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Cause of media, welcome to Better off line. We ve in beautiful new york city. I am your host. Exit tron, of course.
And I joined to that by z vy change. She's professor of law at ford of law school and the author of break up, recovering our freedom from big hg, big tech and big money. Thank for thank you so much for being.
Thanks for having me.
So let's talk corruption. So you've talked a great deal about corruption, but what does that mean in the business and economic sense? Yeah.
I mean, corruption is this idea that comes from the latter. You know, the rapt rupture break apart. And a corruption is breaking apart from within. So it's internal disintegration and that's this. I mention that because, uh, and the deep roots of the language, because questions of corruption have been central to economic and political thinking for thousands of years. So one way to start thinking about corruption, if if you don't mind, is to think about aristotle okay right um um because I excelling quite drawn to aristotles understanding of corruption and I think it's a kind of man on the street change of .
corruption as well .
yeah it's the idea that those with governing power use that governing power to serve themselves instead of the public. So in aristotle classic formulation, he talked about the difference between a monarch and a tiant no is both are rule by a single entity. The difference is the monarch serves the public and the tyre serves himself air shatters. Other two formulations were then um the rule by an elite few I hate to say a rule by in the elite few is either an aristocracy an elite few governing for the public or in all the guardy elite few governing for themselves and then finally the the the the the the mass version of this a little more controversial, especially modern translation was um you know the idea of of Apollo or mass rule and often IT was described as democracy other words, people using the public power for themselves. But the key here is that he saw the corrupted version as being about how you use your power right, to sort of core internal motivation, Frankly.
And so i'm gona guess that that's how you're looking at tack at the moment just because IT, to be clear, I fully agree IT feels like I talk good that stole a few episodes and he kind of said this thing around authoritarians, a new authority ism and you've made this point too. So do you think .
and and I I think it's just before we get into this, it's important to just then, in very SHE experience, thirty seconds way, this fight about what is corruption, what isn't then has become a two thousand your fight. So hobs, for instance, thought that area shot was crazy on this. He's like yet people are always going to be selfish.
And that's that's a flat version of hobs. But there's it's actually a fight about human nature and what's possible with human nature on the one hand, but he is also a fight about where public power is versus your private life because edis isn't not saying in that formulation or understanding of corruption that in your private life you can't seek out yourself. He's saying there's something uniquely dangerous and destructive to a public when the governing power is self serving.
So when this when this as applied to the modern um the the modern big tech big egg questions that the underlying theosophical question is this a governing power? And if it's governing, that's really problematic because it's set up to be selfish, right? That's the nature of of modern business. So the selfishness isn't the problem. The governing this is that make sense?
Yes, because that and that's kind of and that's kind of the bothersome thing about this because you've got so many in our police other, yes. So one I like to choose the most people are not. People are kind of dances around.
This one is the cloud empire. You got google, amazon, microsoft, oracle to an extent, though for different reasons. And they are the ones that set the terms of how the internet is built out.
Recommend cdn to an extent. But you can't what can you even do about something like that? Is, is that cloud empire bad or good? It's kind of hard to tell. But the thing they definitely have is power unchecked?
Yeah, I love your language of term setting yes and it's not always obvious right but that um if you think of a of a garment, you know what what a governing entity does if you think of governing not enough flat formal sense like are you elected or not but who actually has the the question for whether something is governing? I think one way to ask that question is is doesn't have the power to set terms right?
Yeah and which is effectively a tech industry. Every big player, A, B, nb. Sets the terms for vacations. Uh the cloud emperor's said the terms for how cloud storage monotoned and indeed sold and how indeed our electric greatest built out now is the case maybe I mean, even mask with tesler and I have many thoughts about that man kind of sets the terms of how charging works now like they have the standard now, even though he's a mess and even then when he fired most of the supercharge team, it's like, oh, this isn't just about tesla. This is now the entirety of amErica is being wet down. But what do you do about that? Like how you do, what can I mean, what you and I can do might be someone limited, but what can society do with this kind?
Well, you know, let's start with where we did start on corruption, language of corruption. If we think about term settle by selfish actors as a problem in the political rmp before we then apply IT to the ground, we may not think of this political but this clearly political to um there's a series of of strategies for either um removing that term setting power right or having .
public .
regulation. So even if they're term setting, the terms are fundamentally set by the public right. And so the classic american strategy was to have diverse sources of competing power in a presidency and IT.
