How Big Tech Influence Shops Shape The Antitrust Conversation In Washington — with Adam Kovacevich

Adam Kovacevich is the CEO of the Big Tech-funded Chamber of Progress. The former Google policy executive joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the origins of his organization and why Big Tech would rather fund him vs. stick their own necks out. Tune in for a revealing conversation of what happens behind the scenes in Big Tech's battle against regulation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  This episode is brought to you by Genesis. What does it actually take to put Agentic AI to work across an entire enterprise? I recently spoke with Genesis chairman and CEO Tony Bates about why orchestration is emerging as a competitive advantage in customer experience and what companies need to get right in the AI era. Then I sat down with Adam Mitchell, head of enterprise business solutions at Voya Financial, to go inside a large-scale Agentic CX transformation, including the business decisions, trade-offs, and lessons along the way. You can watch both conversations now on my YouTube channel today. It's never been more challenging to get frontier compute. How do you know where to look, who to trust, or how much to pay?

• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 1:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hello and welcome to the Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Joining us today is Adam Kovacevich, the head of the Chamber of Progress, an advocacy organization that's funded by Amazon, Facebook, Google, Uber, and a handful of other technology companies. And today, we're going to find out what that organization is about and what these companies are getting for their money. Adam, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So let's start with your background. You worked in public policy for Google for 12 years. That's right. And we've had conversations in the past about what you did there. But just for the benefit of the audience. What type of work were you engaged in while you were at Google?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, even going further back before that, I started my career in democratic politics as a congressional aide in the late 1990s.

• 2:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, you worked for Joe Lieberman.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, my first job was actually, I'm from Bakersfield, California. My first job was for my local congressman, who was a guy named Cal Dooley. He was one of the co-founders of the New Democrat Coalition, which were the group of about 50 centrist House Democrats, viewed themselves as very pro-tech. They were some of the first members of Congress to make sort of delegation trips out to Silicon Valley companies. Really were excited about being associated with tech and all the exciting things happening there in the late 90s. And that kind of set me on a path. But yes, I didn't work for, I worked for Joe Lieberman as his spokesman in the Senate. And then in his presidential campaign and other campaign in South Carolina.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  And then ultimately ended up at Google for about a dozen years. I worked on a number of issues, competition policy, privacy, surveillance issues, broadband, IP issues. And then for the last two years, before starting this group, I led North America and Asia-Pacific government relations for Lime, one of the shared scooter companies.

• 3:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. So you were at Google, basically trying to help them and with beneficial outcomes on the policy front.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Yep. Yep.

• 3:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay. So you know, you then move on to Lime and then start the Chamber of Progress. Chamber of Progress is an interesting organization.

• 3:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Because I'll just ask the question, then we'll have you chime in, but it supports traditional left issues like fighting climate change and inclusivity. But it also primarily seems to be fighting hard against the antitrust climate against tech. So how does something like this come about? Because it does seem like a lot of Democrats are actually very much in favor of reining in big tech. So it is somewhat of a Frankenstein of an organization, if you think about it.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  I don't know if that's a compliment or insult, but I will explain how we ended up at this, at the focus that we, that we had, which is, look, I think that certainly me and a lot of the people who have worked in tech, I think, have been attracted to the ways in which technology has helped achieve progressive goals, making information and goods more available, reducing barriers, reducing gatekeepers in information markets and things like that. And all of that, I think, that has been a positive. But I think there are two big questions that we kind of find ourselves facing. One is, is tech's future going to be as progressive as its past? Are people going to be able to enjoy the benefits of

• 4:29Speaker 01

  technology in an equal way, right? Equal across all Americans? And secondly, is, is the tech industry itself going to operate fairly? I think, in my mind, most tech policy right now is really about, are, is tech as an industry operating fairly and using its power responsibly, whether that's towards workers, towards consumers, towards other companies, towards communities? And, and there are some hard questions there, and, and we are going to be working on those. But, but candidly, I think one of the things I've seen talking to a lot of people in tech companies is that there is a underlying commitment to things like bold action on climate change, more inclusive democratic society, supporting

• 5:11Speaker 01

  things like voting rights, stronger social safety net, dealing with income inequality. And so we're speaking up on those issues as well.

• 5:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Reading between the lines of your answer, it does seem like the organization is primarily going to be focused on the tech stuff.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think we're, we are primarily focused on, on tech issues, for sure.

