DC faces Silicon Valley's riches and ever-growing power

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/17/zuckerberg-trump-silicon-valley-power-gilded-age

by electic • 10 years ago

42 46 10 years ago

I feel like these kinds of Valley-flattering articles can only continue as long as the Department of Justice and Department of Labor continue to enforce antitrust and labor laws leniently. Google and Facebook are monopolies, Uber's profit margins shrink whenever the drivers decide to stick up for themselves and demand legal rights and status as employees, and a who's-who list of tech companies have been declared guilty in court of colluding to suppress engineers' salaries and bargaining power.

I look forward to seeing the interesting technologies the tech sector will concoct and market when the strong arm of the law finally forces it to concoct and market technologies rather than collecting monopoly rents or exploiting disadvantaged labor.

http://thebaffler.com/videos/graeber-thiel#.VxPmqyZyhyQ

55acdda48ab5• 10 years ago

Another question that's coming up more and more is whether companies like Facebook and Twitter need to be regulated by the FCC as broadcasters or telecoms. Facebook and Twitter have been blatantly influencing feeds and content for political ends and at some point people are probably going to decide they shouldn't be allowed to do that.

shanacarp• 10 years ago

It is mixed regulation. The FCC relies as much on the presence of Nielsen, which is private, as broadcasters do.

Twitter, Facebook, et al, don't have a Nielsen.

narrator• 10 years ago

Uber is a bad example because it's losing billions every year. It may just evaporate when the current bubble pops. In my opinion, they are mistreating employees because they are getting desperate to find a way to make the business profitable.

eli_gottlieb9• 10 years ago

Uber is a bad example because it's losing billions every year.

IMHO, that's what makes it a good example. It can only make money by driving its drivers' wages well below what they themselves will accept or what competing, traditional taxi companies currently pay. With the spigot of VC cash turned off, Uber is exposed as having little viable business model besides straightforward exploitation. There's basically nothing innovative or original about them that lets them make money off nothing but an app for coordinating other agents' labor. The drivers are either incredibly exploited wage-workers or independent contractors who therefore don't need Uber, but can't be both.

gaur• 10 years ago

Google and Facebook are monopolies

Which markets are Google and Facebook monopolizing?

tyingq• 10 years ago

Google seems to recognize they are at, or near, a monopoly in search.

Senator Herb Kohl: "But you do recognize that in the words that are used and antitrust kind of oversight, your market share constitutes monopoly, dominant -- special power dominant for a monopoly firm. You recognize you're in that area?"

Eric Schmidt: "I would agree, sir, that we’re in that area....I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding of monopoly findings is this is a judicial process."

eli_gottlieb9• 10 years ago

Search, and nonprofessional social networking, respectively. As noted below, Eric Schmidt has already de facto admitted to Google holding a monopoly position.

kenshaw• 10 years ago

Are you advocating making the US government larger in order to force the US private sector to shrink?

iforgotmyhnuser• 10 years ago

Because that is heresy.

eli_gottlieb9• 10 years ago

Heretical though it may be, yes, I am in fact suggesting that the US government enforce its existing competition laws, which are already on the books, in order to force a few megacorps down to a size where they will be subject to fair market competition and will have to come up with a business model besides monopoly rent.

forgetsusername• 10 years ago

Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook wield influence comparable to that of Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller

Can anyone point to any influence these people are actually having on American politics?

I mean, according to the tinfoil hat brigade, the Rockefellers are behind every second conspiracy on the planet. How will these other obscenely rich folk get a pass? I think the political tides have already shifted. The 1% are the 1%, regardless of whether we think iPhones are cool. I'll bet on Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg having less influence going forward.

mrdrozdov• 10 years ago

Perhaps Zuckerberg and political media, Cook and privacy?

ethbro2• 10 years ago

That's the tragedy of Citizens United. They would have less influence if they couldn't turn dollars into votes.

Unfortunately, they can, and so a few billion dollars buys a fair amount of political support.

yardie• 10 years ago

Have you paid any attention to the news lately? The number 1 and number 2 candidates of the republican and democrat parties are small money candidates that are embarrassing the shit out of both national parties. The GOP golden boy, Jeb Bush, has had to bow out. Even with a $100mm war chest voters still weren't buying it.

The only thing CU has done is put into law what everyone kind of already knew.

im3w1l• 10 years ago

Well we first we have the moderation power, as discussed yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11500234

And then the power that comes with lavish charitable donations.

cmarschner2• 10 years ago

Remarkably, as American, Russian, and Chinese Entrepreneurs amass these giant amounts of wealth, Europe is largely left out and remains more of a middle class society. Will this in the long run be beneficial or not?

yummyfajitas3• 10 years ago

People in America, India and China are pushing technology forward. We've gotten GOOG/FB/Uber/Tesla from the US; WeChat/WePay/mobile stuff + Shenzen ecosystem from China; Infosys, Oyo (and hopefully smart cities) from India, etc.

Imagine what we might have gotten from Europe if they weren't held back by bureaucracy, fear of failure, egalitarianism, and whatever else prevents Europe from competing with the valley. (It's certainly not a lack of smart people - see all the Europeans who do well in the Valley.)

It's hard to see how holding Europe back could possibly be beneficial (of course I'm not a mercantilist).

exwardna• 10 years ago

Can you expand a bit on the bureaucracy in Europe? Do you think it's hard to create a limited responsibility company in Europe? Is it better in China?

joesmo• 10 years ago

"Holding Europe back," as you put it allows millions of people to have some job security and not be treated by their employers like trash as they would be in the US or Russia. I'd say that's worth way more than anything silicon valley has ever put out, let alone a bunch of companies that are unlikely to be around in five to ten years that have contributed virtually nothing to society.

raldi• 10 years ago

The question is, is the wealth that Europe's not concentrating in the hands of its 1% going to the masses instead, or simply not being created at all?

eli_gottlieb9• 10 years ago

Soooo... Spotify and DeepMind don't exist?

RushAndAPush• 10 years ago

DeepMind is owned by Google and Spotify may not exist in five years due to increased pressure from other streaming platforms like Apple. Spotify is in a make or break phase right now.

lumberjack• 10 years ago

The US and EU markets are not as divided and insulated from each other as the US vs China vs Russia markets are. That means that for the most part US tech products find their way here as well as US money used to influence our politicians.

russell• 10 years ago

This article seemed rather inane to me, complaining about Cook's standing up for privacy and Zuckerberg's anti-Trump speech or his new foundation, while ignoring the $900 million that the Koch brothers are pouring into down-ticket campaigns or hundreds of millions more from Sheldon Adelson. Somehow the emphasis on political influence got misplaced.

nitwit0053• 10 years ago

The 'robber barons' had enough power to get the police and national guard deployed to violently put down strikes and to protect employees working during strikes. None of these CEOs have anywhere near that kind of influence.

They have lobbied quite a bit, but quite a few of those lobbying efforts have failed.

gozur882• 10 years ago

In the late 1800s there wasn't any legal support for organized labor. Companies had the right to simply fire everyone who went on strike. After that it's just a question of moving squatters off your property, and for that you go to the police. That's not a question of CEO political influence - the laws unions needed to survive hadn't been passed yet.

nitwit0053• 10 years ago

No, they also got the police to deploy to remove them from public places, which was clearly protected speech. Violence by their hired security against employees, clearly illegal, was politely ignored. They rather blatantly controlled the police in some cases.

DC faces Silicon Valley's riches and ever-growing power

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