and other speakers who championed the perceived benefits or inevitability of artificial intelligence. Organizers at Stanford say that hundreds of students walked out during graduation in June in protest of Google's contracts with the US Government and including agencies like ICE and the Israeli military. I wanted to understand their concerns and I wanted to hear more about how some young people feel about Big Tech in this era. I'm joined now by two Stanford walkout organizers and recent graduates, Eva Jones and Amanda Campos. Welcome, both of you.

[Amanda Campos]

Thank you so much. Katie, thank you for having us.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, I'm delighted that you're here. Thank you for making the trip. First of all, congratulations on graduating. That's a big deal. I would love to start by just learning a little more about both of you and helping our listeners and our viewers get to know you a bit. And what did you study in school? What did you go to Stanford to do in the first place? And I guess too, why Stanford?

[Amanda Campos]

I can get us started. I'm Amanda. Thank you again for having us. And I studied environmental policy at Stanford and I am currently working in the environmental justice activism as well as advocacy space in California. And to start off on why Stanford and then think more broadly, I quite literally came to Stanford because I knew I wanted to take action, you know, to solve the environmental crisis at stake. I grew up in Brazil and since little it was, you know, the huge issue that I saw as being able to take action towards. But arriving at Stanford, the school sustainability, I quickly realized, just had so much fossil fuel money and bias. And I quickly became an organizer as a result. As a sophomore, when October 2023 came, I quite quickly realized how intertwined environmental justice movement as well as a movement for policing liberation are. It goes back to the corporate ties the Stanford has, and choosing a Google CEO is indicative of such a tie and of such a bias, really. So I was a lead organizer with Stanford SJP Students for Justice in Palestine. And as soon as we heard about the Google CEO Sundar Pichai being chosen as the commencement speaker, we knew we had to do something.

[Katie Drummond]

Eva, what about you? What did you go to Stanford to study?

[Eva Jones]

I'm a recent graduate having studied hydrology and water resources and my master's degree. But I also did my bachelor's programs there in feminist philosophy and in freshwater engineering. I came to Stanford five years ago now from a rural town in Oregon because I truly believed that a place like Stanford was looking to pool together minds and resources to tackle, you know, these existential threats to humanity, to build the kind of world that I always, you know, envisioned could be possible. One of connection, one of belonging. And much like Amanda, I was like, I was. I was quickly horrified by the things about Silicon Valley that are now quite surface level. And I was certainly naive, but, you know, I was 18 years old, had never lived anywhere like my town's, like 7,000 people, you know, I really believed that a place like Stanford would. Would pool together its resources for the greater good of humanity.

[Katie Drummond]

I want to hear more from both of you about your experience at Stanford. I'm curious, Amanda. You talked a little bit about how you got involved with student organizing to begin with, but I'd love to hear from both of you a little bit more about that, sort of. How did you go from student to student and campus activist and organizer?

[Eva Jones]

I came to Stanford as a student organizer. I was the generation of students who were part of the climate justice organizing, anti gun violence things. People who came into university ready to use their voice, thinking of that as like a way to build a future. You know, I think many of us understood our voices for a better world to be our pathway towards a better world like that. We could be an agent in that. And so as soon as I got to Stanford, I got involved in antisexual violence organizing, which quickly put me in opposition with the administration. And by 2023, when the student encamp in solitary with Palestine began, that was something that we saw so many more students get involved in and really come together to build something more than just opposition. It was a really beautiful moment where we got to define why we came to university for ourselves, why we came seeking an education, and what we wanted to make of that.

