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 Two billioners and two millioners run 4 of the biggest

 They are worth of one trillion dollars with the exception od FB. Amazon gonna reach 2 tr in
market capitalization
 Trilion: 1000 bilions

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These two billonaires and two wmillionaires run four of the world biggest companies. Amazon
founder J. Bezos, Sundar Pichai from Google’s parent company Alphabet, Facebook’s M. Zuckeberg
and T. Cook from Apple.

PART I Welcome to the trillion dollar club

They are worth over one trillion dollars each with exception of FB

Tomas S. is a professon of economics at Imperial College London. He says it’s crucial to understand
that this companies aren’t just big. They are really really big. Amazon is gonna soon reach two trillion
dollars in a market capitalisatiojn. So trillioin dollars. Trillion is one thousand billion. It’s a very large
number that many od us cant event understand what that means. Corona virus pandemics is
destroying millions of bissiuneses areound the world but not these ones. They’re even stronger.
Amazon, Apple and FB all reported record profits in the latest quarterly results for April May and
June. Alphabet turned over a b

The obligation is now on US lawmaykers that they testify before to determine wheather these
American companies used their size and power to exploit customers and crush competitors. So this
week we’re asking. Will America’s “Big Tech” companies be reined in?

During coronavirus time Amazon apple and FB all reported record profits for the sec quarter of 2020

The challenge to tame tech is that they operate in more than one line and are embedded in daily lives
and habits of billions of people. FB => WA, Inst / G => Gmail, chrome, Android, YT.

Google, Apple and Amazon are involved in financial services and video live streaming services They
depend on us to rely on them in order to become even bigger. To see them as necessities of daily life
as water or electricity

Common business model which is based on monetizing our attention through advertising. People
thing they get their goods for free but instead they are supplying their data which are very valuable
to target the same people ….

Antitrust committee investigate if tech are good for community and consumers. It investigates the
cut Amazon and Google take from vendors app developers.

Amazon create a market place where people can buy and sell products that is great. (do you know
how it works) But it also extract (wykorzystywać) a lot of that surplus (nadwyżka) on the selling side
those fees 30% + are very expensive.

Apple is still a producer of devices but when it comes to the apple store there is the feature where
they command similarly high fees for those who have gone through they own app store . (jak można
to powiedzieć łatwiej )
During his testimony Cook said that only subscription apps pay 30 % to apple in the first year then it
drops to 15%. He also said that of 1.7 milion apps in store only 16 are apple software. But don’t be
misled by that it still controls competition.

Apple is allowing on its platform Spotify but apple also runs applemusic. Apple is charging Spotify a
fee on revenues and instead apple is not charging itself the same amount it’s called self-preference.

Amazon is launching its own brands

So they are referees because they have created the market where people can meet and compete then
they start playing themselves. It’s difficult to be at the same time a referee and a player.

The committee is also investigating how big tech companies deal with competitive threats. They
certainly have the knowledge and skills to build and run businesses but it takes years.

They found out that a cheaper way is to hoover up the potential rival. They buy them. In last years
they had thousands acquisitions. We had zero prohibitions. They were all allowed to do so and none
of them was vetted ( to vet: To subject to thorough examination or evaluation:) by any enforces

If more of those cases have been referred to regulators that would have help those who now are
exploring the ways to curb the industry

Regulators are having problems dealing with these companies cause regulators are still led by lot of
lawyers and few economist. They have never understood the business model of these companies.

Big tech continue to grow leaving competitors with limited options if they want to survive

If you are a tech company now the best you can hope for is to create an app that will be incorporated
into either google ecosystem or FB ecosystem. That entrepreneur will become rich. But the society
will not benefit a lot because google and Facebook are already monopolist

Venture capital (to trzeba przetłumaczyć) which is a basis for founding the startups is avoiding the
areas which have been monopolized by google … That is worrying. If venture capital is not going
there. We have a problem.

The US has laws to stop … so why It hasn’t happened here.

PART 2: CAN YOU EVER BE TOO BIG

For years we have been concerned about the price. That is our proxy (…) She says the companies can
slip through legal gaps because the law is not design to cover the specifics of the tech industry. One
of the key bits of antitrust legislation ( ai =>what is it …) is more than 130 years old.

Sherman act It was passed in 1892 to tame accumulation of power of oil companies and
monopolisation to allow free competition. It made unlawfull two kinds of conduct: making
agreements among competitors and monopolisation. IN 1911 the Sherman Act was sucesfully used
against Standard oil => huge amount of power, 90 % of share in oli market and its hand in other fields
to. US SC compelled SB to be broken into 33 separate companies.

So can a company ever be too big in the eyes of US law?

But the size itself is not a feature that could make law enforcers impose constrains on the given
entrepreneurship.

So you can have 90%+ of the market and still not go against antitrust law.
I think it’s hard to imagine a company that would have a complete monopoly, who truly could be said
not to have done anything to protect it. But technically its true.

Sherman act also has another challenge when it comes to tech. .. They don’t charge money.

In 2001 there was a case where US court took another well-known tech business to court. And it
found that Microsoft monopolized market for operating system by tying their browser to it.

Tying happens when you take two produscts and force customers to buy them together. Mic.
Pushing its internet explorer meant that the independent one couldn’t be used. Mic was ordered to
share parts of its programing with third parties and the department of justice dropped its threat to
break the company up. However there was a win of sorts for the tehc industry. The court didn’t say
that the act of tying was anticompetitive in this case. There are several rules court uses to say it the
company have used what is so called per se violation wchich essentially menas a prove that it has
happened is enough for a business to be liable.

The court didn’t even go through these steps

So softer legal treatement for tech industry in order to allow industry to flourish. There was a
growing sense that a market was selfcorecting firms should be left alone to compete and sort things
out amongs themselves. Something future tech. companies will benefit from.

PART 3 everyone loves us

Tighter legislation might not be direct at the tech cause. The industry doubles up as a job club. In DC
if you are looking for a good job after government you start thinking well maybe I could work for
facebook .. That’s a good job. I can’t tell you how many former friends and colleagues I have from
government.

But… Could the tide be turning?

PART 4: republicans and democrats united.