• 5:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  So, I mean, I'll be honest, it does seem a little opportunistic to me, because, you know, you have the Democrats take the House and the Senate and the presidency in 2020, and they're, one of their big agenda items is that they're going to tackle big tech antitrust. They just released five bills that are, you know, geared into, geared to do that. And, you know, if you were cynical, you would say, okay, the best way to steer this legislation package is to say that you align with their values, but also push back, you know, in a friendly way against their, you know, what seems like a growing consensus about taking on big tech. So. Is it just me, or is the timing a little convenient on this one?

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Well, I will say this, this is an idea that had been kind of rattling around in my head for the last two or three years before any particular fight on any particular issue. And I think that's because one of the things that I was seeing was that, you know, this tech is not cute as an industry anymore, right? It's, it's big, it's powerful. This is what you write about and your podcast is about. And, and I don't, and it's honeymoon period politically is, is over. And by the way, it probably should be over, right? I mean, um, everyone I think wants governments to scrutinize powerful interests, including tech companies. And so that makes sense to me. I think one of the things you see though is a divide among Democrats,

• 6:50Speaker 01

  and we are focused solely on Democrats, about how to respond to the tech industry's power. There's one camp that says we should dissolve that power. This is sort of the anti-monopoly, kind of neo Brandeisian camp. And I don't agree with that view, but I think that that view has a long, proud tradition. I don't believe that view has more than maybe 15%, 20% support among elected Democrats at the federal, state, local level. I think there's a bigger section of policymakers on the Democratic side who are more interested in channeling the tech industry's power towards pro-social, positive ends. Now, we can debate and should debate about what those things are,

• 7:34Speaker 01

  but I think that's where a majority of policymakers are. I also think there's a little bit of a gap here between the sentiment of most voters and consumers, including most Democratic voters and consumers towards tech and the kind of sentiment that I think you, you know, you see maybe more reflected if you spend all day on Twitter, as I do, by the way, too, and I know you probably do too. So I think there's

• 7:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  Spend a lot of time there, for sure.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, there, there, I think there's a gap there that is, it can be a little bit of a political market failure almost.

• 8:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, but okay, so I guess, you know, coming back to this whole, um, the political, like, it does, you know, I know this, this idea has been in your head for a while, um, but it does seem like, all right, well, if I was gonna try to find a way to steer the Democrats, this is the type of a organization I would put together, say, hey, we're on board with you in terms of climate change and inclusivity and also, and take it easy on these tech giant companies, and maybe we don't wanna, you know, bring to bear the package of the strongest anti-trust legislation that we can. So, is there, like, uh, you know, in terms of the formation of your organization, are you and I completely that it's, you know, just a little bit political?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Well, it's cer- we're certainly, we are a political actor, right?

• 8:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, of course.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  We're a trade association advocacy.

• 8:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  The way that this thing has been put together, sorry, go ahead.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I, I, I think that there's no doubt that it's, um, it's me, it's meeting the moment. Uh, we have a very polarized politics, right? And so, most, most traditional trade associations are not, uh, don't have an ideological bent, but there are, there are, were already a number of groups on the right, on the free market side, sort of representing uh, the tech industry, and there wasn't, um, as much of that on the left and center left. I do think that in some ways, this, um, the goals that we're putting forward are very in line with the goals that many tech industry leaders, um, and employees have, which is to say that, um, that they want an inclusive society, they wanna see

• 9:36Speaker 01

  societal progress, they're, uh, oftentimes pretty committed to things like, um, redistribution. Um, but they're a little more skeptical of regulation, not to say regulation's bad, because, um, some, some regulation, I think, makes, uh, makes a lot of sense here. But, but I think one of the things we're seeing, I see right now, is I think in, in tech's political honeymoon period, in roughly late 90s through the end of the Obama era, tech was seen as kind of doing no wrong. And then I think with the, the beginning of the Trump era through today, sometimes you see a dynamic of tech doing no right, a political, a political image. Again, I just don't think that's where most, most voters are, and so-

• 10:19Speaker 01

  I think one of the things we're trying to inject into the policy debate is, well, what do people really want from their tech, right? What are the values they want protected? And let's debate some of these things. If you think that being progressive means being anti-company, we might not have a lot to talk about, although I respect the people who feel that way. But if you want to achieve progressive goals a variety of other ways, then let's talk about how we best achieve that.

• 10:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Okay. So I'm glad you're at least admitting that there is opportunism here. Because you're right, the big tech money has been on the right, and now it's coming to the left. I guess they do want to spray it around a little bit to make sure they cover all their bases.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, my experience working at Google was that actually, Google and most of the big companies invested support, frankly, in, you know, it provided support for a number of groups across the political spectrum, left, right, center, industry groups, civil rights groups. So I'm not sure that I would, I'm not sure I totally agree that, I just think there have been more entities probably on the right than on the left and center-left.

