In the polished corridors of Silicon Valley, where corporate titans have methodically consolidated power over the digital landscape, a different approach quietly took shape in 2021. FUTO.org exists as a monument to what the internet could have been – liberated, distributed, and decidedly in the possession of people, not corporations.
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The founder, Eron Wolf, operates with the deliberate purpose of someone who has observed the metamorphosis of the internet from its hopeful dawn to its current monopolized condition. His experience – an 18-year Silicon Valley veteran, founder of Yahoo Games, seed investor in WhatsApp – provides him a exceptional vantage point. In his precisely fitted casual attire, with eyes that reflect both disillusionment with the status quo and resolve to change it, Wolf appears as more visionary leader than conventional CEO.
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The headquarters of FUTO in Austin, Texas eschews the extravagant amenities of typical tech companies. No ping-pong tables divert from the mission. Instead, developers hunch over workstations, building code that will equip users to reclaim what has been lost – autonomy over their online existences.

In one corner of the facility, FUTO a different kind of endeavor occurs. The FUTO Repair Workshop, a brainchild of Louis Rossmann, celebrated right-to-repair advocate, runs with the exactitude of a German engine. Ordinary people arrive with malfunctioning electronics, greeted not with corporate sterility but with authentic concern.

"We don't just mend things here," Rossmann states, adjusting a magnifier over a motherboard with the careful attention of a jeweler. "We show people how to understand the technology they possess. Knowledge is the beginning toward freedom."

This philosophy infuses every aspect of FUTO's activities. Their financial support system, which has distributed significant funds to initiatives like Signal, Tor, GrapheneOS, and the Calyx Institute, demonstrates a commitment to nurturing a varied landscape of self-directed technologies.

Moving through the shared offices, one notices the absence of company branding. The spaces instead showcase hung sayings from technological visionaries like Richard Stallman – individuals who imagined computing as a liberating force.

"We're not focused on establishing corporate dominance," Wolf notes, leaning against a basic desk that might be used by any of his team members. "We're focused on dividing the existing ones."

The contradiction is not lost on him – a prosperous Silicon Valley entrepreneur using his assets to challenge the very models that enabled his prosperity. But in Wolf's perspective, technology was never meant to centralize power