[Amanda Campos]

Yeah, absolutely. I'll say that differently from Eva. I definitely did not come to Stanford as a student organizer, but I very quickly became one because quite literally, it was needed. And as student conscious, I felt that I had to get involved in these movements. So, yes, I got involved in the environmental justice movement, but more broadly, I did come also a bit naive in terms of thinking about Stanford as this place where I can innovate on environmental solutions, where I can help people. And I saw the power of education, the power of a central degree as a way to do that. But I think my view of power has definitely changed, especially through organizing. I viewed power as something to gain, and now I view it as something to build, as something that we all have through our forces. And getting involved in SJP organizing for me has been extremely, extremely liberating. And even though it's really hard to understand, like Eva was talking about, really what Silicon Valley was built for, I have a lot of hope in the student movement.

[Katie Drummond]

Theo Baker has a new book out. I don't know if either of you have read it, how to Rule the World. Describe Stanford as basically what you are both saying, a funnel into tech jobs and Silicon Valley, a place with a lot of clubbiness, tech elitism, VCs scouting for talent, and plenty of ethical lapses on the part of students and the part of faculty and administration as well. Do you have any reactions to that book?

[Eva Jones]

I have concerns about someone looking to define their career by participating in the rabid consumption of, you know, the American cultural fascination with what's going on at elite universities. Because I think it really distracts from the actual issue going on, which are in many ways defense propelled career pipelines at these universities and at Silicon Valley, at these companies that run deep and fuel really violent technologies and systems of control. And so I would invite anybody who is tickled or interested in Theo Baker's book to take it a step further and become a part of a movement to counter this obsession with elitism, with tech optimism, and become a part of that solution of what that means, which is participating in anti war, in anti data center advocacy, in the student movement that's demanding a better future for ourselves, for the laborers across the world, whether it's tagging AI data, whether they're minors being exploited in Congo or the Atacama. This is a global movement against the extraction and disposability of our earth and our people. And yeah, so I would ask everyone to look beyond the fascination with the confines of what is basically a country Club for 20 year olds seeking fame to become a part of that global mission.

[Katie Drummond]

So it sounds like you're saying, you know, it's one thing to write essentially like a titillating book, which I have not finished the whole book, I imagine it would fall under that category as opposed to the, you know, rolling up your sleeves and getting, getting your hands dirty in the actual work.

[Eva Jones]

Yeah, I have and I will invite Theo Baker to participate in that. And I think that If. If people want to be a part of opposing, you know, these kabbalistic, like, elite circles that seem to control anywhere from, like, our politics to our. To our educations here, that they should get involved, they should get organized instead of just being dispersal witnesses to what's going on.

[Katie Drummond]

Which brings me to the walkout. So, as I mentioned at the top of our conversation, you know, this graduation season, we have seen speakers who laud AI or really say much of anything about AI at all get booed at commencement ceremonies across the country. Then we get to Stanford. Right? And this walkout was not just about AI. You actually issued a press release about the walkout, and I have to give you credit, very impressive. I want to talk more about your marketing tactics in a minute, but that press release names several issues. So there are Google's contracts with the U.S. government, you mentioned ICE specifically, and then the technological aid provided to Israel, specifically, Google's Project Nimbus. Tell us more about what you were protesting on that day and why.

[Amanda Campos]

Absolutely. So as soon as we heard that Stanford chose the Google CEOs in that Pichai to be our commencement speaker, we knew we had to speak out. Because for years, through Tech for Liberation organizing, Palestinian liberation organizing, we knew that Google was one of the companies really providing the technological backbone for what the UN Commission has found to be a genocide, for the continued surveillance and apartheid that Israel imposes on the Palestinian people. And we also knew that Google also provides a key technological backbone of ISIS surveillance, targeting, and quite literally killing operations. So, yes, absolutely, when it comes to AI, it is causing a lot of job losses for the working class. And we as recent grads, have concerns about that. However, AI is quite literally not only causing job losses, it's quite literally killing people. And that is something that we knew we just had to call out and we had the opportunity as well as the duty to really at least try to hold a CEO of a $4 trillion company accountable. And a couple of hundred students were able to do just that. At least a step towards.