• 11:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  One of the things that I've heard is that there was a moment, I think maybe around 2016, where Kent Walker, who is at Google, who still is at Google, runs policy and legal there, saw growing anti-trust sentiment on the left, especially with Elizabeth Warren, and spoke internally about a need to satiate the left. And so do you think that maybe what's something that you're doing here, you mean you work closely with him, is that potentially downstream of that goal that Walker had?

• 12:04Speaker 01

  I don't remember that, and I certainly, I certainly don't remember Kent talking about satiating the left. I do think anybody who works in this field of policy advocacy gets used to a dynamic, which is that whenever you're going to go meet with a policymaker, a federal, state, or local policymaker, you try to find areas of agreement. And you might disagree on certain things, but I think that is a pretty natural thing. There's a lot of issues. For example, when I was at Google, we worked on surveillance reform where you had a very interesting left-right coalition, right? And so I think with any given issue, you're going to try to find kind of who your allies are. And they may not be your ally on the next fight.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  So I don't know that, I don't think that people, sophisticated approach to policy advocacy would say satiate the left. Frankly, policymakers I think are more sophisticated than that. But if there's areas where you might agree with them, then I think most policymakers might say, "Look, I agree with you on this, let's work together." That doesn't mean I'm not gonna criticize you on this other front, and they do.

• 13:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. So I'm curious what your personal politics are, you know, running this organization.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 13:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, I am not registered to any political party, so this is not a purity test. But are you registered Democrat?

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  And you are.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, you've also, in the past, you know, I read about the fact that you've helped campaign for Republicans and, you know, were out there on the campaign trail with Tom Cotton back in the day. I mean, not that that's prohibited or anything like that.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  No, no, Tom Cotton, yeah, Tom is one of my friends from, good friends from college. He knows full well that I disagree with him on 95% of his, you know, political positions. But, but he's a friend, right? And I actually think it's possible to have, and why is that? Friendships with people who are, you know, you don't agree with politically.

• 13:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, no doubt, and it would be a shame if those, if those go away. But it's also, I mean, there's a difference between having a friend and then also helping someone campaign for, you know, policy issues, because then you're actually going ahead and advancing. And like, I would never, ever suggest that, you know, Democrats shouldn't be friends with Republicans.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  But yeah, when I have someone on who's the head of, you know, potentially, you know, organization that bills itself as center-left and then goes campaigning with. Right-leaning public politicians, I'm like, is there, where does the rubber meet the road here? Is this actually something that truly believes in the values that it espouses? Or is it politically?

• 14:40Speaker 01

  I worked in democratic, I've been in democratic politics since 1999, even before that. So, you know, I've been, I was one of the founding staff of the new democratic movement and been, you know, on the boards of several groups in the center-left. So I think my own personal, I'm very comfortable with my own personal politics. I wasn't Tom's campaign manager or anything like that. But, you know, but supported him as a friend. Again, that doesn't mean I agree with him on most things, I certainly don't. But I do think it's, you know, look, I think most people understand the distinction there.

• 15:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, fair enough. Wanted to bring it up. So, one of the things that you mentioned earlier was interesting. You talked about how tech employees believe in, in a lot of these progressive ideals. Employees is maybe the key word there. Because, you know, the way, there's been a criticism in terms of the labor practices that the tech companies have, that they have employees, but they also rely on vast amounts of contractors that don't have the same rights. And, you know, do, do some fairly hard work and don't share in the same upside that employees do. And in fact, Google were used to work as one of the companies that's been criticized as having a large contractor workforce that doesn't get to share in the upside when the company thrives.

• 15:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Another company, two other companies actually that helped fund you, Uber and Lyft, fought extremely hard against having the people that use their technology be labeled as employees and not users. They ended up winning that fight, they're still labeled as users. And, you know, there's a long debate about that. But it does seem like, you know, there's, there's, we've talked about this on the podcast before, but I just want to bring it back up again. There is a segment of the tech industry that says they're, you know, all for progressive values and inclusivity, but still works really hard. You know, to maintain a winners and losers society where a handful of the people that are responsible for the wealth generation of their companies win big.

• 16:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  And then large numbers of people, whether that's the people that are sifting through the images that have been flagged on Facebook, the people helping to prop up Google, the drivers that are working for Uber and Lyft don't get to participate in that. So is that really progressive to, you know, stand with them on a, on this policy front? And, um, you know, do you see any, any need for a reshaping of the way that employees, you know, view the fellow people that are doing the work with them?

