6 ms·

I remember reading once that tech companies, on average, lobby less that traditional industries, such as fossil fuels and finance. I wonder if the lesson they

by sbacic 5y ago

I remember reading once that tech companies, on average, lobby less that traditional industries, such as fossil fuels and finance. I wonder if the lesson they will take from this is that, rather than reform, they should invest more in lobbying. Considering how much money and influence on the public opinion they have, that's a rather scary thought.

WalterBright 5y ago
I read that Microsoft never did any lobbying before the anti-trust suit. Once you're big enough to be a target, you have to spend money on lobbying, and contribute to campaigns.
- Growling_owl 5y ago
  > Once you're big enough to be a target, you have to spend money on lobbying, and contribute to campaigns. Absolutely not. You do the opposite of that. You go at layer zero. At the population level and enter the culture wars arena with the goal of winning. Some of these companies are structured in a way that the founders are poised to retain control of their companies till they retire (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Berkshire). If you are Zuck or Brin or Dorsey and you want to do this until you are 95 like Buffett then you are better off barking and biting back, acquire a reputation of a fighter so that people like Sanders and Warren would leave you alone. There will be consequences such as employees criticizing and leaving but in the long term you are better off fighting. When a politician comes after you and your company, you just attack back, if you are not prepared to do this you should simply not start a proper company and opt for a carrer in a hedge fund instead, where you can make money in the dark. Founders and CEOs should not be the first offender but when they are called out they should absolutely attack back. Sanders is pouring manure all over corporate America since 2015 and all he had to endure was Michael Bloomberg attacking him back for half a debate, and wouldn't have happened if Bloomberg didn't decide to run. If a guy like Bezos or Zuck were to tweet back at Sanders something to the tune "I've started a company in a garage and now it has the same credit rating of the US Government, what have you done with your life?" That would be fair game, politicians prey on weakness, they smell it and keep biting till you lay there unconscious
  - skak 5y ago
    > Sanders is pouring manure all over corporate America since 2015 Can you please expand on this? What exactly are you trying to say here?
  - joejerryronnie 5y ago
    You’ve also got to read the room. The mood in the US is not in favor of hard charging mavericks of industry. This approach today would likely backfire spectacularly. Big Tech should be locating large employment centers in strategic locations around the country. And by strategic I don’t mean where the talent, resources, or customers are located but rather where influential Congresspeople, Senators, and Governors are located. Then wield your soft power with these folks, e.g. “You can break us up but it’s just going to cost your district/state massive job losses”. Next, meet with other agitating politicians to find out their underlying motivations and help them to achieve those things - doesn’t even need to be real, just help make them look good for their next re-election campaign. So Bezos should work out a public deal with Bernie and AOC to raise Amazon’s minimum wage to $20 an hour. Bernie and AOC will look like progressive heroes but would be effectively defanged in continuing to attack Amazon (to a large degree).
    - ojbyrne 5y ago
      At least 1 company has beaten you to that idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_HQ2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_HQ2
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - Growling_owl 5y ago
      This strategy would have worked before MMT took over, now politicians don't need to bring about jobs, they can just print money and pass deficits of epic proportions and substitute the private sector with the state. Especially Democrats they have no regards for fiscal responsibility , they'd have no qualms in breaking up Amazon, knowing full well that the next step would be to install a dependency scheme in the form of UBI financed via fiscal deficits.
- EarthLaunch 5y ago
  A graph shared on Slashdot at the time made a big impression on me. It shows that until the antitrust pressure started ramping up [1], Microsoft didn't lobby (as I recall). The graph showed a huge spike in lobbying money after antitrust. Of course, this makes perfect sense in terms of incentives on both sides. Perhaps this [2] was the graph. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/images/micro1.gif https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/images/micro1...
paulpauper 5y ago
It is probably because they are so big and successful and impervious to macro factors that they don't need to .
throwaway1777 5y ago
I’m pretty sure that’s not the case anymore. FAANG definitely lobbies now.
legitster 5y ago
More critically, "tech" is concentrated into a small set of voting districts. Whereas traditional industries are spread throughout the country. Amazon's warehouse network is their most valuable political commodity. They are often the highest paying entry level jobs wherever they are put, represent a huge local bump in payroll and property taxes, and they are being placed in voting districts all around the country.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
The amount of lobbying you need is going to depend a lot on what your industry is. If you're building mines or manufacturing plants that take years to build and then another year to get running right and then another five to be profitable and your margins are thin you have a much larger interest in ensuring regulations don't change or at least not fast because a few percent change in profit could mean you never recoup your investment over the lifetime of the facility. It can still take years to build stuff but rarely is it 3+yr and tech margins are fatter and once you have something your can scale up and down much more rapidly. I think the "natural" amount of lobbying is going to be lower in tech than for industries that do physical things because tech has some things that make working with regulatory uncertainty less terrible.
fighterpilot 5y ago
They're the only industry that is on the bad side of the extremes of both political parties. The left because of anti-trust and anti-ultra-rich sentiment, and the right because of perceptions of social media censorship. If they were acting properly in their own cronyistic self-interest, they would've cozied up to the right. But the demographics of their employees precluded that.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Don't know why you're being down voted. You are correct. There are many Republicans sympathetic to business but by making them the enemy, you alienate the entire political system. Oops.

by sbacic 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

I read that Microsoft never did any lobbying before the anti-trust suit. Once you're big enough to be a target, you have to spend money on lobbying, and contribute to campaigns.