I'm congress, right? yeah. So that's a break come up model. And you know you would it's not just elections, but it's actually about providing different sources of competitive power at the a local and federal level local.
local and you say I never missed when you say competitive power, is that so local and federal government stuff is that just is that is elections part of these are these like what are the different mechanisms that that help break them up in the governmental and yeah.
it's all of the above. So right. So if you have we can be a little glib about just comparing uh you know presidential systems to parliamentary.
That's one source of difference, but it's not the only source of difference. It's cantons versus not cantons, right? So so what is to say is not that there's a ideal vision, I don't think there is um but that genuinely separating sources of power.
So there are some public contestation, I think of IT both as a federal and across federal and across state branches is being important. That's one mechanical. It's not the only mechanical there.
At least options and means in which people will be cycled out and ideas will be cycled in.
And then in the election sphere were very worried, as we should be, about arenas where there's no competitive elections. Somewhat scary yeah is is very scary. And the lockout of of the opportunity for new ideas or for leverage on a grass roots level.
You I think of IT often if there's nobody you could turn to if the the water smells bad in the morning, uh and your elected officials are not doing that, there is a problem like you want, doesn't an you going to win but at least you have some access to just right right. So so then when you apply that um that break up or devastator model to companies, you can see similar visions, right? So what what I mean to say is that there's plural ways to do break up and and that's one of the things that the electoral or political world can inform, how that they can inform thinking about break up. But but it's not the only way to break up power.
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So what are someone's who we're not doing yet then because he feels at times like the only thing there is, is just anti trust. And thanks a little bragin. That's not been awake for a while.
Yeah, it's kind of waking up. Yeah, it's making noises. What are the other mechanisms what I mean that we could even create.
right? Well, so uh there when I sort of think about and time and also and I know if you've talked to match before, but you think of anti monopoly as anti concentrated private governing power, you know the tyranny of private governing power and anti trust is one part of that are in the united states. The the first um real sixth century anti monopoly movement was actually around non discrimination principles OK.
Um so uh inter state commerce act h which came out of the farmers coming together saying down with monopoly, the first thing they asked for was open access. Basically what we might think it's open access on on the same terms, non on discrimination, right? You have the access to whether it's a grain elevator or or a train to not have difference, rentier treatment. And so IT is a key way to break up power. You may not think non discrimination equals breaking up power.
But no, IT makes sense. Because I was just talking with cry doctor of about yes. And he had suggested that one of the main things is the government forcing interpretations between platforms.
Everyone has to have the same standard. So you can look at post from twitter ex threads. And i'm not even talking about the fed of us necessarily, just open standards.
Why do well, I mean, is there a reason why these things just don't happen is that, that they are not being pushed? Is that the lobbying is powerful? Like is that all of .
the above right is IT um that the ability to discriminate between counterparties is extremely valuable, right? right? yes.
And especially true if you have an open power right, right, right. So um i'm laughing because i'm just trying to think of the right point of intervention. So maybe going to history again is useful. So we see the eighty nineties and this first the first effort is and always claiming first is difficult. It's all jumbled together.
History mess.
History is a mess. There's because there's i'm going to do my own little segway even within corporate charters that were anian apply provisions in the nineteen century, really, but basically rules. That said, you can only engage in this certain line of business, right? The government will only grant you a corporate charter and all the privileges that accompany that the .
company in .
as so long as you stay within the line of business for which you applied to the charter.
Does that make why don't they do that anymore?
Well, in i'm going to get my dates wrong that the gesture right late nineteenth, early twenty century, actually clear earlier there was a real effort to engage in I I appreciate the question and i'm being the academic worried about sort about people get badly for .
getting things right.
So I don't worry. Yeah, yes yeah no I I want to put the astrid s there for the the corporate law historians. We're listening but there were um you know that they're really interesting. There was a move towards free incorporation. Anybody should be able to incorporate as an outside corruption move.
which kind of makes I can understand the and then there's because .
the ideas of you can only get a corporate charter if your friends with somebody that's a pretty corrupt system, right?
