Time & Perspective Quote by Meg Whitman

There is a very Silicon Valley sleight of hand in Whitman’s optimism: she doesn’t argue that the internet is good, she argues that the metrics are good, and then lets the moral conclusion ride along in their wake. “Look at growth” is less an invitation than a directive to adopt a particular worldview, one where expansion equals health and attention equals value. The phrase “the fundamentals” borrows the language of finance and accounting, recasting a cultural shift as a balance sheet. If the numbers are up, the story is up.

In context, Whitman’s comment reads like a mature phase of late-’90s tech faith, refined after the initial web boom: not naive utopianism, but confidence in “usage growth” as proof that the network is becoming indispensable. The subtext is strategic. By pointing to “how much time people spend” and the “variety of things,” she frames the internet as diversified, sticky, and therefore safe - a platform, not a fad. That’s the kind of reassurance investors, advertisers, and policymakers can understand without getting bogged down in messy debates about harm, manipulation, or inequality.

What makes the quote work is its calm managerial tone. “It’s all really good” lands as a shrug of authority: the leader who has seen the dashboard and is soothed by it. The notable absence is any mention of what that time online is doing to people, as opposed to what people are doing online. In Whitman’s calculus, engagement is the argument, and the argument is the business model.