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

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

#141

Post by beambot »

This feels a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face...

Unlike Microsoft's antitrust case of the 90s, Google seems much less anti-competitive by nature. Sure, they have unprecedented scale in search... but even that hegemony is being threatened by others in AI.

If anything, going after Google with a DoJ kludgel will cause a servere freeze on startup M&A across all of FAANG. With IPO windows (mostly) closed, this removes the biggest exit dynamic the startup ecosystem has at its disposal. This is not a good thing from my perspective, and would seem counter to YC's interests.

Someone steelman this for me...?

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

#142

Post by [deleted] »

aoeusnth1 wrote: post #136
lolinder wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which market are you talking about specifically? The outstanding cases against them are in search and in adtech. This amicus brief is for the Search case (this one [0]). In search (the relevant market here), Microsoft does compete in the marketplace, and Microsoft's evidence that Google's anticompetitive practices have prevented them from gaining any meaningful ground in search were a keystone of the government's cas…

That argument might make sense if Bing was as good, but Bing is worse. Wasting money building a bad product does not entitle you to market share.

[deleted]

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

#143

Post by r0m4n0 »

As others have pointed out, YC is definitely trying to get some of that Google money. Another important aspect that benefits YC is a turn of events that would improve the talent pool. Google retains tens of thousands of software engineers, I’d argue maybe the biggest reserve in existence. It’s the largest population of experienced engineers that won’t leave because the money and circumstances are too good. Startups would benefit if these circumstances changed

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

#144

Post by ayewo »

xyzzy9563 wrote: post #47
chpatrick wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do basic research without being monopolistic.

There are many other search engine options, why should Google be punished for hiring the best people over decades to make the best one? Many consumers also switch their search to Google when presented with other options or defaults.

> There are many other search engine options, why should Google be punished for hiring the best people over decades to make the best one?

I’m guessing this whole court case wouldn’t have been a thing if Google wasn’t bribing Apple, to the tune of $20 billion a year [1], to remain the default search engine on iOS.

1: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/apple-may-add-ai-search-...

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

#146

Post by redczar »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #76

Meanwhile, YC has happily and excitedly fed it's start-ups to Google over the years. So pretty much "We don't want google to develop new things, we want them to have buy those from us"

Can YC prevent startups from selling to Google? Even if they could why should they? There is nothing wrong with believing Google abuses its monopoly and selling to Google.

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

#147

Post by cryptonector »

throwanem wrote: post #43
darth_avocado wrote: post #6

So they want Google’s datasets and search index to be available for other companies and want to prevent Google from being a dominant player in AI based search. 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 wha…

People act in furtherance of their interests, yes. Was there more you had meant to say?

"People act in furtherance of their interests, yes" [by invoking the power of the State].

There, FTFY. It was implied, was it not?

Perhaps that is what should happen here, but let's not quibble about it.

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

#148

Post by ctvo »

derektank wrote: post #124
chpatrick wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do basic research without being monopolistic.

Yet empirically, the biggest funders of basic research have historically been monopolies. The US government was, at least up until the last few months, the largest funder of basic research globally and it obviously maintains multiple different monopolies, a monopoly on legal use of force, a functional monopoly on financial transactions as the global reserve currency, and I'm sure others. Excluding national government…

The biggest funders of basic research are those with the most resources. This is your insight? I don't think anyone disagrees. Then you conflate correlation with causation and move it to _monopolies_ fund basic research. Bravo.

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

#149

Post by mtillman »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #107
callc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You certainly have a point. Places like google and bell labs have pushed innovation, apparently enabled by monopolies. I would rather we don’t allow monopolies since they are so bad for society, regardless of some benefits. Government funded research and private investment are still a thing, that doesn’t try to break the whole capitalism thing.

My first thought was Bell Labs here. The lack of time pressure for research results sounds like a big reason why so much innovation happened—people could pursue projects that may not have immediately benefitted the company's bottom line, because Bell had money to throw. I think UNIX was an example of this, because MULTICS was a failure and Bell was wary of similar projects, but I might be wrong.

According to Kernighan in UNIX: A History and a Memoir, the Unix team was constrained with regards to hardware capital at the time of Unix's creation. The Multics team got to use a fancy GE-645 (36-bits!) while the Unix team had to beg for "cheaper" systems like the PDP-7 and eventually an 11. Thompson has a great quote about how ultimately he was thankful they didn't have as much money to play with as the Multics team did but at the time he was annoyed he had to beg for a PDP-11. Fun book!

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

#150

Post by surajrmal »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #86
xyzzy9563 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many other search engine options, why should Google be punished for hiring the best people over decades to make the best one? Many consumers also switch their search to Google when presented with other options or defaults.

Because the data they possess is the monopoly, they have better search results because it is too expensive for competitors to gather the data at this point as(I also think people who are unfamiliar with finance do not understand the quantum, Meta has a similar type of business but was under huge pressure with investing tens of billions into VR...it would cost hundreds of billions to get parity with Google, there is n…

It's incredibly naive to think Google's continuous growth is automatic. It happened because of all the work the employees do, not in spite of it. Are there employees who don't contribute? Sure. But that's different from only 100 contributing to positive growth.
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