So well. But now they've moved .
on to other ways, exactly. And then the other part was an effort to expand what all corporate charters have sense become, which is you you got a charter to do whatever is legal in the state, right? right? That's now. Now what a corporate charter is. This is a long digression to say that anytime monopoly impulses have showed up in a lot of different areas of law, right, not just in federal, the anti trust in railroad law.
So interesting because IT IT almost feels like because I I mean fairly blaming around a reagon, but feel like we can all do IT every day. But IT feels as if it's just been a slow bleed for like hundreds of years where we just the ramifications of decisions at the time that probably make perfect sense because the time corporate charters were very limited, that wasn't much commerce.
So or at least more limited commas, IT almost feels like we need to bring that back. Because an episode I just write recently, even I was thinking about salesforce sales sales force, one of my least favorite companies. And if you ask salesforce, does that is a very long answer, because they do C R M, they do data lakes, they do A I, they do chap POS, they do different kinds of chap, but they have all of these things, and they do IT by vacuum up these companies.
They eat them alive. And then, and now they do IT much like microsoft as a means of making sure you don't buy another product because we've got everything here like a buffet. Can we stop that? Like how do we stop these? Actually, almost, that feels as if acquisitions are the first place to start to make IT much harder.
Well, so stopping, we were talking about different elements of entire us are very time an open. So one element is a non discrimination rules and that doesn't mean that every industry should be subject to radical non discrimination rules in all cases but that if there are industries that um the ability to discriminate between counterparties is going to allow for exploitation and extraction and shutting down of new entrance, that non discrimination is really important here right um anti trust and also very important and the first step in anti trust is not allowing bad as the american system has set up is not allowing is not allowing mergers. Now i'm notice familiar with the sales force corporate structure, but I gather that one of the things you're talking about is the way in which one we've been quite lax until recently on merger policy, yes. But we also haven't until very recently until kanter and cons recent merger proposals, we've had this highly formal understanding of where threats lie.
when we seen threats, before we see threats.
primarily with horizontal acquisitions. I'm a shoot company buying another shoot company second darling with between vertical integration, I am a shoe company .
buying a shoe less so mi and .
but the the conglomerate merger, the merger in a Jason agency, in a Jason institutions has sort been assumed to be all that's not a threat because it's not about dominating the dominating either that vertical or that horizontal.
And what one of the interesting buried parts, the merger guidelines, which I think is really important, is a recognition that and I forget the exact language, maybe counter to set this in a speech, but these don't fit anymore. Yes, right. Like when when amazon's buying whole foods, well, maybe they're using the data of the whole foods customers to create a mote somewhere else.
Well, it's just IT almost feels like we need to start asking them, why do you need this so bad and make them justify and not be totally open to IT. Because if I don't even know why they bought IT the data for sure, because whatever. But also it's another way of conquering .
another commerce to go. Now I think there are so much me, I think there is so much that we miss psychologically as well as economically when we think about merges as if everybody's just rational yeah yeah ah he's also a lot of boys playing risk too.
I know I fully agree because there's a lot of you. One of my prevAiling theories with tech right now is that everyone says, well, open a eyes, for example. Yeah, they're going to work IT out.
He is really spots like, what if he isn't? What if they don't have any idea? What if they just doing this salesforce great example? They just bought a digital storage company and it's not really obvious why.
But you know, they're gonna work IT out. I guess I saw a piece in the information I go benefits out IT back. It's like what is he got? What is going on and IT almost the .
more capital law shing around, actually, the less likely that we should think that all these decisions are ready.
And and on top of that, we've got IT. There's a very irrational feeling to the economy that said a lot about yeah.
that's really interesting .
because a lot of these companies will spend like thirty billion dollars. K i'm being a little ten billion dollars to make three hundred million. And I guess that you can't really stop like maybe you don't stop that, but at some point you have to wonder if that symptom of these big, ungainly, monstrous companies that they just the companies that do everything and just doing nothing.
Well, there is this interesting and rinds me of this research. I wish I could find IT around the urge to merge. Have you heard about? No, no, no. I think this is older research.
But somebody put together a bunch of grad students and compared them to a CEO like what you do this merger and and those who already had power just get really just get rabbit. They get rabbit right and denied that there's a power hungry inness. Yes, is just annoying. Like do we not learn anything from thousands of years of love, literature and history?