[Eva Jones]

The walkout was much more than that. The walkout was not just a walkout. It was the walkout to the People's Commencement. The People's Commencement was a place where we, as students of conviction, with our parents, with our mentors, with our friends, got to celebrate the education that we forged at times in opposition to the university and its corporate sponsors. Many of us, including myself and Amanda, were not excited to go celebrate an education that we fundamentally believe to be in service of the liberated world that we want to see at some corporate buyout advertisement for the likes of Google or whoever Stanford had decided that was going to be.

[Katie Drummond]

That's right. You held a separate event that happened at the same time as his speech and the commencement ceremony.

[Eva Jones]

Yes. And so from their graduates and their families and friends, people that we had worked with all across the university came together and gathered in what is just was a beautiful ceremony to celebrate the conviction of which we want to use our educations and celebrate what it means to have. Have gone up against the dominant narrative and career pipelines at a university like Stanford. You know, that was the community that educated me, that held me through my education. And I can't imagine a better way to have celebrated my graduation when I'm sure you want to go to the next question. But when I told my parents I was going to walk out, my next

[Katie Drummond]

question was, I was just thinking about, I dropped out of a master's degree a few credits shy. Nothing like what you're talking about. But my dad was so mad at me. And it was. And it made me wonder, as you were talking, what did your parents think?

[Eva Jones]

When my parents, when I told them I was walking out, at first they were a little bit like, they were not super happy about it because I graduated high school in 2020, I didn't get a high school graduation. And so they were like, like, what about one ceremony? Like, we want to celebrate you. You know, we know you've worked hard for this. My parents are very supportive of the work I do, but even them as people who, you know, they, you know, they're like, I want to see your speech at the protest. They're very supportive. But they, you know, they were like, you know, you've worked hard. You didn't even get a high school graduation. What do you think? But after attending the people's commencement, they were really blown away and they, they actually gave me emotional. But they thanked me and they were like, thank you for bringing us into this community that we've created or that you've created. And we understand why this means so much to you because this is, what, more meaningful than anything that could have been, you know, told to us in some hot stadium by some CEO or whatever. You know, this is. Clearly, this means something to you. This, this means something to the world.

[Amanda Campos]

So.

[Eva Jones]

Yeah, I'm very lucky in that way.

[Katie Drummond]

You are.

[Amanda Campos]

You have.

[Eva Jones]

You sound like you have good parents. I do, I do. I love them. They'll be watching.

[Amanda Campos]

I bet they will. How about you?

[Eva Jones]

Yeah.

[Amanda Campos]

So I have my dad and my sibling, and, you know, I have been an organizer for years. So I went to my dad and I said, hey, like, I'm gonna walk out and like, you will love the People's commencement. You will hear from Mahmoud Helio, you'll hear from Eva Jones, you hear from people organizers who have, you know, much better messages to tell than the Google CEO. But I think most memorable to me really was, you know, I have a younger sibling in high school. And for me, through my organizing, but really through my entire life, it's been really important to me to be a good role model, but also someone that they can look up to. So for me, it was just absolutely beautiful having them there. And as I was introducing speakers and such, being able to look at them and see that there is a different world that we are building for them, for my sibling, for all younger people, for all kids, one that we can actually, like, have a voice in and celebrate.

[Katie Drummond]

Did you expect the walkout to generate as much press and get as much attention as it did? I mean, I remember when it happened at Wired, we were sharing videos in Slack. We were. I mean, it was covered by the BBC, cnn.

[Amanda Campos]

Yeah, it was the same.

[Katie Drummond]

The videos went viral. Did you see that coming? Did you plan for that?

[Amanda Campos]

Honestly, we were just so focused on organizing, and we definitely wanted to have good media and such, but we definitely did not see, like, the widespread media attention coming. But I think, you know, at the end of the day, we're just focused on our goal of doing the right thing and spreading the message. And if that reverberated, great. But regardless of what happened, it was something that needed to be done.

[Eva Jones]

I was on flowers, food, and speaking.

[Amanda Campos]

So I. Yeah, I. I worked out, so I was.

