Given the heights and cool and facebook and others recently. You normally have a pretty broad stroke to your coverage. Why this book and right now . Thank you for having me, by the by. I started this book in 2017 i had just taken a job as a columnist for the financial times, trying to figure out the worlds biggest business and economic stories and an opinion form, and for the final, i started looking through corporate figures. I saw amazing numbers in the Financial Sector to the technology sector. Run the numbers that really stuck out was a Mckinsey Global institute figure, looking at 80 corporate wealth was in just 10 . Because of the firms richest in personal data and intellectual property. Basically, if your trafficking in these things, were holding the majority of the world corporate wealth. The biggest were the ones like facebook, apple, amazon, netflix a little bit and googled most about. Theres some overlap, facebook and google, apple mostly shunned advertising and third devices and technology, you uber you mentioned wasnt either but its a whole different basis. Besides the fact that we think of them as being tech, they all have one thing in common. Thats a great question. Right now they are off trying to separate each other as regulators work more tightly in the space. The things they do all have in common is the network effect. It something to talk about a lot in my book. As you get big, you get bigger. The Business Model of these companies and many unicorns in Silicon Valley, the giant firms is to bring in as much territory as quickly as possible. So you get an and in many cases, you get invite margin. A company like amazon and uber, to undercut the world Taxi Services and take over the entire industry and worry about profits labor. Businesses simply havent been able to do this at scale until now. That has a lot of ramifications. It cuts competitors out and waste their competitive in price of monopoly power. Google a regional, very optimistic and composite statement about itself, what it was going to adhere to. The implication is if not peop people, they have that. So whats bad about being big and powerful and successful . Wow. Where to start . [laughter] i wrote 350 pages on it. It was a mantra the google guys came up with but in the mid 90s, when the internet was a garage industry, it was just being born. You have these individual smalltime entrepreneurs coming up with companies and the reason i decided to focus on google and this idea of not being able is cool was there in the beginning. When you write a book, particularly a, gated book on social issues, want to try to find a continuous narrative. At the time i started looking at this, the company in the news for election many ablation and off those, monopoly power, bad behavior in general, if you go back and look at google and its founding, i read a paper that the founders of google wrote in 1998. It looks at what is the Search Engine . How would you run the Search Engine . How would you pay for the Search Engine . At the very end, they have a paragraph on advertising and they talk about how targeted advertising, which is the Business Model of essentially watching what you are doing online, following you around, seeing what youre clicking on, what are you searching . Building a digital food to all of you and showing that to advertisers and auctioning your eyeballs off to the higher bidder, its that Business Model and it would eventually bring users and advertisers into conflict. Their interest would not be the camp same. Large entities like russia or iran or White Nationalist or whoever might want to reach you so this was amazing to me. This is one of the things that bugs me when i see ceos get up on the hill and say we are so sorry we could never have imagined all these terrible things. Well, go back to that paper in 1998. It was kind of author in small print. In the statement of the evil, was microsoft. The mid to late 90s, they were seen as this evil empire, stepped on apple with windows storming into the internet and trying to own everything, its odd now that bill gates is now this figure and technology, giving all this money away and why doesnt every billion or do what he does . This kind, gentle ceo, they dont come under too much fire or scrutiny. Its true. I didnt really focus on microsoft. I think if microsoft had their way, im sure they would be happy to have a successful Search Engine. Being is not that Search Engine. Every thank you are saying honed in on what constitutes monopoly power. The microsoft antitrust case which actually sort of allowed a lot of people would say, the space barr google to be born and grow. That happened over 20 years up to now. That was the last time regulators and the public really looked at Silicon Valley, took a hard look at the tech sector inside okay, we have habitation problems here. Microsoft spent so much time grabbing those issues being drawn into legal battles that google was able to get this wake up. Google was trafficking not in software but in data. Surveillance capitalism. At the whole new world. If you go to some of the books written about data economics, like the chief economist at google, the talk about the power of networks. In this new world, network of surveillance capitalism from these companies would become natural monopolies. They didnt want to get into the business unless they thought they could create monopoly. That, in a way, sort of comes in conflict early on. Its complicated, too though because while we talk about them as being monopolies and having monopoly power, they are all competing with each other. Thats what they would argue. Amazon is in the lead in microsoft think the calendar. Smart phones, apple is in the lead. Google is not weed if youre counting operating systems. Look how much competition there is. Theres so much wrong with the argument. An early conversation i had with google