They want to own more. And I think that like elon musk is want to choose as well because as we speak, we just on the the day after the robot taxi event, I thought I was illegal to make stuff up when you are public company. But I guess you on nusa, a special rules.
But that actually kind of brings me to a point, what do you do with people like mask who the evil? And they're very clearly corrupt in some way, but they not really breaking a law. How do you moderate the power of someone like you on must? Outside of an anti trust? Santi trust has done nothing like ssc could barely touch him. What how do we start bringing these people back down to worth?
wow. Well, and I trust this part of IT, right? Uh, campaign finances part of IT. And there are I maybe I am answering too globally, but there isn't a single answer.
I know that there isn't one. If there was, I assume someone would have done IT. I mean there is .
is but that's not legal. And and and then there are industry specific abuses and chAllenges. But it's not know just because you and I interested in and time an Opera law or um you know what the ftc could do tomorrow doesn't mean that there aren't real chAllenges with specific industries that are unique, unique born policy chAllenges with starting right uh, unique policy levers too, that could be used with some areas of .
maybe he should have national security clearance. That's a good right. But IT, I think he comes back to that thing you were saying though it's the IT almost.
This feels as if the media kind of definitely the government doesn't look at these things and say, oh, they are accumulating power. They're like, oh, they are just accumulating markets and you know, that's okay. Still bad, but like they're fine with IT. And IT feels like we actually really have to stop getting like there must be new legislation to stop that or maybe just is as simple as what if we stopped companies getting so big? What if we just pinning them down a bit and distinct .
tivy that specifically, well, there is clearly a problem of gross power. yes. And there have been various efforts in the past to say, well, we should just limit gross power, not simply I think this is what you're getting at abuse of gross power, right? Yeah um and um the senator who has a famous senate office building at heart named after him, was actually advocate of this in the seventies you know, really concerned about the mere accumulation of power. I don't want to pull that, but I also don't want to to suggest that we've reached the limit of what we can do with existing tools. I mean, we still have an underfunded ftc funded D O J, and we have whole series of other agencies that just start using their power right now.
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Actually that's a good like the E P A and the fda. I'm not an expert in either ah, but IT feels like they are a they are potentially avenues in which we could start going after data, we could start making stands of consumer data or, I don't know, standard of care for the cloud companies. But also I think that we have when you talk about the the governing systems, we have a real problem with silicon valley, for example, that isn't discussed much and it's the old boy's network. It's the fact that if you want to grow beyond a certain scale, IT must come from zoia katu and Jason tiger and possible point the .
club and we and everybody knows that is and they fund .
based on accumulation of power uh, the character to A I was funded by Andrews and horror ds. That company doesn't make money at all. And on top of that, they got reacquired by google.
They were made to be acquired. They won't made to be real companies. And IT almost feels as if we need to reevaluate how finance happens at the private stage as well because I would love to know .
more rather that because I just I only have an impressionistic sense of that being true. But when you say that what IT is.
is so character to a so it's found, but I will non chaz, i'm going to mess up his name, someone to leave me um he was one of the original people who rote the transformer paper that underpinned most generate AI. He made this company, which was a chatbot company. You could talk to animate characters or I think hia, it's not a great company at all.
It's a pretty bad one actually. They got absorbed in to google. The company still exist, but all of the people work at google now, two and a half billion dollars.
And the problem is that I think that there are literary problems with that is that the limited partners who fund V, C. Don't really give a ative. They're good or not.
They give vitiates. There's a return if they can get that. And as a result, the way that venture capital allocated is predominantly not is the biggest lion silicon valley by far is the startups get the majority of money.
No, the majority of money in startup s goes late stage. The minority goes the early stage, which is insane based on what most people assume. And IT feels the and I I don't know how you start fixing this, but if you think about from how you describing corruption, IT really is these governing systems that are allowed to exist. And I think it's .
really it's really interesting. And so when you're talking about the motivation of this of this club, you think it's about power, right? And what kind of power? So just give an example of a kind of power that you might seek that doesn't actually lead to great returns.
