I have felt something similar and I’m glad that you’ve been able to put it into words. Yes Tristan comes off like a techie and a startup guy, not as a revolutionary. Yet of course he deeply cares about the issue and about fixing it, and has done so much.
From my experiece it’s always been this way with revolutions that I’ve personlly participated in. The people in charge keep themselves distant and also connected politically and to the media, or in this case connected to the intellectual community and speaking jobs. Meanwhile the footsoldiers are well, just always footsoldiers and their opinions are typically ignored.
I understand them, that their appearance as revolutionaries would threaten their speaking, their tech industry contacts, and even threaten the entire organisation. So they’re going for a moderate route and I agree with that. However I get the feeling there will never be any teeth to their actions. While the leadership is amazingly talented, they are themselves of the menality of the tech industry itself and of US millenials. And so instead of free the world from the slavery of tech, we get “we suggest you set your phone to black and white”. Sigh.