when i started thinking about this book, i met with other strategy folks and put forward my idea that hey, your natural monopolist. She looked very surprised and said well, we feel like we are competing against big guys. Its goliath and goliath at this time. You have a handful of players, basically three of our companies. I have taken over everything and are actually moving into entirely new fields. In the last few months, whats happening on apple, amazon, google in areas like healthcare finance, we seen amazon go overnight into the grocery business. Its hard to think of the business that couldnt be disrupted. By the giant firms. That might beg the question, why havent you seen other Major Industries saying hey, we need a monopoly case, its a very fast hand bargain because they benefit, every company in the world benefits from the power of targeted advertising. Theyre all using it. The model that has been pioneered by these businesses, harvesting our personal data for free, imagine if gm got all of it for free. They would have doubledigit profit markets, too. Summing it, correlating it across devices and industries, look at some of the privacy and security and monopoly issues like facebook, think about adding Checking Account on that and healthcare under that and then smart speakers and how the surveillance is all around us now. Its not just online, its an hour smart phone. My husband loves echo and he keeps it in his office. I insist he turns it off every time i go in there. I cannot imagine, of the political moment we live in, i do not want a surveillance device in my house. Lets talk about the idea and fill me in on the details here. The idea that by watching the people, by collecting the data and what people are doing, you can know the whole Economic System that doesnt necessarily benefit from. Not necessarily the consumer but the good. This is a wonderful book, everyone should read it, she looks in a very academic way, almost through marxist lines. The history of capitalism and how this new kind of surveillance capitalism is in some ways, the ultimate fruition of corrupting society or citizen into a consumer and now turning a consumer, a person into a rock material. As we are calling around online, digital patterns are developed. We get none of that resource. My shopping patterns, the fact that i have an issue with some fine jews, thats my desire, thats my habit and personal information. Thats my behavior. Its no longer mine, its being harvested by google and amazon and used to tell me more things. We have plenty of time to go into political but take what we have been talking about in terms of purchasing and corporate monopoly power and start to put that into the political area. One of the things that happens online, you get more of what you click on. Lets take you up on youtube and like my son in your clicking on lebron james videos all the time. He can give you any stat about the nba but if your clicking on hate speech, youre getting more of that. Thats called a filter bubble. That benefits these companies because they monetize us by keeping us online longer. This polarizes us politically and if you think about the power of these tech titans, Corporate Giants have always had political power. The robber barons, every ceo and every failure make it to a certain size what they by politicians, lobbying power but we have a new system in this world of surveillance without power comes not just from top down, we can get into how big tech is the artist lobby group but it comes from the bottom up. Our behavior can be many plated. These algorithms are better than we know ourselves. George, financier and political activist give a speech a couple of years ago, talking about do we even have free will in this world anymore . Are we really in danger of losing the kind of ability to really be free citizens in an open society in a world in which we can be controlled at this level. It sounds like some of your original questions are out the door. Right. You probably read another great book, getting all of this great promo for other peoples books but we are all in the same game here. An antitrust scholar did a book looking at some of these similarities but i do think this world of digital surveillance capitalism is fundamentally different. Its everywhere all the time. The services are like utilities. Can you imagine having ecommerce or uber apps pulled . Its a whole new world and we are only at the beginning of it because we talked about smart speakers, for example. The sales are going up exponentially three digits a year. That has more of a cognitive power. When you hear a suggestion given to you by voice, its even more powerful in terms of influencing your behavior and if you type in a search and go where google tells you to. Weve already seen and we are seen as more antitrust actions rolled out, the power of these companies what they can erase you as a product, as a person. If they want to. Its too much power. Apple ceo would probably say we are not the problem, we are part of the solution. We have this idea, this concept, differential privacy that we are building into our products. We are not sucking peoples actual identifying data out of the device and using that to inform a. I. We are shielding that and taking general insights and keeping ourselves, our own hands clean so we are not tracking in it. Is that true . I think its largely true but i think there are several holes in the argument. For starters, apple certainly has had more of a commitment to privacy, to be fair, for its own competitive advantage than google or facebook. Its not a data harvester in the same way google or facebook is. Those Companies Make 85 on digital advertising. Apple sells hardware, devices. It wants to create that network and create that ecosystem and loop you into buying as many apple products as possible. That way, it uses the network effect. For