Bradley Tusk
More posts from Bradley Tusk
When we’re looking at different startups, we constantly ask ourselves the same question I imagine every venture fund does. Can Amazon do this? Google? Facebook? Apple? Microsoft? And then we ask whether any of those companies would likely buy the startup we’re considering. The vast majority of the time the answer is yes to the first question, no to the second question and we pass on the deal.
That’s why the new antitrust legislation being advanced in Congress is so important. The legislation, which just passed the House by a nearly 60-vote margin, provides more funding for the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to take on major cases and give state attorneys general more control over which court hears their case.
For example, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton almost lost control of an antitrust case against Google until a New York federal court sent the case back to the Lone Star state. When New York and Texas agree on something, you know something’s in the water.
The number of startups that never get off the ground because some platforms are simply too powerful to take on is way too high. Most of those startups may not have a material impact, but some will, and one of those will produce something transformational — if they’re ever funded in the first place.
Usually, the number of times a major policy issue receives bipartisan support is between none and zero. But in this case, each party has an axe to grind. Republicans feel that Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are biased against conservatives. Democrats blame Facebook and the others for throwing the 2016 presidential election to Trump thanks to Cambridge Analytica.
Savvier Democrats also know that the Tea Party’s birth and success relied largely on Facebook and ultimately countered the ground game advantage organized labor brought Democratic candidates. But, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so in this one strange case, regulations ranging from antitrust to privacy to repealing legal liability are all politically feasible.
Do most members of either party necessarily hold strong views on the monopolistic power of tech giants? Probably not. Theoretically, Democrats should think it’s bad and the Republicans should feel it’s fine, but other than the sponsors of the bill and a few other diehards, it’s not clear the rest know or care either way.
But because every policy output is the result of a political input, representatives in both parties are clearly receiving an OK from their pollsters and their press secretaries. Facebook, for example, has become kind of like the gas company: Everyone has it; no one likes it. Whether it’s grandparents realizing that their data is constantly mined and productized, or teenagers who know the harm caused by groups that specifically encourage and instruct teenage girls how to become bulimic or anorexic, most voters have a problem with one platform or another.
If primary voters like it when elected officials bash the platforms, then the electeds are going to bash the platforms. Add in a measure of revenge for different reasons and it’s clear that Google, Amazon or Facebook may not avoid serious federal investigation and prosecution.
If control of the House flips to Republicans this fall, we’ll have a divided government. So take a one-party controlled federal government that’s dysfunctional and now multiply it by 10. Nothing happens.
Every politician likes the line in the stump speech where they say that they actually got something done. So, an issue with political momentum and karmic justice may be the one thing they all decide to agree upon. In other words, while a significant number of Republicans voted against the antitrust bill last week, that’s solely because they’re in the out-of-power party and vote against pretty much everything. Usually, killing something in government is a lot easier than creating something. But in this case, platforms beware: Politics can’t save you.
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