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This book asks a simple question: are the tech giants monopolies? In the current environment of suspicion towards the major technology companies as a result of concerns about their power and influence, it has become commonplace to talk of Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or Netflix as the modern day version of the 19th century trusts. In turn, the tech giants are vilified for a whole range of monopoly harms towards consumers, workers and even the democratic process. In the US and the EU, antitrust, and regulatory reform is on the way. Using economics, business and management science as well legal reasoning, this book offers a new perspective on big tech. It builds a theory of "moligopoly". The theory advances that the tech giants, or at least some of them, coexist both as monopolies and oligopoly firms that compete against each other in an environment of substantial uncertainty and economic dynamism. With this, the book assesses ongoing antitrust and regulatory policy efforts. It demonstrates that it is counterproductive to pursue policies that introduce more rivalry in moligopoly markets subject to technological discontinuities. And that non-economic harms like privacy violations, fake news, or hate speech are difficult issues that belong to the realm of regulation, not antimonopoly remediation.
Reimagining our global economy so it becomes more sustainable and prosperous for all Our global economic system is broken. But we can replace the current picture of global upheaval, unsustainability, and uncertainty with one of an economy that works for all people, and the planet. First, we must eliminate rising income inequality within societies where productivity and wage growth has slowed. Second, we must reduce the dampening effect of monopoly market power wielded by large corporations on innovation and productivity gains. And finally, the short-sighted exploitation of natural resources that is corroding the environment and affecting the lives of many for the worse must end. The debate over the causes of the broken economy—laissez-faire government, poorly managed globalization, the rise of technology in favor of the few, or yet another reason—is wide open. Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet argues convincingly that if we don't start with recognizing the true shape of our problems, our current system will continue to fail us. To help us see our challenges more clearly, Schwab—the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum—looks for the real causes of our system's shortcomings, and for solutions in best practices from around the world in places as diverse as China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Germany, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Singapore. And in doing so, Schwab finds emerging examples of new ways of doing things that provide grounds for hope, including: Individual agency: how countries and policies can make a difference against large external forces A clearly defined social contract: agreement on shared values and goals allows government, business, and individuals to produce the most optimal outcomes Planning for future generations: short-sighted presentism harms our shared future, and that of those yet to be born Better measures of economic success: move beyond a myopic focus on GDP to more complete, human-scaled measures of societal flourishing By accurately describing our real situation, Stakeholder Capitalism is able to pinpoint achievable ways to deal with our problems. Chapter by chapter, Professor Schwab shows us that there are ways for everyone at all levels of society to reshape the broken pieces of the global economy and—country by country, company by company, and citizen by citizen—glue them back together in a way that benefits us all.
Looks at how the Internet is affecting businesses, education, and government, touching on the twelve themes of the new economy and privacy issues
"The market size and strength of the major digital platform companies has invited international concern about how such firms should best be regulated to serve the interests of wider society, with a particular emphasis on the need for new anti-trust legislation. Using a normative innovation systems approach, this paper investigates how current anti-trust models may insufficiently address the value-extracting features of existing data-intensive and platform-oriented industry behaviour and business models. To do so, we employ the concept of economic rents to investigate how digital platforms create and extract value. Two forms of rent are elaborated: 'network monopoly rents' and 'algorithmic rents.' By identifying such rents more precisely, policymakers and researchers can better direct regulatory investigations, as well as broader industrial and innovation policy approaches, to shape the features of platform-driven digital markets"--
A bold new manifesto for digital technology after capitalism.
Two market experts deconstruct the drivers and inhibitors to innovation in the digital economy, explain how large tech companies can stifle disruption, assess the toll of their technologies on our well-being and democracy, and outline policy changes to take power away from big tech and return it to entrepreneurs. Silicon Valley’s genius combined with limited corporate regulation promised a new age of technological innovation in which entrepreneurs would create companies that would in turn fuel unprecedented job growth. Yet disruptive innovation has stagnated even as the five leading tech giants, which account for approximately 25 percent of the S&P 500’s market capitalization, are expanding to unimaginable scale and power. In How Big-Tech Barons Smash Innovation—and How to Strike Back, Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice E. Stucke explain why this is happening and what we can do to reverse it. While many distrust the Big-Tech Barons, the prevailing belief is that innovation is thriving online. It isn’t. Rather than disruptive innovations that create significant value, we are getting technologies that primarily extract value and reduce well-being. Using vivid examples and relying on their work in the field, the authors explain how the leading tech companies design their sprawling ecosystems to extract more profits (while crushing any entrepreneur that poses a threat). As a result, we get less innovation that benefits us and more innovations that surpass the dreams of yesteryears’ autocracies. The Tech Barons’ technologies, which seek to decode our emotions and thoughts to better manipulate our behavior, are undermining political stability and democracy while fueling tribalism and hate. But it’s not hopeless. The authors reveal that sustained innovation scales with cities not companies, and that we, as a society, should profoundly alter our investment strategy and priorities to certain entrepreneurs (“Tech Pirates”) and cities’ infrastructure.