starters, apple privacy is buried, depending on what country you are talking about. Apple will complete julie on privacy in china in ways that it would not dream of doing in the u. S. It certainly subject to political pressure in the way Different Countries regular data and it wont stand up and fight beijing on these things. There are a couple of other problems with apple overlap the problems i see with google and facebook. Who gets part part of the innovation pipe . One of the big arguments right now when regulators say the companies are too big, we need to make them, bring them to heal and make them smaller maybe break them up. This is a battle between regulation and innovation. We have to stay big to innovate. I would argue that these companies is foremost among this are implement us. Not innovators. Implementers. They are implementers of pretty much other peoples technology. As a great start in the headlines, this google battle. With a small innovator, a guy came up with a way to make smart acres, they came up with a lot of technology that were adopted by both google and apple as the Company Started getting bigger and more powerful, they started infringing on the patents. They have taken apple to court over patent infringements. It couldnt afford to take on both google and apple over infringements. But apple has had major fights with other Big Companies. Apple is responsible much more selfinvolved way, the chinese chipmaker, there becoming the more go to chip company. Apple was on a three continent battle with the biggest innovator in the world. Infringing on its pattern. So these companies are implementing thousands of technologies, they want them to be inexpensive. They are, in some cases, legally taking opensource information there and in other cases infringing on patents. Sometimes they buy out Small Companies to get rid of competition. Again, its the big getting bigger and using a system for the innovation environment where theres some gain. You cant have an economy for Companies Taking all the luck. You have to have a bigger innovation ecosystem. They would have sued animal amazon, to put the couldnt afford them at the same time. Apple has been taken on by modify. Throw all the names and. And you argue phi its implication . The beginnings of apple, how could you have this just sitting here . That is one thing. Thats the allegation in some case but could one argue that the part of what companies and maybe even Big Companies become good at, is actually bringing that innovation into life . Into the economy and getting the people . A lot of people would argue that, i guess i would say i dont see a consumer electronic product that lets face it, Game Changing innovation since the smart phone in 2007. Everything else has been more or less iterative. Its been about apple being extremely clever as a marketer. As a brand creator. Value at this time lives in three places. Globally, in it and data and big brands. In real estate. Thats kind of where value flips. In a new world we are moving into, i think theres going to be an environment of deflation, monetization, qc apple fighting hard to keep market share. Look at apple losing a battle to a big chinese smart phone maker and a number of emerging markets. Apple success in being able to continue packing expensive products and selling them in tight glass boxes is not helping put more americans to work, its not helping to create the next big productive bubble. Things that would really bring along a Critical Mass of workers and bring our economy to the next big point. I would argue that our company, not a Perfect Company but that the company that came up with 5g chip. This is something that makes the smart phone smart. They are in the environment, having to duke it out just to stay alive. Three legal battles with other American Companies at the same time you have china rolling out one road, working seamlessly to institute chips and technology into an entirely new ecosystem. I think thats a model we should look much more carefully at then this laissezfaire game, keep margins as high as you can. Put jobs, products and outsource the supply chains wherever you want. We see in the last few weeks and months the number of corporate scandal, that Balance Sheet that has led to. I dont think it is leading to a good place. If we think about the different systems we are dealing with, the legacy in the u. S. Is very different from europe. For europe, its more about protecting competition. There its been more about protecting the consumer. It seems like in this digital era, that kind of distinction doesnt work the same way it used to because when we talk about facebook or google, very often the Companies Want to say look at the consumer. They are paying nothing. So this is good for the consumer. Other people say thats not the consumer. Its the advertiser, thats the consumer. They are paying a lot more than nothing. Thats the old model for antitrust and dealing with Big Companies and competition. Its the european model. It also needs to change. These are great questions. Two points i would make. One, the big tech giants, competition is just a click away. They are saying all the time well, lets go back to your question about microsoft, if you were doing a Google Search in your computer stops working, would you go to bank or get up and have a cup of coffee and try google again . Im guessing he would do the latter. I do google sometimes, i do some shopping as well as amazon pretty much all over the place. Excellent. So a, the network actually create that mode youre talking about but the deeper point is, i think the rules of freemarket capitalism stop working. Its like laws of gravity that okay, as long as both sides know what the transaction is and prices are going down, whats the problem . Well, in this world in which you are paying in dollars but in your data, neither of those things