Chapter 4: Networked Communications

The film’s villain, tech billionaire Miles Bron, epitomizes the modern investor class that leverages wealth and power to usurp ideas from actual creators. Miles’ empire is built on Alpha, a company established by his former partner, Andi Brand, whom he ousts through legal manipulation and financial coercion. Reflecting this imbalance runs a cycle of inequality in reality: developers like Andi (or real-world engineers and scientists) see their contributions erased, while investors like Miles amass disproportionate power, using their wealth to insulate themselves from accountability.

The rich's power symbolized by the film’s secluded Greek island, a metaphor for isolated tax havens and elite kingdom. The consequences ripple beyond individual injustice; when profit-driven investors prioritize hype over substance (as with Klear’s dangerously flawed design), society bears the risks of half-baked innovations, from exploitative gig-economy platforms to unsafe AI systems. Glass Onion thus reflects a growing cultural reckoning with the myth of the “self-made” tech mogul, exposing how systemic structures—corporate law, globalization, and deregulation—enable the wealthy to hoard ownership of ideas they did not create. By centering on Helen’s revenge, the film advocates for a paradigm shift: a world where innovation is democratized, and property rights align with ethical contribution, not financial dominance.