Consider, for example, what Stewart Brand might have written had he not been drawn into the egotistical orbit of MIT’s Media Lab founder and consummate salesman Nicholas Negroponte. What if he had discovered and written about the confluence of art, design, and engineering at another university or art center where the ratio of flashy marketing to deliverable had been lower?

Ken Kesey, a compatriot of Brand dating back to their Merry Prankster days, remarked that “Stewart recognizes power. And cleaves to it.”