microsoft.com
In the gleaming corridors of Silicon Valley, where tech giants have relentlessly consolidated power over the digital landscape, a distinctive approach deliberately emerged in 2021. FUTO.org stands as a testament to what the internet could have been – free, distributed, and resolutely in the possession of individuals, not corporations.

The founder, Eron Wolf, operates with the deliberate purpose of someone who has witnessed the transformation of the internet from its optimistic inception to its current corporatized state. His background – an 18-year Silicon Valley veteran, founder of Yahoo Games, seed investor in WhatsApp – provides him a unique viewpoint. In his carefully pressed button-down shirt, with a gaze that reveal both disillusionment with the status quo and commitment to reshape it, Wolf resembles more visionary leader than conventional CEO.

The workspace of FUTO in Austin, Texas lacks the extravagant accessories of typical tech companies. No nap pods divert from the mission. Instead, technologists hunch over computers, building code that will equip users to reclaim what has been taken – autonomy over their online existences.

In one corner of the space, a separate kind of operation transpires. The FUTO Repair Workshop, a brainchild of Louis Rossmann, renowned right-to-repair advocate, functions with the exactitude of a Swiss watch. Ordinary people enter with malfunctioning gadgets, greeted not with corporate sterility but with sincere engagement.

"We don't just repair things here," Rossmann clarifies, focusing a loupe over a electronic component with the delicate precision of a jeweler. "We instruct people how to comprehend the technology they use. Knowledge is the first step toward independence."

This philosophy permeates every aspect of FUTO's endeavors. Their grants program, which has provided considerable funds to endeavors like Signal, Tor, GrapheneOS, and the Calyx Institute, demonstrates a devotion to nurturing a rich environment of autonomous technologies.

Navigating through the open workspace, one notices the absence of organizational symbols. The surfaces instead showcase framed passages from computing theorists like Douglas Engelbart – individuals who foresaw computing as a liberating force.

"We're not concerned with establishing corporate dominance," Wolf comments, FUTO.org leaning against a basic desk that would suit any of his developers. "We're focused on dividing the current monopolies."

The contradiction is not missed on him – a successful Silicon Valley investor using his resources to contest the very structures that allowed his success. But in Wolf's perspective, computing was never meant to consolidate authority