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, the first thing I would say is, you know, having worked at a company, companies are not perfect. They screw up, they have blind spots. I think, and, and, you know, I think the best companies are responsive to public criticism and frankly responsive to employee criticism. I, I think one of the things you, you know, you've written about and see across the tech industry is, um, a lot of companies grappling with this question of, uh, you know, employee concerns and demands and, and how do they create environment? How do companies, leaders create an environment where employees feel like they can help make the company better?

• 17:51Speaker 01

  I don't know that, I mean, so for example, if you look at, um, you know, valley companies, when the pen, I think pre pandemic, actually, uh, Facebook did something interesting. They had actually already that their shuttle bus drivers had already unionized. And early in the pandemic, they worked out an agreement with their shuttle bus drivers union to continue paying drivers through the pandemic, even though they weren't driving. And that became then, um, the, the agreement that essentially became the norm at the other companies with, in terms of their own deal agreements with drivers. A lot of that, by the way, is driven by employees. And so I think I, I'm not sure it's as black and white as, as you suggest.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  I think actually the, what I've saw when I was working in company.

• 18:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  You're right. Maybe it is, maybe it is the people that are sitting. In the chairs that you've sat in.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Maybe it's the policy people that are the problem.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know the policy people are the problem. I just think that in my experience, many of the many employees of Valley companies are actually pretty pretty sensitized to the imperative of of fair treatment of contractors.

• 19:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. And actually, when they've spoken up about it, such as in one another, one of your member companies inside Amazon, they've been fired. I mean, the people that spoke up about worker conditions inside Amazon, you know, as coronavirus set in, ended up getting fired from the company. So do you think that that do you think that was the right way to handle this?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  I, yeah, and I don't know. I, I don't claim to speak for every company's decision on every single thing. But I do.

• 19:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, of course, of course, but I'm curious, like, you know, from your perspective personally, do you think that, you know, if if employees are driving the change, should should company should the companies that we're talking about here do a better job listening and not?

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  And obviously, complicated employment situation, but

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Does it seem like the right way to handle this stuff is to is to fire the whistleblowers?

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Well, I think that, you know, if you if you take a step back, and again, you see this a lot. I think one of the things you see is all companies kind of grappling with this question of of employee activism and what role it should play, right? On one end, you, you know, you have companies like Coinbase and Basecamp, right, who sort of declared, you know, no politics at work, right? And we're just going to focus on building our product. And on the other hand, you have, you know, someone like Marc Benioff, right? Maybe the opposite end of the spectrum, who personally weighs in on a lot of social economic issues. I would say actually, the vast majority of companies, in my experience, are somewhere in the middle. And

• 20:32Speaker 01

  they, I think most company leaders actually, you know, value employees speaking up on different topics. That doesn't mean they're always going to agree. But I see most companies kind of grappling with this question of how do we respond to some of these concerns? And, you know, there have been, there have been a number of people, Roy Bahat, who's a member of our volunteer advisory board, who have spoken up about kind of new

• 21:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Previous guest of the show.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and new structures for for companies to bring in worker voices into decision making. And I think there's a lot of interesting ideas there.

• 21:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, but but I want to go back. I don't want to let this go just yet because I do want to go back to the way that the companies that are part of your group have have handled or have helped fund your group have handled this stuff. Again, Amazon fired the people who spoke up for worker conditions and they ended up leading to a resignation of like one of their top people at AWS who just couldn't handle it. And he said, you know, something like, I can't, I won't continue to serve this poison. And even Google, and look, I know that the it's not black and white when it comes to worker advocacy inside organizations. But listen, if you have, Amazon obviously has clear problems with the way

• 21:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  that it treats the warehouse workers, firing whistleblowers when they speak up and, you know, on behalf of the of these folks. And then you have Google, a company you used to work with. I mean, they've systematically pushed out, you know, almost everybody involved in the worker movement. You know, back then, it does seem to me that, you know, I mean, maybe this is a role you can play is going back to these companies and say, hey, listen, you know, we're pushing for you on the on the front, on the progressive front, maybe we shouldn't be canning the people who are speaking up for, you know, the folks who are being left out of the system. Is that a role you can play?

• 22:31Speaker 01

  I think it's something that's happening candidly already. I mean, I think even for example, if you look at, you know, Jeff Bezos's comments about, look, you know, we got, we have to treat our our team members better, right? And Amazon has a pretty good, you know, has good compensation. They pay benefits to warehouse employees from the very beginning. But, you know, they're saying they can do better. And I think honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if you see the same thing happening across across the industry.