old. So you dont know what you are giving up or what youre getting. You know youre getting a search but you dont know how much the data is worth you just gave google or amazon for that search. Its a very asymmetric transaction. Thats a problem right away. Also, when youre doing barter and not paying in dollars, thats not freemarket. Thats not the way adam smith would have envisioned the market working. You need equal access to data, transparency and shared moral framework for two function properly. You do not have that in any of these things when you deal with visual giants. It also calls in a technical way into question this 1980s Robert School of thought that it Consumer Prices that matter. Thus the school of thought that allowed walmart to get this big town square. , we get cheap stuff. Thats good for us, i guess. There are a lot of negative parts of that, you get less choice but in this world of free, i put quotations around three because when you download these apps, you think its free but you are paying, you just dont know how much. That model really doesnt work anymore. I think you have to look at two things. You can look at the innovation ecosystem, which is the way europeans do it. They almost look at market like biological systems. Youre looking at a petri dish or pond and theres plant and frogs and fishermen, how do we make sure the system is working for everyone . European way of doing things. Its obligated and timeconsuming. Thats why antitrust cases take years. How is their economy doing . Interestingly, doesnt and why you academic who just did a wonderful book looking at how by many measures, european markets work better and are freer in terms of diversity in the tech space because theyve been more sensitive to our Small Businesses doing well, the ones that depends on patents versus open software, everyone getting a fair shot. I think you have to start inking about political power and political economy in a way we havent thought about in this country for 40 or 50 years. One of the things in my book that i spent a lot of time thinking about reading about for the 19th Century Railroad paradigm. You go back to the rockefellers and vanderbilt you have these networks, the networks of the 19th century and 20th century being built by the railroad company. At one point. , the companys not just the railroads but the cars that sat on the railroads. The call and we and commodities that would go in and say clearly referenced who was traveling, how and when they would literally hand out passes to their favorite politicians to write here or there further political rallies. I think you have to look at the big tech in that way. You should not be able to control the network and also control all the commerce that happens on the network. Then you inevitably come into conflict with your own suppliers. Look at amazon, for example. A lot of companies will simply not take on antitrust issues because they can be disappeared from their business. They can be cut off from consumers if amazon decides they dont want to algorithmically preference the search results. Same goes for google. Nursing antitrust cases come to light around this but they are very difficult to prove because theres this lockbox of algorithms that frankly, we should dig into that but with amazon, its about amazon having both the ecommerce and Logistics Network deliver packages and allow third parties at the same time at its own Branded Products competing against customers. In apples case, its having an app store where third parties have to do business and have apples platform about the same time having its own apps on that platform, podcasts, if i am spotify, i have to pay and you are competing with me. Thank you. Thats exactly right. Fundamentally, there are rules in place already two separate networks and commerce. What youre describing is a company that provides a network competing against third parties in ways that are not transparent and unfair. In the Financial Sector for example, which my last book was about was about big finance. You have rules, they are not enforced always but you can trade aluminum but you cant own all of the aluminum in the world and corner the market which actually was an issue. Its an anecdote i covered in my first book where to get around the rules, amazon excuse me, not amazon. Other Big Companies had bought a bunch of aluminum and they were moving it from one warehouse to another to get around the Commerce Network rule. There are loopholes that president does exist. Eventually you had a reform come in and say hey, we are going to bump up the trust and he took on the system and looked at the idea that political power exists. We are not living in this world of everyone is making efficient choices all the time and free markets are perfect. If we think about economics certainly since 2008, but really always, they are not perfect. They do need rules to function properly. We are talking about dont be evil, your book. It came out in november, it really puts a spotlight on the likes of google, facebook, app apple, amazon and a few others as well and how their size, some would say success, there treatment of data is having an impact, not just on customers but on all of global society. Specifically in the u. S. I wonder, can we regulate data . Information. Without, at the same time, perhaps even unintentionally recommitting speech because people are choosing a lot of these cases to talk to alexa, they are choosing to put information onto social networ networks, etc. , pictures on instagram that are giving away itself location information, commerce information, they are giving it away for free, making that choice what to do with her speech. How can it be stopped . These are great questions. Something i grappled with was this idea of whether or not platforms like facebook or google should be in rival. On the one hand yeah, you dont want