[Eva Jones]

I was focused.

[Katie Drummond]

I mean, did anyone in. In your group think about how to maximize exposure? I mean, were you tactical, the press release or anything that you did with social media or the videos? I mean, were there, Were there tactics at play here?

[Eva Jones]

Yeah, I think that very often students, student organizers against tech and against military tech in particular, are shoehorned by media outlets to be sort of reactionary and focused on their own career opportunities. And so what was really important to us was to show the depth of the student movement here. And this is something that students across the globe.

[Amanda Campos]

No.

[Eva Jones]

And that's why students are booing AI speakers is because we understand that these corporations who are extracting minerals from across the world and exploiting workers who are setting up ravaging data centers in our hometowns, just like mine, who are trying to mechanize warfare and program ethics for some sort of omniscient and objective world. We understand the connections there. We understand that this is not just our job market. We understand that this is, you know, the ethical future of humanity. This is the environmental future that we are going to inherit. This is a movement of consciousness and solidarity that is worldwide. And so in our messaging, I think it's really important to make sure that we connect those and we're not shoehorned into some sort of narrow frame like that. We're just concerned about AI taking our jobs or something because it's, it's larger than that. And, you know, the students know that.

[Katie Drummond]

We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

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[Amanda Campos]

available wherever you get your podcasts. This week on the political scene from the New Yorker, Trump's election fraud obsession. He described interference in the election in alarming terms that involved almost everything but

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little green Martians, honestly. But there was absolutely no final bottom

[Amanda Campos]

line where he was able to prove

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that a single vote was stolen in the election.

[Katie Drummond]

Join me, Susan Glaser and my colleagues

[Amanda Campos]

Evan Osnos and Jane Mayer every Friday on the political scene, available wherever you get your podcast.

[Katie Drummond]

What's the backlash been like? I'm sure you've heard from people who were not on board with. With what you did or with your message, not students.

[Amanda Campos]

Yeah, I would say that among students, there's definitely popular opposition against inviting the Google CEO as the commencement speaker. It is not something that students chose. Students made a list of speakers they

[Katie Drummond]

wanted to students outside of the organizing that you were.

[Eva Jones]

Students are tasked with choosing the commencement speaker every year. It's like some sort of elected body at Stanford. I don't know.

[Amanda Campos]

Yeah, they made like a list of speakers, none of them Google CEO Syndrochai. But it ended up being chosen somehow by administration, presumably. And definitely there was opposition to having another tech billionaire, you know, coming here and then telling us how to also be successful and become a billionaire through quite literally exploiting workers and oppressing people. But Definitely popular position among student body. You know, there's this pervasive narrative of like, why would you walk out of your own commencement ceremony? You know, like it's not an appropriate time to do that. And I mean, we found it pretty insulting to have the Google CEO as a commencement speaker because, you know, the Google Cloud and the Google Gemini technologies that Google is providing to ICE and CBP through pretty expensive contracts. You know, that's impacting our communities too. Like I come from the immigrant family here, right? I immigrated from Brazil. Like these are my communities, these are our communities being impacted by this campaign of persecution. And the only thing separating me from someone who's parent was kidnapped is luck. The only thing separating me from a student in Gaza whose university has been bombed is luck. And we understand that as the Sunni movement. And we deserve a commencement ceremony where actually our values are celebrated and we, our pursuits are celebrated. And that's exactly what we organized.