The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification." The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future -- if we let it.
Across the globe, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft have accumulated power in ways that existing regulatory and intellectual frameworks struggle to comprehend. A consensus is emerging that the power of these new digital monopolies is unprecedented, and that it has important implications for journalism, politics, and society. It is increasingly clear that democratic societies require new legal and conceptual tools if they are to adequately understand, and if necessary check the economic might of these companies. Equally, that we need to better comprehend the ability of such firms to control personal data and to shape the flow of news, information, and public opinion. In this volume, Martin Moore and Damian Tambini draw together the world's leading researchers to examine the digital dominance of technologies platforms and look at the evidence behind the rising tide of criticism of the tech giants. In fifteen chapters, the authors examine the economic, political, and social impacts of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft, in order to understand the different facets of their power and how it is manifested. Digital Dominance is the first interdisciplinary volume on this topic, contributing to a conversation which is critical to maintaining the health of democracies across the world.
A penetrating indictment of how today’s largest tech companies are hijacking our data, our livelihoods, our social fabric, and our minds—from an acclaimed Financial Times columnist and CNN analyst WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND EVENING STANDARD “Don’t be evil” was enshrined as Google’s original corporate mantra back in its early days, when the company’s cheerful logo still conveyed the utopian vision for a future in which technology would inevitably make the world better, safer, and more prosperous. Unfortunately, it’s been quite a while since Google, or the majority of the Big Tech companies, lived up to this founding philosophy. Today, the utopia they sought to create is looking more dystopian than ever: from digital surveillance and the loss of privacy to the spreading of misinformation and hate speech to predatory algorithms targeting the weak and vulnerable to products that have been engineered to manipulate our desires. How did we get here? How did these once-scrappy and idealistic enterprises become rapacious monopolies with the power to corrupt our elections, co-opt all our data, and control the largest single chunk of corporate wealth—while evading all semblance of regulation and taxes? In Don’t Be Evil, Financial Times global business columnist Rana Foroohar tells the story of how Big Tech lost its soul—and ate our lunch. Through her skilled reporting and unparalleled access—won through nearly thirty years covering business and technology—she shows the true extent to which behemoths like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon are monetizing both our data and our attention, without us seeing a penny of those exorbitant profits. Finally, Foroohar lays out a plan for how we can resist, by creating a framework that fosters innovation while also protecting us from the dark side of digital technology. Praise for Don’t Be Evil “At first sight, Don’t Be Evil looks like it’s doing for Google what muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell did for Standard Oil over a century ago. But this whip-smart, highly readable book’s scope turns out to be much broader. Worried about the monopolistic tendencies of big tech? The addictive apps on your iPhone? The role Facebook played in Donald Trump’s election? Foroohar will leave you even more worried, but a lot better informed.”—Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, and author of The Square and the Tower
One of Forbes's Top Ten Technology Books of the Year How to redesign ‘big, old’ companies for digital success—featuring a survey of 300+ business leaders and 30+ global organizations, including Amazon, Uber, LEGO, Toyota North America, Philips, and USAA. Most established companies have deployed such digital technologies as the cloud, mobile apps, the internet of things, and artificial intelligence. But few established companies are designed for digital. This book offers an essential guide for retooling organizations for digital success through 5 key building blocks: • Shared Customer Insights • Operational Backbone • Digital Platform • Accountability Framework • External Developer Platform In the digital economy, rapid pace of change in technology capabilities and customer desires means that business strategy must be fluid. As a result, business design has become a critical management responsibility. Effective business design enables a company to quickly pivot in response to new competitive threats and opportunities. Most leaders today, however, rely on organizational structure to implement strategy, unaware that structure inhibits, rather than enables, agility. In companies that are designed for digital, people, processes, data, and technology are synchronized to identify and deliver innovative customer solutions—and redefine strategy. Digital design, not strategy, is what separates winners from losers in the digital economy. Designed for Digital offers practical advice on digital transformation, with examples that include Amazon, BNY Mellon, DBS Bank, LEGO, Philips, Schneider Electric, USAA, and many other global organizations. Drawing on 5 years of research and in-depth case studies, the book is an essential guide for companies that want to disrupt rather than be disrupted in the new digital landscape.