facebook monetizing the massacre of people in new zealand but you also dont necessarily more zuckerberg to be the truth. Thats the line where walking here. As folks think about this argument, these companies have this get out of jail free loophole, which is called dda 230, it was written in a decency act in 1996. It allows them as an industry to not be liable in the way you or i as journalist would working for media sources for what we say or do so if i print something and we could be sued and i could lose my job. Not so for google or facebook. Look at what these companies do. They put tons of content online and sell advertising. Thats kind of what media does. They want it both ways. Townsquare but they want a Business Model that eats the lunch of traditional media. Its created a world that led all other kinds of problems in democracy. I think we have to consider rethinking it. Already you are seeing and being carved into it. There is a high profile case a couple of years ago around that page. Com which is a website that was knowingly trafficking minors as prostitutes. This was something both the right and left took on and now they do have a liability if they are sex trafficking minors or other federal high crimes. They have a liability for those things. They do a pretty good job using algorithms to get child pornography author websites. I think we have to look closely how much they can do. I think we also have to think about if they cant do it, should they be allowed to monetizing content at scale in the way they do . Some would argue the internet upside down or inside out, the idea of being, even the comments on news sites covered under that. I have no idea. I want people to have conversation but i have no idea what theyre going to say. You could argue, you cant have youtube where people can upload User Generated Content if as soon as some rogue uploads a bad piece of content, you two would be liable. We do look over and have numerous human employees who look over user content and comments and if they are inappropriate or hateful, we get them down quickly. I think these are decisions that each government is going to have to make individually. Your scene already countries like germany, france, eu, china, make different judgment calls in terms of how content will be policed. I think its so important that this be a democratically led conversation and that government decision. I do not want individuals, private Companies Run by one making these decisions because they are going to do whats best for their own Profit Margins. One of the key anecdotes, one of the reasons i wrote this book, aside from looking at the economic power of these companies was that my own son, he became completely addicted to a free online soccer game. I discovered this because i come home one day and open up a credit card bill, 947 worth of tiny little things. My 10yearold son had become addicted to a free app that uses persuasive, its called persuasive technology. They are thoroughly gaming techniques, dinner with a dog salivating, all of this persuasive stuff takes it down a rabbit hole with your spending, spending. Minors are being marketed to in ways that they fall through existing rules. But i thought about this as its like nicotine. This is as addictive, in the case of my son, vaping or smoking, we need a government to put limits on things like that. I think we will need a Government Agency of some kind, maybe even fda technology to look at what are the whole battery of effects here . Our Brain Science is being changed. I have a chapter in my book that goes into the way children are being reshaped. The Digital Natives that have come of age, their attentions spans are lower, theres anxiety and depression, the research is pretty new but theres some strong sociological research to show that we are being affected in a serious way with technology. They need to take responsibly for us. In a sense, the goal of Marketing Advertising will always influence people. Arguably, its gone so good with data from these fights are constantly based on little pieces of information, tweaking the layout of their app, driving engagement higher. They give people doses of dopamine to keep them engaged in an investor would say thats why stocks are so high. You need to have data on how that works to be able to regulate it. I think we do. You are already seeing social scientists come out there was a wonderful book, i quoted it. I cant remember right now but looking at the last ten years or so of usage by teens of mobile technology and correlating it with things like depression and anxiety and isolation. You have a body of research thats developing, i think that needs to be looked at. You have in the dsm, diagnostic handbook for physicians. You have new ailments that relate to digital use, digital addiction. These are real things. We need to treat them as such. Ultimately, Silicon Valley has a real problem, they are good at taking credit for wonderful things they do and theyve given us all this trick technology, entertaining, productivity enhancing to some extent they are not good at taking responsibility for the downsides. Youre not admitting they didnt do it all themselves. These technologies were basically built on federally funded r d, think about the internet touchscreen technology. Gps. These are things that came out of the pentagon. Innovations that were commercialized by the valley. So you have very similar to the 2008 crisis, privatization of profits the socialization process in so many ways, the human causes automation. As a whole chapter on that we are about to be doing our jobs at some. Asked bear minted with automatic reporters. Got a handful of companies not taking responsibility for any of this. You frame the issue this way. Early in the book, you write the issue is that periods of great technological change also categorize by great disruption. You end