[Katie Drummond]

You talked a bit at the top about the culture at Stanford and maybe what kinds of students in some cases are drawn to that institution. I'm sure many of the people sitting at that ceremony that day looked at Sundar and thought to themselves, I hope I get there one day, right? They aspire to that big tech pipeline. They want to be at Stanford to get a job at an institution like Google, like OpenAI. What was the reaction among your fellow students to the walkout? Is Stanford a polarizing place to do the kind of activism that you have

[Amanda Campos]

done to begin with? I would emphasize, you know, that I think many students come to Stanford just like us, wanting to build a better world, and are then met with this very cultivated career pipeline into harmful industries. And you know, when it comes to like the dominant narratives and just simply where the money is, where the money is for internships, where the money is for opportunities, and are then bought into, influenced by this very, very harmful funneling into big tech and the broader military web of companies and governments. So I would emphasize that, that I think it's also a highly systemic and institutional problem. But with that being said for the walkout, you know, it was very memorable that despite all the protest, repression at Sniffered, despite all the fears and hesitancies around it, like hundreds of students walked out and made a statement and many more supported it.

[Katie Drummond]

Given that so many students at Stanford likely aspire to those big tech jobs and are in that pipeline and that's where they are maybe content to be, want to be. Whether you encountered any resistance or blowback from the student community with regards to the Walkout?

[Eva Jones]

Yes. So I, as an organizer with Tech for Liberation, this is sort of our, this is our camp. We do a lot of organizing at career fairs. We, we started as a few people just flyering at career fairs, trying to educate people. Like, do you guys know what Raytheon does? You know, Boeing's trying to hire you. Do you, do you know what you'll actually be doing? Because I think that there's a lot of students who, like Amanda is saying, are enticed by these big tech jobs, but they don't really understand the world they're trying to build. They understand concept of a nice job with a nice title and a nice salary, but it's not necessarily like they're really passionate about building drones for the future of AI warfare or something. They're looking for success. And that is something that Tech for Liberation specifically has been focusing on doing, whether it's education, on the reality of what these companies build, alternative career fairs, of ways that you can use your education to not contribute to warfare, to detention, immigration detention and police violence, but to be a part of, you know, clean energy solutions, to be part of, you know, in my case, I do work in water justice and water management. But what I get way, way, way more when I'm flyering, when I'm, when I'm standing outside of the classroom that Palantir just spoken, you know, handing out flyers to people about what's really going on, what Palantir is trying to recruit you to do. I'm mostly getting. Thank you. And I, I really believe that the expropriation of warfare to these contracted companies, whether they're explicitly defense tech like someone like Palantir, or whether they shroud themselves in other services like Google. It's a modern day draft. When the technology that our students are being asked to create with their education, with their minds, are fueling these massive exploits of military violence that is a modern draft of our minds, of our intellectual labor, of our intellectual time and capital. I'm sorry.

[Katie Drummond]

You're okay.

[Eva Jones]

And so I guess I don't think most students want to be drafted into this dark, dark future that these companies want to cycle each other's profit into through these self fulfilling contracts and such.

[Katie Drummond]

What do you want to see Stanford?

[Eva Jones]

Do I want to see Stanford become the place of learning that I thought it would be. I want it to be a place of devotion to understanding, of learning, of really putting together the resources that it has to make the world a better place and really, really take on integrated challenges that would face us instead of securing a never ending bottom line for its corporate shareholders.

[Katie Drummond]

Yeah, I mean, what would that look like in practice? What would have to change for Stanford to be that place that you, that you want it to be?

[Eva Jones]

I don't so much. I mean that's like really a foundational issue.

[Amanda Campos]

To first answer the first question, I'll never forget how President Levin, president of Stanford one time, to paraphrase, said something along the lines of the mission of the university is not social justice. And I'll never forget that line. And also talking to the provost, Jenny Martinez, talking about the problems that student organizers have faced in terms of only being able to protest from 12 to 1 and ridiculous protest rules. And her choir literally asking if it's a problem that we're learning, like too much social justice activism in our classes. And I just remember being shocked at her asking us that. And I was like, what? But I would like to see a university as a place for learning for the sake of justice. And it's crazy that that is a bold thing to say. I guess it should be a place where our goal is, is to better the lives of people and that is justice. And to have administration quite literally go against that. And you know, we can departments and community centers where, you know, so many students of color, so many communities feel safe and are able to learn about social justice struggles, are able to learn about histories that Stanford mainstream classes don't necessarily teach. I would say that Stanford as an institution needs to first of all stop weakening those alternative spaces that students and allied faculty and staff try to cultivate despite all the threats. So first of all, strengthening things like the environmental justice center that they only now created, which is ridiculous because environmental justice movement has been around since the 80s. So protecting those spaces, strengthening those places and definitely ending corporate highs with so many of these big tech AI military companies are actively funneling us into this AI dystopia and are actively contributing to its creation.