I mean, pretty much every investment in OpenAI OpenAI is a company that bleeds more than five billion dollars a year. They will in twenty twenty four, the bleep more next year, investing in them for a thereat al return is what I think most of them doing. But I think a lots of them are doing this so that they have a peace.
They have something stuck into what they believe a power center is. It's the show off to everyone that they've still got IT, that they're able to get into big deals as a means of getting into other big deals. Are we were good enough to get a quarter billion dollars into OpenAI, now we can get into other deals.
Whistle seen is the hot thing, perhaps that is actually a return of sorts and that is a marketing effort. But I just I refused to believe all of that money is just there just for returns. I think a lot of IT might be there.
And to be fair, I mean, power eventually leads to return. Yes, it's done nessy the short term return.
But IT also gets back to our talk about about illogical thinking, because these people like the other thing, and I get in a lot of arguments about this OpenAI am so went out this week and people have really pissed at mix. They say, well, they're work IT out.
I want to find those a great examples. You know, the armies that marched in the wrong direction for two weeks.
And I just think of the sleep and planet was the smartest thing at the time of world war one. But IT went the wrong way and IT code to inward, and then they lost, probably for the bear. I think, think we can all agree the cause, but nevertheless.
but that those in power actually, I mean that there is a very deep point here, which is not only that, a lot of people are people who will make your decision because they are human, but that there are particular pathologies that actually come along with the accumulation of power. And speaking of psyche search, there's some, I think they're ki california researchers who argue that accumulation of power is as bad as getting a poll stuck through your head in terms of the impact IT has on your on your ability to process certain kinds of information.
I I like that because he is funny, watching people get super rich. And did IT look at yellow musk? I'm not saying he was a great guy before.
but it's but there's a theory that pathological people gain power and there may be some truth to that. But but I think it's really important recognized what accumulation power actually does to somebody IT makes them less likely to be able to accurately guess the emotions of those who .
are speaking with them, okay.
right, which you can imagine .
and you're probably seen IT .
makes them less likely to observe personal boundaries, more likely to eat like cookie monster with the chromes falling all over their chest, right? So you actually are starting to mess out on a lot of subbed cues that are the Better part of the gathering of information. And I don't .
know what impact, but I am if you look at silicon valley, which is now dominated by a few VC. And sqa used to be pretty good. They invested in F, T, X.
They invested in OpenAI. They actually think, go on the latest OpenAI think. But mark three sons S A great example. So from what i've heard, mckendry son in the eighties was a decent enough guy, was like a regular file.
Now, as of two years ago, he reads comprehensive biography of hitler and funds and claims that people like nick land are the patron. Sense of technical optimism it's it's almost as if the more power he gets, the more brain damage he receives. Yeah and it's but when you think of this in the roms of silicon valley, how harmful this is.
If most of the big checks come from a certain few who have accumulated so much power, most of those big checks are going to late stage companies. It's going to reinforce the same thing. We are not going to innovate much further because the money is going to the same guys from the same guys in the same way, in the same.
Sam altman is great example. This man has been fired from three companies, including open eye. He has duns like some of the stuff about sister is truly greatly as well.
But on top of that, he's a liar. He lies regular and he's also not technical. He doesn't know what he's talking about.
But I think as he this actually kind of funny think about as you watch samon over the years, he gets even dmca. The I hate is that phrases in general, but it's, he's worth billions. But with him, he sounds, sila, the more stuff he says, the more out of racket gets reality, and the more .
just really do. Yeah, right. And so, you know, the people are gonna ridiculous in the world, and our job as a society is to make sure that they don't accumulate governing power, right?
That our job, yeah right. Because the people who are going na be genuinely and who are being genuinely hurt are those who I just use the example from. This week in new york, a great bloomberg story investigating how uber and left drivers are now randomly locked out.
Yes, of uber and left, just locked out. You're going to work. You're an hour into your shift.
You go to the bathroom. Yeah, you looked out so you don't become a full time. Is IT the practice ation .
full time employment? They just get access the APP.
Why are looking around them?
Because they're trying to do a run around around a new york city law that says if cabbies are empty over a certain number of hours, then they have to increase their per mile rate. How does that makes sense? yes. And so they're saying, well, when they're locked out.
they're not an empty cab.
They are not a cab at all.