up with events like the religious wars of the 16th and 17th century which as ferguson, has outlined in his book, might not have happened without the advent of new Technology Like the printing press. Which brought the age of enlightenment but not before it upset the orders in the same way internet and social media have upended society today. So kind machines was not in there. After you go back to that period of time and fix that . Information is good but bad things happen. Other lessons we can extract . Looking back at the past that help us figure out what to do now . I think there are. Theres not one Silver Bullet and thats a problem narratively. When you come on programs and even when you write a book, publishers are like we want the solutions chapter. They want there to be three solutions to a problem thats taken 20 years to create or, depending on where you want the markers, some are about capitalism in general and how markets are regulated. Its been decades in the making. Thank you. I think the first is creating a proper narrative. I think one of the many reasons we are at such a politically polarized moment has to do with the fact that we didnt create a proper narrative about why we had much disruption from globalization and financial isolation from tech jobs in countries like the u. S. Market should be allowed to do whatever they want, thats fine if we didnt talk so much about the fact there would be pockets of pain. We need to look now at where this technology is going. Where is it taking us . Do we want to go the . Have a chapter in my book that repairs the situation from the west to the situation in china. If we want to look at that, we just have to go to china. China, theres no debate about privacy. Theres no assumption about that. The government can and does track everyone. The data in the system of social credit. If you are i are doing the right thinking by the party, to get a job or get healthcare but if we follow, we may find ourselves like so many minority have. So thats where this can go. That power can be wielded by companies or by corporations as it is potentially in the u. S. I think there is a third way. I think youre starting to seek bright spots already in europe. Big rich debate. I did a book tour recently europe and i was impressed by average people who turned out to hear these wonky complex debates about what could capitalism look like in the era of dataquick theres a robust debate in this country, look at california, which interestingly has been on legislation, is the birthplace of these companies but also the birthplace for a lot of solutions. You have california at the dividend cap is the new oil. Should these companies be able to harvest it for free . Might they share some of that value and put it back into digital fund so just like norway or alaska can do things for the Public Benefit the monies collected from resources . Lets use data as a resource and how people along. It sounds like attacks. Specially targeted tax for companies that do well with data. His eyes debate and a little push right now, to create a problematic and nationalistic debate about dont regulate tech. Dont regulate google or amazon or facebook. They are in the battle against china. I dont believe there should be on national champion. We should have a natural industrial policy and National Competitive strategy but i dont think individual countries, particularly ones that dont operate in those countries, google has a big operation in china. Theyre not a national champion, they are a forprofit company to do whats in their best interest. They need to be forced to do what in the Public Interest by the public. We need a real conversation about that. Forced by the public is hard when the public is the sort of mob, this unruly mob. Its a lot easier when youre an authoritarian government like china to impose rules. Is it one or the other . These days the government and not just the trumpet administer ration because the Obama Administration was doing the same thing, push apple to create a backboard and the iphone so when they have good reason, they say open up the device and see everything done on it. Apple argues they use a back door and china will want in. Russia iran war wont end. Turkey 12 on it. Is that the free world we want . I would look to a couple of examples in taiwan. You have a rich vibrant democracy. They are being enabled by centralized technology. The big state model that creates this surveillance state. They are creating identities so they can vote on issues that you can capture the kind of nuance that youre talking about that we have in our society. Democracy is messy. And we know that but i would like to see these technologies used in service to democracy other than degrading it which is what youve seen in the last few years. A solution, possible solution that you also covered in your book, the idea of individuals and their use of their data. This one makes me a little queasy. Some peoples data is worth more than others. So do i get a bigger payment . Then theres the question of network and data. My data might not be worth that much but my data plus your data plus another persons data is worth exponentially more than individual data. So its possible on the individual basis to capture the value. I think the idea that it probably makes more sense because of the things you are pointing out. One of the reasons i wanted to present this idea of should individuals get a cut . There are some people saying look, we are moving in the era of a. I. And more and more automation back and do more and more human labor, we are moving into a post work world. It sounds great at first but think about it, all of us have been on vacation for two weeks, we get a little cranky and bored. A lot of economists are saying wait a minute, maybe our data is our labor. We need to start think about something that is of value. I wanted to