[Eva Jones]

I mean, fundamentally it's answering the calls that students have been making for decades and decades. It's divestment from companies who are fueling violence abroad and at home. Because those, those investments, whether they are, you know, investments of the endowment or corporate gifts and such, do control our education. And they, they, you know, who, who is let dictates, whether it's the material or the career fairs, is going to shape what Stanford becomes.

[Katie Drummond]

We have Stanford. We talked about what you want to see from Stanford. Big tech, Google.

[Eva Jones]

Yes.

[Katie Drummond]

What do you want to see from them?

[Amanda Campos]

That simple. Drop Project Nimbus and terminate the contracts With ICE and the cbp, very clear, explicit calls to begin with. It has been done before in terms of Project Maven was a project that Google had with Palantir that after so many people, especially Google workers, stood up saying, I don't want Google to be working for the US Military for these drone strikes, the project was shocked. Even though Google still has some relationships with Palantir. It's interesting because most people think of Google as this search engine company. Maybe now we have the annoying Google Gemini popping up whenever I try to search up something.

[Katie Drummond]

It's the AI overviews company now.

[Amanda Campos]

Awesome. Okay.

[Katie Drummond]

The AI overviews company.

[Amanda Campos]

Thank you.

[Eva Jones]

No problem.

[Amanda Campos]

But what most people may not know, it's how since 2021 and even before, Google has been actively working for the Israeli government through project Nimbus. This $1.2 billion contract and this big tech war partnership is not new at all, especially in Silicon Valley, which was basically founded on big tech, on tech for more. And we as students of conscious and many, many people around the world call on Google to drop Project Nimbus and for accountability to ensue.

[Katie Drummond]

In the press release about the walkout, you mention ICE contracts. Specifically, can you talk a little bit more about how Google intersects with ice, which I'm sure is something that for anyone listening in the United States is always top of mind right now. Yes.

[Amanda Campos]

So to start off with, through the contracts, right, the pretty profitable contracts for Google, Google Gemini is used by CBP for operational efficiency, quote. And there are definitely many ties. There are smaller things like, for example, the Google Play Store doesn't allow certain, like ICE tracking apps to be sold. ICE Block, for example, has been one. And Google Cloud is also used as a platform by ICE and CBP to store the massive amounts of surveillance data. And Google has also shared personal data on people.

[Eva Jones]

Yeah, without the informatics tools, the data collection and, you know, aggregation tools that Google and other companies are creating, ICE would not be able to surveil organizers, immigrants, and create the lethal system of control that they have in our own communities.

[Amanda Campos]

And I mean, just recently, two people have been killed at the hands of ice. Lorenzo Soldado Araujo in Houston, Mesa Guerrero in Maine. And you know, without companies like Google providing the, again, technological backbone for this, like, this entire campaign of persecution wouldn't be possible. It would be a lot weaker. And it's crucial for us, as soon as you refuse to work for these companies, they're quite literally killing our own communities. But also call out the system that is enabling these campaigns of persecution and genocide. To happen in the first place.

[Katie Drummond]

I'm assuming you didn't hear from Google after the walkout.

[Eva Jones]

No, no. I would ask Google to make good on its slogan since its founding that was dropped in 2018, which is don't be evil Google. Whether it's your contracts with defense and weapons manufacturers across, across the world or your never ending hunger for the freshwater and energy supply around rural and black America, don't be evil. Your employees don't want to be a part of that. And the, the consumers that, that use your products every day don't want to be, you know, searching on a weapons manufacturer's platform every single day.

