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Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

pluralistic.net

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#21

Post by diego_moita »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

“Competition is for losers” - A talk from Peter Thiel hosted by Y combinator ( https://youtu.be/3Fx5Q8xGU8k?si=3anUMopHSJ4nKk2R ) Timestamp 13:50: “If you’re a startup, and you want to get to a monopoly, start with a really small market and you take over that whole market and then you find ways to expand that market in concentric circles” Last I checked Zuckerberg is doing precisely what Thiel taught him to and has d…

That is also one of his core arguments on his book "Zero to One".

To be fair, he is not the only one to think like that. Every "captain of industry" needs to be paranoid against competition. It is a basic survival instinct. Just look how much Steve Jobs freaked out about Android and Windows. Or how Alfred Sloan bought or merged every possible competitor. Or the history of Nabisco, the steel industry, Microsoft, AT&T, etc

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#23

Post by diego_moita »

ceejayoz wrote: post #17
3np wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's gonna have to offer up the naming off his child at minimum.

That’s more Musk’s thing.

It is a joke with a reference.

Famously, when Zucka was desperate to enter the China market he met with Xi Jiping at a dinner and asked him to chose a name for his child. In Chinese tradition that is a great honor reserved only for grandparents.

Xi famously declined and Facebook never set foot in China.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#24

Post by bflesch »

3np wrote: post #10
fifticon wrote: post #3

he will probably have to buy trump a yacht to get out of this one.

I think he's gonna have to offer up the naming off his child at minimum.

zuck already offered naming of his child to Xi Jinping and he was refused

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#25

Post by starspangled »

ceejayoz wrote: post #17
3np wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's gonna have to offer up the naming off his child at minimum.

That’s more Musk’s thing.

Really? Musk has offered naming rights of his offspring or personal gain on more than one occasion?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#26

Post by arcticfox »

This article would have been much better if it was at least a bit more direct. At the most crucial juncture, instead of including Zuck's own words, the author wrote the author's interpretation of his words and then an analogy.

> At this point, Zuck's CFO – one of the adults in the room, attempting to keep the boy king from tripping over his own dick – wrote to Zuck warning him that it was illegal to buy Insta in order to "neutralize a potential competitor."

> Zuck replied that he was, indeed, solely contemplating buying Insta in order to neutralize a potential competitor. It's like this guy kept picking up his dictaphone, hitting "record," and barking, "Hey Bob, I am in receipt of your memo of the 25th, regarding the potential killing of Fred. You raise some interesting points, but I wanted to reiterate that this killing is to be a murder, and it must be as premeditated as possible. Yours very truly, Zuck."

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#27

Post by deeThrow94 »

tlb wrote: post #16
badgersnake wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you’re saying the only way Y combinator makes money is when it’s illegal. So let’s RICO them then I guess.

By itself, becoming a monopoly can be legal & ethical. But once you have a monopoly, you're not allowed to do certain things like buying competitors for the purpose of crushing them.

I think the ethics of private enterprise is far from sorted long, long before getting to market-manipulation. Particularly in the US, where you're essentially obligated to take peoples' money at any cost.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#29

Post by Vespasian »

diego_moita wrote: post #21
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

“Competition is for losers” - A talk from Peter Thiel hosted by Y combinator ( https://youtu.be/3Fx5Q8xGU8k?si=3anUMopHSJ4nKk2R ) Timestamp 13:50: “If you’re a startup, and you want to get to a monopoly, start with a really small market and you take over that whole market and then you find ways to expand that market in concentric circles” Last I checked Zuckerberg is doing precisely what Thiel taught him to and has d…

That is also one of his core arguments on his book "Zero to One". To be fair, he is not the only one to think like that. Every "captain of industry" needs to be paranoid against competition. It is a basic survival instinct. Just look how much Steve Jobs freaked out about Android and Windows. Or how Alfred Sloan bought or merged every possible competitor. Or the history of Nabisco, the steel industry, Microsoft, AT&T,…

And that's not a bad instinct which (in a perfect world) drives innovation and lowers prices for customers.

But that only works if the competition can not be simply bought out which requires effective anti trust laws before they get so big that "nobody" can compete.

I firmly believe that it's better to prevent a company from growing too big than breaking it up after the fact.

Almost everybody profits from smooth and constant enforcement.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#30

Post by jampekka »

dimal wrote: post #18
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

“Competition is for losers” - A talk from Peter Thiel hosted by Y combinator ( https://youtu.be/3Fx5Q8xGU8k?si=3anUMopHSJ4nKk2R ) Timestamp 13:50: “If you’re a startup, and you want to get to a monopoly, start with a really small market and you take over that whole market and then you find ways to expand that market in concentric circles” Last I checked Zuckerberg is doing precisely what Thiel taught him to and has d…

It goes deeper than that. All publicly traded corporations are morally obligated by the Friedman Doctrine [0] to do stuff like this. If something returns value for shareholders (and monopolies do) then a CEO must do it. This is how the whole system is supposed to work. Of course, there's no reason that capitalism must to work this way, but this is the toxic form of capitalism that we've unwittingly chosen. Thiel just…

> Of course, there's no reason that capitalism must to work this way

There kinda is. Capital is allocated to where it makes most profits, and most profits go to companies maximizing shareholder value. In aggregate this makes the profit maximizing companies more likely to survive.

Sure this can be perhaps mitigated by e.g. legislating other duties to companies, but I'd say it's very hard even in theory, let alone in practice, to have capitalism without lopsided profit maximization.

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