Growling_owl 5y ago
> Once you're big enough to be a target, you have to spend money on lobbying, and contribute to campaigns. Absolutely not. You do the opposite of that. You go at layer zero. At the population level and enter the culture wars arena with the goal of winning. Some of these companies are structured in a way that the founders are poised to retain control of their companies till they retire (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Berkshire). If you are Zuck or Brin or Dorsey and you want to do this until you are 95 like Buffett then you are better off barking and biting back, acquire a reputation of a fighter so that people like Sanders and Warren would leave you alone. There will be consequences such as employees criticizing and leaving but in the long term you are better off fighting. When a politician comes after you and your company, you just attack back, if you are not prepared to do this you should simply not start a proper company and opt for a carrer in a hedge fund instead, where you can make money in the dark. Founders and CEOs should not be the first offender but when they are called out they should absolutely attack back. Sanders is pouring manure all over corporate America since 2015 and all he had to endure was Michael Bloomberg attacking him back for half a debate, and wouldn't have happened if Bloomberg didn't decide to run. If a guy like Bezos or Zuck were to tweet back at Sanders something to the tune "I've started a company in a garage and now it has the same credit rating of the US Government, what have you done with your life?" That would be fair game, politicians prey on weakness, they smell it and keep biting till you lay there unconscious
- skak 5y ago
  > Sanders is pouring manure all over corporate America since 2015 Can you please expand on this? What exactly are you trying to say here?
- joejerryronnie 5y ago
  You’ve also got to read the room. The mood in the US is not in favor of hard charging mavericks of industry. This approach today would likely backfire spectacularly. Big Tech should be locating large employment centers in strategic locations around the country. And by strategic I don’t mean where the talent, resources, or customers are located but rather where influential Congresspeople, Senators, and Governors are located. Then wield your soft power with these folks, e.g. “You can break us up but it’s just going to cost your district/state massive job losses”. Next, meet with other agitating politicians to find out their underlying motivations and help them to achieve those things - doesn’t even need to be real, just help make them look good for their next re-election campaign. So Bezos should work out a public deal with Bernie and AOC to raise Amazon’s minimum wage to $20 an hour. Bernie and AOC will look like progressive heroes but would be effectively defanged in continuing to attack Amazon (to a large degree).
  - ojbyrne 5y ago
    At least 1 company has beaten you to that idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_HQ2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_HQ2
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - Growling_owl 5y ago
    This strategy would have worked before MMT took over, now politicians don't need to bring about jobs, they can just print money and pass deficits of epic proportions and substitute the private sector with the state. Especially Democrats they have no regards for fiscal responsibility , they'd have no qualms in breaking up Amazon, knowing full well that the next step would be to install a dependency scheme in the form of UBI financed via fiscal deficits.
EarthLaunch 5y ago
A graph shared on Slashdot at the time made a big impression on me. It shows that until the antitrust pressure started ramping up [1], Microsoft didn't lobby (as I recall). The graph showed a huge spike in lobbying money after antitrust. Of course, this makes perfect sense in terms of incentives on both sides. Perhaps this [2] was the graph. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/images/micro1.gif https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/images/micro1...

paulpauper 5y ago

It is probably because they are so big and successful and impervious to macro factors that they don't need to .

throwaway1777 5y ago

I’m pretty sure that’s not the case anymore. FAANG definitely lobbies now.

legitster 5y ago

More critically, "tech" is concentrated into a small set of voting districts. Whereas traditional industries are spread throughout the country. Amazon's warehouse network is their most valuable political commodity. They are often the highest paying entry level jobs wherever they are put, represent a huge local bump in payroll and property taxes, and they are being placed in voting districts all around the country.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

The amount of lobbying you need is going to depend a lot on what your industry is. If you're building mines or manufacturing plants that take years to build and then another year to get running right and then another five to be profitable and your margins are thin you have a much larger interest in ensuring regulations don't change or at least not fast because a few percent change in profit could mean you never recoup your investment over the lifetime of the facility. It can still take years to build stuff but rarely is it 3+yr and tech margins are fatter and once you have something your can scale up and down much more rapidly. I think the "natural" amount of lobbying is going to be lower in tech than for industries that do physical things because tech has some things that make working with regulatory uncertainty less terrible.

fighterpilot 5y ago

They're the only industry that is on the bad side of the extremes of both political parties. The left because of anti-trust and anti-ultra-rich sentiment, and the right because of perceptions of social media censorship. If they were acting properly in their own cronyistic self-interest, they would've cozied up to the right. But the demographics of their employees precluded that.

iammisc 5y ago
Don't know why you're being down voted. You are correct. There are many Republicans sympathetic to business but by making them the enemy, you alienate the entire political system. Oops.