Introducing How We Got Here -- NLW's new podcast

How We Got Here is NLW’s deep-dive podcast about how present-day conditions took shape. Its premise is that trends and events are not inevitable: they emerge from decisions, and understanding those choices may help people shape what comes next. The show reaches beyond technology into society, culture, and economics, following stories whose backstory cannot fit into a daily AI Daily Brief.

The first episode, “How Tech Lost America,” traces today’s anger over data centers to a broader, roughly 15-year decline in public attitudes toward technology. The shift in opinion about data centers has been especially sharp: in August 2025, 43% of Americans supported having one near their home and 42% opposed it. Opposition rose to 51% in February 2026, 70% in May, and 75% in August; more than 60% were strongly opposed by August. Robinson Meyer described the swing as 33 points against data centers, faster and deeper than he thought possible on any issue.

The change has become an electoral concern across party lines. A Senate GOP campaign memo warned that data-center opposition could cost Republicans an Ohio race, and the memo was also sent to major technology companies and hyperscalers. In an August 2026 Economist/YouGov poll, 35% of 2024 Trump voters supported a data center near them, while 47% opposed one. The figures suggest that resistance is not confined to one party or to people already skeptical of AI.

The episode’s account places the backlash in a longer deterioration of trust in technology companies and platforms, rather than treating it as solely an AI-industry problem. Edelman’s Global Trust Survey ranked technology as the most trusted industry in 2013, at 77%. Pew found that the share of Americans who said technology companies had a positive effect fell from 71% in 2015 to 50% in 2019. Gallup’s positive rating of the computer industry dropped from 75% in 2017 to 48% in 2026; its rating of the internet industry fell from 59% in 2017 to 35% in 2021, when 40% viewed the internet industry negatively. The decline in attitudes toward technology occurred among both Democrats and Republicans. Generative AI therefore entered public consciousness against a backdrop of negative perceptions shaped by earlier technology platforms, movements, and leaders.

The political response to data centers illustrates how quickly the debate has changed. In June 2025, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro presented Amazon’s planned $20 billion investment in data-center campuses as a source of jobs, local revenue, and AI leadership for the state. On August 18, 2026, he said he had signed an executive order imposing strict standards on AI data centers, citing concerns about developers, clean air and water, and utility bills. The contrast captures the tension between promised economic benefits and worries about local costs and impacts.

The second episode turns to a different economic puzzle: how goods got cheap while life got expensive. Together, the opening topics reflect the show’s broader interest in tracing familiar outcomes back through the choices and conditions that produced them.