[Amanda Campos]

Exactly.

[Katie Drummond]

All right, another quick break. We'll be right back.

[Amanda Campos]

This week on the political scene from the New Yorker, Trump's election fraud obsession. He described interference in the election in alarming terms that involved almost everything but

[ProtonVPN Advertiser / Morning Brew Host]

little green Martians, honestly. But there was absolutely no final bottom

[Amanda Campos]

line where he was able to prove

[ProtonVPN Advertiser / Morning Brew Host]

that a single vote was stolen in the election.

[Katie Drummond]

Join me, Susan Glaser and my colleagues

[Amanda Campos]

Evan Osnos and Jane Mayer every Friday on the political scene, available wherever you get your podcast.

[Katie Drummond]

What's next for both of you? You're done being students? Goodbye, Stanford. What now?

[Amanda Campos]

Well, I work in environmental justice advocacy and currently I'm working at this EJ nonprofit in Richmond, California, where there's a huge Chevron oil refinery. And we're actively, you know, trying to advocate for the majority of people of color community that has been impacted by this refinery for over 100 years. And it definitely makes me thankful of the organizing communities I've been part of because it does feel like Stanford as an institution would prefer me to work as head of corporate sustainability or something at Chevron instead of being more of a troublemaker. But what's next for me is continuing to advocate for communities and environmental space. And I'll definitely keep organizing.

[Eva Jones]

I'm working right now in water quality monitoring and communications for a water justice organization in East Palo Alto near Sanford in the Bay Area.

[Katie Drummond]

And you've graduated, you're moving on. So are your classmates. But a new class will start at Stanford in the fall.

[Eva Jones]

Absolutely.

[Amanda Campos]

Yep.

[Katie Drummond]

Idealistic, enthusiastic, maybe naive group of students. What advice do you have for them for the incoming class?

[Eva Jones]

I think it's the same advice that every young person gets from anyone, which is you have to make it your own. At a place like Stanford, there's going to be a lot of people trying to entice you. Their way, their innovation, their technology, their lab is the future is the best way forward but what you need to do is find people of conviction who resonate with you, who are dedicated to building the kind of world that you want to see and devote yourself to that. It may not be the easiest path, but if it is your own, I promise you it will be worth it.

[Amanda Campos]

I would say organize it definitely. Priority saved me in my Stanford experiences. The students of conviction, as Eva was talking about. I found so many friends in the organizing space and, and I believe that, you know, right now in particular, it's just a very desensitizing time and very disillusioning and do not let yourself get lost in that and Stanford and this dominant narrative will constantly tell you to just stay in your lane, don't cause trouble. You know, be the good student and again, find your own path. And I highly encourage you to organize, to actually fight for the Stanford that you want to have and that you deserve. Thank you both. It was great. Thank you.

[Katie Drummond]

The Big Interview is a production of Wired and Kaleidoscope. Content this episode was produced by our showrunner, Ann Marie Fertoli. Kate Osborne is our executive producer. Music and mixing by Pran Bandy. This episode was fact checked by Matt Giles and I am, of course, your host, Katie Drummond, Wired's global editorial director. Check back here on Thursday for the latest episode of Uncanny Valley, where Wired's writers and editors add you to their Slack channel.

[Amanda Campos]

This week on the Political Scene. From the New Yorker, Trump's election fraud obsession. He described interference in the election in alarming terms that involved almost everything but

[ProtonVPN Advertiser / Morning Brew Host]

little green Martians, honestly.

[Amanda Campos]

But there was absolutely no final bottom line where he was able to prove

[ProtonVPN Advertiser / Morning Brew Host]

that a single vote was stolen in the election.

[Katie Drummond]

Join me, Susan Glaser, and my colleagues

[Amanda Campos]

Evan Osnos and Jane Mayer every Friday on the Political Scene, available wherever you get your podcasts.