show some of the numbers, you will see in the black box, to get a realistic view of how much value data is worth because it varies by individual. Just a conservative estimate shows you that this is an enormous industry the Fastest Growing industry in the world. I think that what we are thinking about when you have Companies Making double digit Profit Margins harvesting data for free. But think about the appropriate tax systems. This gets to a bigger and more profound point about the way capitalism and mobilization works. Globalization, free market capitalism, practice in the u. S. And exported in many countries. The idea was that goods, capital and people should be able to go wherever they want to. The problem is, capital and jump across borders much more freely than goods and certainly than people. In this digital world, it puts all the problems like liberalism where companies can fly above National Problems but labors down here having to deal with reality on that. The Digital Transaction puts that on steroids. The capital can move across borders that fast, data can move really fast. Weve got to just look at where this is going to set up perimeter so you dont end up with what weve seen in between states and steel towns and red states that have been decimated by globalization. Having the ugly politics that weve had and we are going to get that at a much broader level if we are not careful. Weve been talking about your book, dont be evil. You take a close look at google, apple, amazon, facebook and other Tech Companies and data that have marketplaces and networks that have gone enormous power. I wonder the work that goes into writing Something Like this, so much learning that i imagine, how did it change you . You your work, your personal life different is it different than what you discovered already . The first thing i did was take my sons phone. He racked up that 947 bill, and forced him to get out in the street and start a lemonade stand. On a hot day, you can do pretty well in brooklyn. I dont do smart speakers. I used encrypted email. It made me think a lot about the value of my own intellectual property. We are moving to a very decentralized world in which relief the only value we have is whats in our head. You have to keep control of fact. When i am negotiating contracts and thinking about my next project, and make sure i keep control of my own data and intellectual property. You talk about solutions toward the end of the book and what you hope will happen, what you think will happen . If youre generally an optimistic person, what you hope doesnt happen . The cost if we dont do anything . This is going to be the topic of my next book. I think we could see a real rise of fascism because particularly in the u. S. , i think we are in a post truth world, a world in which is so easy to create political manipulation, there are all these economic technological changes that are driving change so quickly and dislocating so many people and that creates the condition for a very extreme and hateful politics. So thats the risk. I think the upside could be if we get the framework right, could be a world in which, this is a stretch, but im going to be very optimistic, Digital Technologies to allow distributed power. Thats one of the things thats interesting here. Sliced and diced by the Big Tech Company but each of us have the power of our own data and behavior online, businesses can be started much more cheaply now. This could be a move for labor. If we get the framework right. Digital trade can be done much more easily now by Small Businesses then in the 80s where if you wanted to be an international company, you needed to have size. These are collocated things but there is potential theft. The post work world could be a world in which labor is empowered in ways that werent possible in the past. That would certainly be an interesting outcome. We could do a concrete example. Uber. This is just software. Why should taxi workers not have that same software . Guess what, they do now. They are run by workers themselves. Drivers who share the profits into the cooperative model. One could imagine those things being done. They could imagine the Labor Movement itself being moved. They are trying to organize tech workers and saying hi paid graphic designers, you are frequent answer and you have the same problems with asymmetry power with your employer as say a cleaning lady in the bronx does. Bring up those points in 2020, its a very active year politically as well as technologically. The book is dont be evil. A lot of good thought in here. I suppose the rest of us can do is at least read it. Thanks for having me. This program is available as a podcast on afterwards programs can be viewed on our website at booktv. Org. The house will be in order. Cspan has been providing unfiltered coverage. The white house, the Supreme CourtPublic Policy offense from washington d. C. And around the country. So you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979, cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. You are watching book tv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Book tv, television for serious readers. This holiday weekend, its three days of book tv. Tonight and tomorrow, book tv presents portions of programs from our archives, many of the candidates running for the democratic president ial nomination. On afterwards, the times columnist and cnn analyst argues that large Tech Companies are failing to keep consumer data secure. On monday, tune in for programs from our archives from the life of Martin Luther king jr. Also, Jackie Cushman shares her thoughts on how to move the country from Political Polarization to common ground. Vice provost of faculty engagement at the University Also professor of culture at the Steinhardt School also founder of the center for and coauthor of us political campaigns. The winner of