US vs. Google amicus curiae brief of Y Combinator in support of plaintiffs [pdf]

> "Our experience has been that entrenched monopoly power often deters new entry and chills investment in disruptive innovation."

> "independent venture-capital firms like YC often hesitate to fund startups in the “kill zone” —the area of deadened innovation around a monopolist like Google."

> "We agree with Plaintiffs' proposal that the remedy package should create pathways for startups and innovators to access Google's monopoly-derived datasets and search index."

> "The remedy order should also prevent Google from entering into exclusive agreements to access AI training data..."

> "An effective remedy package should help to leverage the current moment by ensuring that next-generation search and query-based AI tools can reach users free from exclusion, interference, or cooption."

> "the remedy package should prevent Google from anticompetitive self-preferencing, and this prohibition should apply specifically to Google's use of its monopoly search product to boost its query-based AI tools or discriminate against rivals' tools."

I think they have a good point with AI. After lagging behind initially, Google really went at it hard. Gemini is great now, and they are building a good set of tooling.

It's easy for Google to suffocate the startups in that area. They already have a massive advantage with all the data they are sitting on.

I wonder why a VC firm who is quite heavily invested in AI based startups file an amicus brief like that…

Edit: before this gets downvoted into oblivion, the comment is not against antitrust enforcement. It’s about VC firms having very specific ideas about what the antitrust enforcement would look like.

Google and the rest of big tech are like the Jupiter of the tech world. It clears the orbit of anything else that could form.

Big tech is so big that it can jump into new markets with ease, kill incumbents, snuff out new players, and perpetually tax non-innovation.

We're twenty years behind on antitrust and breakups. It's time we had a forest fire to make way for new growth.