Ok, dumb question, but surely one weapon big tech has against Democrat-led lawfare is to subject Democratic politicians, notably Biden, Harris and Newsom, to the same biased curated coverage tech dished out to Trump in 2016 and 2020? Big Tech is one of the few entities that can convincingly point out these Democrat emperors truly have no clothes.
Also, why is California leading this effort? If Big Tech, and the constellation of VCs surrounding them, ever decamped from California to pastures Red, the Californian economy would collapse.
Progressives tend to dominate HR, law, middle management, and marketing, and tend to be feminized midwits.
Larger tech companies are generally saddled with huge hordes of these non-tech personnel, while technical/ infrastructure tasks are performed, mostly, by men.
Musk noticed this, as did the rest of us, when he sacked over half of his staff with little consequence to Twitter 2.0/X’s day to day operations.
Because of high labor costs, tech firms rely on access to our capital markets, which necessarily means dealing with the SEC, the FTC, and countless lawyers. Startups, mid sized firms, and even household name behemoths like Microsoft and Oracle rely on banking and are at the mercy of our government, which means dealing with regulators underfoot everywhere.
And of course, useful and popular products, particularly those that disseminate information, create money and power, which will always attract those who wish to seize it for themselves.
Eventually, classical liberals, libertarians, and of course conservatives (who do exist in tech) will overcome progressive leftism. It’s corrupt, economically stupid, and unfair. There will come a point when the Morlocks all move to Texas or Florida, and the Eloi will be on their own.
In the meantime, we – tech firms, businesspeople, and the public – will all have to deal with regulators whose politics almost resemble those of Carlos the Jackal.
As a conservative, I enjoy the schadenfreude of outmigration from Blue to Red states as a sign of progressivism’s bankruptcy of common sense. But I also remember when Oregon, Washington state, and Colorado were conservative places until they were, in the parlance of the times, “Californicated” with migrants from the Golden State. Progressives are often arch hypocrites and many Californians who are now taking their business to Texas are doing so for the friendly business environment will bring their political progressivism with them. Austin is already a progressive bastion.
Also the ultra wealthy oligarchy use the state apparatus to syphon wealth from the country’s citizens (and the wider world) and are able to effectively stifle dissent
Amazon and Microsoft have unprecedented dominant positions in their respective industries. It is a bit late to start to have concerns about competition now.
The internet has also allowed people to find information and question official narratives in a way not seen before. Much of the recent Davos meeting seemed to involve people desperate to resume their role as gatekeepers of information, aka keeping the plebs ignorant.
The information genie is out of the bottle and there’s no putting the genie back. So, like any good bureaucracy, new ‘rules’ are established to control the shape and size of the genie and to ensure that the bottle is environmentally acceptable.
If there’s a rule the bureaucrats feel vindicated. And will probably spend millions creating compliance teams and reporting structures.
Saul D
3 months ago
In this context, it’s worth taking a look at “Corporate Compliance Programs” issued by the DOJ against larger businesses. I first ran into them when reading a background biography of James Comey who amplified their use.
What happens is that a company becomes subject to investigation for corporate wrong-doing or wrong-doing of its employees.
The company, under threat of legal action, is then encouraged by prosecutors to agree to enter into a ‘corporate compliance program’. These programs are used to mitigate the risk of DOJ legal action against the business and so expensive and lengthy court cases.
However, these then give prosecutors board-room level influence over the processes and procedures of the company, including allocating monitors to ensure compliance and determining what policies to pursue (eg over employment). No actual legal case or trial will have taken place, and the control is entirely based on the DOJ and prosecutor ‘agreement’ giving a large amount of hidden influence to public prosecutors over corporations with minimal oversight, and with obvious scope for financial skullduggery and political activism.
Daniel Lee
3 months ago
“…SpaceX is being sued by the DOJ for not hiring enough asylum-seeking migrants …”
Folks, you don’t hate and fear the federal bureaucracy nearly enough, not nearly enough.
Terry Raby
3 months ago
“The Left is always pushing for more control over Big Tech,” says noted tech investor and entrepreneur David Sacks. “They leverage that control — or the threat of control — into campaign contributions and censorship. It’s the protection end of the extortion racket.” The All In podcast, including David Sacks is always enlightening. https://www.youtube.com/@allin
Alex Lekas
3 months ago
In America, Amazon and Alphabet are both facing competition lawsuits brought by branches of the US government. — So who gets to file a competition lawsuit against the monopoly that is govt? Oh, that’s right; no one. Because freedom means asking permission and following orders. SpaceX is also being sued by the DOJ for not hiring enough asylum-seeking migrants (“asylees” in DOJ-ese) despite being barred by US law from hiring non-US citizens because of its work in national security. — This sentence exposes the idiocy of govt officials and how the right hand is ignorant of the left’s activities. There are so many rules and regs that no one can possibly keep up, especially when one measure contradicts another.
Then again, it’s not about competition or the consumer; it’s about control, and some tech companies have no one to blame but themselves for their willingness to play ball in the partisan arena where censorship is concerned.
Before the West’s descent into oligarchy, every five years or so, ordinary people got to file something better than a competition lawsuit against the monopoly that is government – a vote.
David Kingsworthy
3 months ago
So, thanks for an interesting piece, maybe the title is inaccurate?
Mike Doyle
3 months ago
Mergers and Acquisitions: a way of enriching Lawyers, Bankers and Company Directors and of no benefit to anyone else.
Lennon Ó Náraigh
3 months ago
The article reaches a familiar libertarian dead-end: big business is bad, but big government regulating big business is bad too.
