🏛️ The four big-tech monopolies get broken up by the end of the decade

“And they will place Twitter in the hands of another company who they regard as culturally safer because that company buys into the regime of censorship. And it might be Disney, it might even be Google. ... I think that if Google were the company to step up, the administration would ultimately support that deal rather than Elon getting the company. And I think they would tell Lina Khan to stand down in that instance and let it go through.”

“We know that Big Tech can't do it because of Lina Kahn”

“not a single person who is capable of stepping up with $43 billion would ever get it through regulatory muster. Not going to happen in my opinion. And anybody with the $43 billion who could buy it will never take it on.”

“in Congress, they're pushing six bills forward to regulate these companies as monopolies. So they don't believe that they should be free to do whatever they want. They believe that they're monopolies. And indeed, many of them are monopolies.”

“Yeah, look, who should get regulated on antitrust grounds? Apple. You know, Apple is, and maybe Google. Why? Well, they're the big monopolists. I mean, they control the operating system. ... There are real antitrust concerns with those three companies, the Facebook way less so. And yet they get the brunt of the attacks.”

“One thing I'll say in defense of Facebook is I think that all of this anti-trust scrutiny is a little bit ridiculous today, and it looks pretty ridiculous. ... It seems that capitalism is pretty much working as intended because if you looked at Google's results, if you looked at Snap's results, at Pinterest's results, at Amazon's results, there is a vibrant and growing advertising ecosystem. By no means could you claim that Facebook has any real monopoly on that, number one. ... And so anybody that thinks that Facebook is a monopoly today, I think is a little misguided. ... And so trying to legislate them as a monopoly in that ecosystem is insane today.”

“I think this administration is creating tremendous business uncertainty. I think the reaction of a lot of big tech companies is going to be to stop doing M&A until the situation gets clarified because they just don't know. You know, targets or target companies are going to want to have huge breakup fees. And it's just going to have a chilling effect on the market for M&A.”

“In 2019, I wrote in my annual letter, there's a section called the tightening of the regulatory noose, meaning it was a framework for how to basically dismantle big tech. And element number one of that was a changing regulatory landscape. And it's really incredible to see it in front of our eyes. ... We got a bill that just left judiciary, right? That was effectively voted across the aisle. That's now going to go to the floor of the Senate ... So I think some version of that is going to pass. She's going to go and scrutinize these companies.”

“if it's not about consumer harm and it's about decreasing competition in this broadly, I would argue, subjective sense, then what's scary is that there are going to be decisions made by interpreters of what is and isn't competitive. And ultimately, if they're not trying to keep in mind the best interest of the consumer, then it is, in fact, going to cause consumer harm at some point. ... And so I would be nervous about that subjectivity and the slippery slope it enables.”

“And the capability of these businesses is rooted entirely on the fact that consumers are choosing to use their products and their services because they are so good. ... And so I don't feel like these guys are screwing people over.”

“They've held congressional hearings around taking away section 230 protection, which is very economically advantageous for these big tech companies. So they position the sword perfectly over the heads of these big tech companies, threatening to break them up and rein them in. ... I actually want the sword to come crashing. I actually want the sword to come down.”

“I generally think that companies like Google and Facebook and Amazon, unfortunately, do not allow the constructive form of capitalism that people want in today's society. They're just too big. ... So it's likely that we're going to move to a place that's a healthier outcome for everybody.”

“Huge. It's a huge priority. There's six bills that just got passed in the House and it's going to the Senate. And I do think this is one of the areas where you could actually get some bipartisan agreement in the Senate. ... So, you know, that says to me that legislation is likely. I think it's going to go through. I think we are going to see some big changes. ... But that does not mean that the argument against Amazon, Google and Apple isn't strong. Those companies are clearly monopolies or duopolies in their spaces. Nobody can effectively compete with them.”

“So I just feel like there's a bit of a cycle underway where we have this kind of anti wealth, anti wealth accumulation sentiment as an undercurrent right now, you know, obviously, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and others are key vocal proponents of change that's needed to keep this kind of wealth disparity from continuing to grow. And one of the solutions is to reduce the monopolistic capacity of certain business models, specifically in technology.”

“And my only advice to her, I wrote this in 2019 in my investor letter as well, just thinking about the breakdown of big tech. If you're going to go after these guys, that's the body of law that probably is the most defensible. But you probably have to start, you know, whether you like it or not with Facebook or Google.”

“And I think what we're in for over the next few years is potentially a hyper politicization of big tech markets. I think these 21 Republicans might soon feel like the dog who caught the bumper in the sense that, yes, they're finally going to have the regulation of big tech they've been calling for, but they might not like all of the results because what could happen is a very intrusive meddling by government in the markets of technology, and it could go well beyond sort of this gatekeeper principle that we've been talking about that I think would be a valid reason to regulate.”

“She seems to want Amazon Web Services spun out, which I think would just double the value of it, or maybe at 50% of the value of it.”

“I'll go out on a limb and say we're in the August of their supremacy. And again, I would just say, David, if on the one hand, it's a whack-a-mole problem with governments on taxation and regulation, and on the other hand, you have a way where you can have distributed social currency and value, wow, I mean, these big tech companies are getting bombarded on every single side.”

“Yeah, this is another major sledgehammer to globalization. ... And now instead of having one Internet for the whole world, it's fragmenting into a bunch of different Internets governed by local laws. ... And I think the question for all these companies is going to be where they decide they're willing to play.”

“But I think these forces are going to come together. And I agree with Chamath. I think, I don't know exactly when, but I think these companies are going to get broken up and knocked down because they are too powerful.”

“It was unbelievably impressive, but we have four enormous monopolies on our hands. If I was a betting man, end of decade, these four monopolies will not exist.”

“I am going to strongly disagree with Chamath, okay? I have not disagreed with Chamath this strongly since we've done the podcast. ... Facebook and Google in particular run an auction model. They are a marketplace business. ... That is why this is not a monopolistic approach to pricing.”