Is This the Beginning of the End of Big Tech As We Know It? – New York Magazine

This week, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai testified for nearly six hours before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust Law; appropriately, the executives of the four tech giants of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google did so over video. In the most recent episode of the New York podcast Pivot, co-hosts Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway discuss the winners and losers of the most prominent tech testimony in years, and how the meeting set the stage for future antitrust action.

Kara Swisher: The whole event from [Representative] David Cicilline saying Google stole content from other sites to [Representative] Jerry Nadler pushing Facebook on its acquisition of Instagram was a little spicier than I anticipated.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, these things are typically more about spectacle than they are historic. By which I mean, theyre meant to sort of create a sentiment, which the representatives or the senators then use to feel out what public opinion is. But this felt more historic than it did a spectacle. It didnt feel as if there were any great TV moments, but it was clear that subcommittee staff, over the last 13 months or so, had actually done their homework, collecting over a million pages of documents.

I keep getting optimistic and I keep getting my heart broken, but to me this feels like the beginning of the end of Big Tech as we know it. It just seemed as if they werent really there to get information. They were confident in the information they had collected, and they were just stating their viewpoint over and over. Prior to the hearings, there was a seminal moment where you had two tweets saying, I hope these guys get broken up. Two tweets, different language, but basically the same message. One was from Bernie Sanders and one was from Donald Trump. So when you have people from both sides of the aisle wanting to break them up, even if its for different reasons even if some of those reasons arent valid it looks like we have our first bipartisan issue in a while.

Swisher: Yeah the Republicans sort of wasted their time on the other stuff because it all is related to power. If they are upset about conservative bias, make room for other people to come in and let you rant somewhere else

Twice weekly, Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher host Pivot, a New York Magazine podcast about business, technology, and politics.

Galloway: The first pattern I recognized at the hearing and Im shocked that Twitter didnt run with it was that any kind of notion of your product being anti-American was generally from the white guy to the one brown guy. And I thought, Oh, that makes sense. And no one noticed it. And I thought, How come theyre not asking the white guy, Zuckerberg, about being anti-American or about not being American?

It also struck me that the Democrats actually read the label on the door that it was an antitrust hearing. And really, I would say two-thirds of the Republican questions were for an audience of one. And it struck me that we forget how much power [Trump] has within the GOP 70 percent of Republicans still support the president. So he can basically get you reelected or not I thought, All of these guys are playing to Fox! And [now] Im like, no theyre not. Theyre playing to one guy who watches Fox.

Ranking member Jim Sensenbrenner had the kind of comment that could come back to haunt him, when he started questioning Zuckerberg on the removal of Donald Trump Jr.s [tweet about] hydroxychloroquine. Mark Zuckerberg pointed out, Sir, that was Twitter. That was the kind of moment like, Okay, you dont know what youre talking about.

Swisher: The Republicans wasted this opportunity, which is in their interest. Among the committee members, who did you think had the best day?

Galloway: Oh, the rock star here was Representative Jayapal. She was substantive, strong, forceful, not taking any shit.

At the end of the day, there will really be two moments, from a legal perspective. The first was when Nadler was essentially able to get Facebook to acknowledge that it acquired Instagram in large part to put a competitor out of business, which youre not supposed to do.

The other I was speaking about with Tim Wu, who said that probably the moment that will come back to haunt Amazon is that [Bezos] acknowledged that it purposely priced Alexa products below cost. And youre not supposed to do that. Thats the equivalent of dumping. And they dont need to. Its not like theyve got to clear the inventory. Theyre just going for market share and doing it on a consistent basis by selling below cost.

Swisher: Jayapal also got Bezos to say, What I can tell you is we have a policy against selling specific user data to aid our private label business, but I cant guarantee you that policy hasnt been violated.

Galloway: My favorite point is that in the first 93 minutes, there were more questions to Jack Dorsey than Jeff Bezos. And Jack Dorsey wasnt a witness.

Swisher: Yeah. That was Jim Jordan again. Who do you think had the best and worst day?

Galloway: I think Tim Cook probably had the best day. One, because antitrust is the dullest sword as it relates to Apple. Its just not entirely clear how hed break them up. Theyre not as angry at them. I thought he got off easy. I thought they were going to go after Tim Cook for China. I believe that there are more Apple employees now in China than there are in the U.S. He did the best by virtue of omission, and people just didnt really go after him.

Who did second best, quite frankly, was Zuckerberg.

Swisher: Oh, Zuckerberg? Really? Not Pichai?

Galloway: Pichai was largely out of the way, but Zuckerberg, I felt you could register that this was Zuckerbergs third time at the circus.

Swisher: Yeah, he always gets better.

Galloway: He knows what hes good at. He knows how to do this now. Stall, and when appropriate push back. Hes not nearly as likable. But I thought, Wow, this guy has done this before, and its starting to show. And then Sundar. And I actually thought Bezos had a tougher time. I thought he made some unforced errors. And some of the stuff that came out is going to come back to [haunt] him.

Swisher: Bezos is in trouble with the marketplace. As much as retailers and other sellers need the Amazon platform, I dont think theyre scared. Theyre like, enough is enough with them stealing our shit.

Pivotis produced by Rebecca Sananes. Erica Anderson is the executive producer.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

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Is This the Beginning of the End of Big Tech As We Know It? - New York Magazine