Ok, dumb question, but surely one weapon big tech has against Democrat-led lawfare is to subject Democratic politicians, notably Biden, Harris and Newsom, to the same
biasedcurated coverage tech dished out to Trump in 2016 and 2020? Big Tech is one of the few entities that can convincingly point out these Democrat emperors truly have no clothes.Also, why is California leading this effort? If Big Tech, and the constellation of VCs surrounding them, ever decamped from California to pastures Red, the Californian economy would collapse.
Progressives tend to dominate HR, law, middle management, and marketing, and tend to be feminized midwits.
Larger tech companies are generally saddled with huge hordes of these non-tech personnel, while technical/ infrastructure tasks are performed, mostly, by men.
Musk noticed this, as did the rest of us, when he sacked over half of his staff with little consequence to Twitter 2.0/X’s day to day operations.
Because of high labor costs, tech firms rely on access to our capital markets, which necessarily means dealing with the SEC, the FTC, and countless lawyers. Startups, mid sized firms, and even household name behemoths like Microsoft and Oracle rely on banking and are at the mercy of our government, which means dealing with regulators underfoot everywhere.
And of course, useful and popular products, particularly those that disseminate information, create money and power, which will always attract those who wish to seize it for themselves.
Eventually, classical liberals, libertarians, and of course conservatives (who do exist in tech) will overcome progressive leftism. It’s corrupt, economically stupid, and unfair. There will come a point when the Morlocks all move to Texas or Florida, and the Eloi will be on their own.
In the meantime, we – tech firms, businesspeople, and the public – will all have to deal with regulators whose politics almost resemble those of Carlos the Jackal.
As a conservative, I enjoy the schadenfreude of outmigration from Blue to Red states as a sign of progressivism’s bankruptcy of common sense. But I also remember when Oregon, Washington state, and Colorado were conservative places until they were, in the parlance of the times, “Californicated” with migrants from the Golden State. Progressives are often arch hypocrites and many Californians who are now taking their business to Texas are doing so for the friendly business environment will bring their political progressivism with them. Austin is already a progressive bastion.
Good comment and appreciated the HG Wells analogy. 🙂
What is the difference between the US and the good old USSR?
How long do you have?
Russia and the USA are very similar. Both countries have a ultra wealthy oligarchy that support the government in exchange for light touch regulation.
Also the ultra wealthy oligarchy use the state apparatus to syphon wealth from the country’s citizens (and the wider world) and are able to effectively stifle dissent
What is the difference between the US and the good old USSR?
A half-serious response would be: two letters and forty years.
In the US, we indulge ourselves in the pretense that freedom exists.
In USSR we pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.
In US, we pretend our votes properly count, they pretend they’re properly counted.
That you actually can ask this question in USA?
Amazon and Microsoft have unprecedented dominant positions in their respective industries. It is a bit late to start to have concerns about competition now.
The internet has also allowed people to find information and question official narratives in a way not seen before. Much of the recent Davos meeting seemed to involve people desperate to resume their role as gatekeepers of information, aka keeping the plebs ignorant.
The information genie is out of the bottle and there’s no putting the genie back. So, like any good bureaucracy, new ‘rules’ are established to control the shape and size of the genie and to ensure that the bottle is environmentally acceptable.
If there’s a rule the bureaucrats feel vindicated. And will probably spend millions creating compliance teams and reporting structures.
In this context, it’s worth taking a look at “Corporate Compliance Programs” issued by the DOJ against larger businesses. I first ran into them when reading a background biography of James Comey who amplified their use.
What happens is that a company becomes subject to investigation for corporate wrong-doing or wrong-doing of its employees.
The company, under threat of legal action, is then encouraged by prosecutors to agree to enter into a ‘corporate compliance program’. These programs are used to mitigate the risk of DOJ legal action against the business and so expensive and lengthy court cases.
However, these then give prosecutors board-room level influence over the processes and procedures of the company, including allocating monitors to ensure compliance and determining what policies to pursue (eg over employment). No actual legal case or trial will have taken place, and the control is entirely based on the DOJ and prosecutor ‘agreement’ giving a large amount of hidden influence to public prosecutors over corporations with minimal oversight, and with obvious scope for financial skullduggery and political activism.
“…SpaceX is being sued by the DOJ for not hiring enough asylum-seeking migrants …”
Folks, you don’t hate and fear the federal bureaucracy nearly enough, not nearly enough.
“The Left is always pushing for more control over Big Tech,” says noted tech investor and entrepreneur David Sacks. “They leverage that control — or the threat of control — into campaign contributions and censorship. It’s the protection end of the extortion racket.” The All In podcast, including David Sacks is always enlightening. https://www.youtube.com/@allin
In America, Amazon and Alphabet are both facing competition lawsuits brought by branches of the US government. — So who gets to file a competition lawsuit against the monopoly that is govt? Oh, that’s right; no one. Because freedom means asking permission and following orders.
SpaceX is also being sued by the DOJ for not hiring enough asylum-seeking migrants (“asylees” in DOJ-ese) despite being barred by US law from hiring non-US citizens because of its work in national security. — This sentence exposes the idiocy of govt officials and how the right hand is ignorant of the left’s activities. There are so many rules and regs that no one can possibly keep up, especially when one measure contradicts another.
Then again, it’s not about competition or the consumer; it’s about control, and some tech companies have no one to blame but themselves for their willingness to play ball in the partisan arena where censorship is concerned.
Before the West’s descent into oligarchy, every five years or so, ordinary people got to file something better than a competition lawsuit against the monopoly that is government – a vote.
So, thanks for an interesting piece, maybe the title is inaccurate?
Mergers and Acquisitions: a way of enriching Lawyers, Bankers and Company Directors and of no benefit to anyone else.
The article reaches a familiar libertarian dead-end: big business is bad, but big government regulating big business is bad too.