This is a dumb question, and we can wrap off after this one. But why does no one ever think of this? IT feels like they make these very interesting and useful laws. And then they like, ah they won't work IT out, but they always do. What is IT just a limit of what what you look maybe can speak to this?
Is IT just the limitation of what you can get passed? Or is IT just you can't think of everything? Or is IT just hard to get that down in paper when you're facing off against multimillion dollar law?
I I think they're in a lot, but that doesn't mean it's a perfectly air tight law. And and this is a no, I actually think it's a big deals will say I think that there is a societal failure to date to recognize the risk to workers of how big data can be used aren't individually exploit. Yes.
absolutely.
And this is a major deal for labor, not just for jig work, although it's the clearest and gave work and that we should more comprehensively think about this and get out ahead of IT. Basically, if you can ban fracking before IT comes to new york, it's a lot easy. Then after.
it's already yes. So and IT almost what we need to just stop by classifying this stuff. We should we don't know what these companies have. We don't know how I all, we don't know what they are.
But but this is a really important point because when we talk about power, we talk about governing power, we are in a new era of a kind of new governing power, right? Like the the, the mere friction that I just couldn't collect data on, what baseball team you like, you know, how long you sit on a now that looks like some limit, and what I used to be able to know about you.
But there was just lots of informational great freeing informational gaps yes. And that means that even if I had certain amount of market power, maybe non an opposite stic market power, um uh there only there were limits and how much I could um as an employer or somebody interacting with you exploit you, there's still our limits. But the need for anti trust, the need for non discrimination laws, the need for stopping mergers, you know so much greater now than IT was thirty years ago because of. It's a game changer in terms of how power can be used to exploit and then to build more power.
So to wrap this up, I know that we have been quite negative and the show can at times we look a little bit of a downer perhaps what what should give people hope right now.
So I I think there's a lot OK. Basically, I think that we you split the hemispheres of our brain apart in nineteen and the nine hundred and seventies and decided that politics was in one arena and economics was in another, again, defying all of human history, right? And we may not have all the solutions right now, but the the spears of the brain have rejoined.
So you think this is like.
I do think people and awaken ing. I think there's a deeper awakening and a deep I don't know that you need wakening on the ground but an elite there's been a transformation and talking about how anti trust relates to politics and is .
a consciousness of of the of the problem with this kind of power .
yeah so instead of just sort of imagining it's possible to cabin economic power and not have IT believed into political power or vice, I don't think that's credible anymore. And I think that the sort of the final below to that way of thinking, it'll still exist. They're still trying to come back. Um but was the was copied um the supply chain disruption and Price hikes because basically the promise from the seventies on was let's just separate all economic and power thinking and we've promised low Prices and we have not .
had those and we .
have not had those. So you know that the internet me, you had one job, they had one job and they're already failed in the crash of two thousand and eight. But after after code, that failure is complete.
So I just think there's a totally different way of thinking about power and economics, and that's exciting. What a chair khan and the ftc has been doing. I mean, they don't stop every day.
Yes, IT.
it's real. It's understanding that that governing power held in a public entity can be innovative and exciting and engage and enforce the law. curious. So that's also changing a really deep paradise we've had for thirty years, which is all innovation comes from, you know, the people that mark and recent plans, right? And look, I really want a lot more innovation in the private.
I I would love there to be more cool stuff and Better things. I would love for A I not to be destructive and actually help people here. And I and I guess like like maybe some things could change to actually make that possible.
Well, we but for A I in particular, I mean, a lot of these these world views are are sort of, this is epic struggle inside the A I face, right? It's a we need to understand AI as a power problem, sure, right? And not just not just .
as a business one. Thank you so much for joining me. Be such a pleasure to you.
Like why?
Thanks for having me on. You've been listened to Better off line. You can find me on the message that will play immediately after this. Thank you so much for listening.
Thank you for listening to battle offline.
The editor um composer of the Better offline theme song is matter sales y you can check out more of his music and audio projects a meta sales key dot com M A T T O S O W S K I dot com, you can email me are easy at Better off line 点 com or visit Better off line 点 com to find more pocket links and of course my news letter。 I also really recommend you go to chat that with your ed or at to visit the discord and go to ask lash betroth line to check out our read IT. Thank you so much for listening.
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