• 23:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. And this is the the issue is that oftentimes, I mean, you look at tech executives saying that we can do better. I'll just point you to Mark Zuckerberg. I mean, we we have heard for years about, you know, the need to do better and build trust and all that. And then The action is oftentimes lacking when it comes to actually doing stuff. Now, look, I will, I have in the past and will continue to give Amazon some credit. They're way ahead of the federal government when it comes to where the minimum wage is. Seven dollar twenty five cent minimum wage federal on the federal level fifteen dollar minimum wage in the Amazon warehouses. So they get some kudos for that.

• 23:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  But also I find it somewhat funny that now, you know, these companies are, you know, starting to say that they're, and again, not registered to a party, but I do find it funny and politically expedient in some ways that these companies are now, you know, grabbing on to this progressive movement and saying they're part of it while also being clearly lacking in firing the people who have been speaking up on these values for a long time. Maybe that's just me.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, as I said, I, I, I, I would not be surprised, I think, if you see continued evolution on the part of companies on this front. Candidly, I also think one of the things that's going to happen is that because the remote workforce, much more of their workforce is going to be remote, it's going to be in different places. You know, I think treatment of employees is, is, it has to be at the top of the list. Otherwise, company's turnover is going to be, you know, too high, right? And, and it's a competitive economy out there. So I think that the companies have an interest in, in making improvements. And candidly, this kind of criticism is good for industry to hear, in my experience.

• 24:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. And again, I'll just point out, not just employees, but, but contractors need to be part of that equation as well, in my opinion. Okay, let's take a quick break. After the break, I want to talk a little bit about the way that organizations like yours play into the public conversation, how your statements end up getting included in press reports and interpreted, and what that all means. So let's take a break. We'll be right back here on the Big Technology Podcast. Stick with us, just about a sixty second break and we'll be back. This episode is brought to you by Avpoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Copilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data. And most teams have no single way to see it,

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• 26:16Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 27:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here for the second half of the Big Technology Podcast with Adam Kovakovic. Did I get that right?

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Kovakovic. Close, though.

• 27:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  So close.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  I've heard it all.

• 27:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thank you for being with us. You are the head of the Chamber of Progress. Again, we've been speaking about a very interesting organization funded by, let's just read who you're funded by. Amazon, Automatic DoorDash, Facebook Getaround, Google Grubhub, Instacart, Lime, Lyft, Neuro, Twitter, Uber, Waymo, Wing, and Zillow. What are those companies getting for their money?

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Well, we're an industry trade association. And so, you know, we're not a public interest group. We're not a think tank. And I felt it was really important to be upfront about, you know, who are the companies that are supporting our group?

• 28:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'm giving you credit because you at least list them on the homepage.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 28:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Which is something that isn't done all over the place.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  There's a lot of groups that are active in the policy space that don't. And then the first question is, well, who's supporting you? And we're 100% supported by funding from these companies and are not trying, you know, and want to be 100% supportive of that. So, so we're, you know, we're advocating for industry's interests. There's, that's what associations do. And, you know, I think that doesn't mean we always agree. I think one of the things that we've set up as a principle is we don't, our partner companies, we don't claim to speak for individual partner companies. We also have a set of principles that we're committed to even when partner companies disagree. And no company has a

• 29:00Speaker 01

  vote or a veto over our policies. So it means that, you know, we are, we have and will say things that not every company agrees with. And that's okay. That's why we're super explicit about that principle.

• 29:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  So I've given you some credit, but now I also want to like talk about the other side of this, which is that the concern is that this is, you know, yet another organization with an ambiguous name that's making Big Tech's case for it. And I've written in the past about another organization called the Progressive Policy Institute that I think is far more opaque. But you end up reading, you know, the stories that come out about these tech companies. And you see, you know, the people who are saying that there should be stronger antitrust enforcement on one side, you rarely actually hear from the companies themselves. You hear from companies like, you hear from organizations like, like yours or the Progressive Policy Institute. And it does seem like, okay, there's like balanced advocacy organizations on both sides.

• 29:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  What's often left out, though, is the fact that Big Tech, you know, in the stories at least, is the fact that Big Tech does, does support these groups. So why can't Big Tech make its case on antitrust on its own? I mean, I spoke with a senator, a state senator from New York, Mike Generis, who had the Progressive Policy Institute at one of his hearings, where I think all five of the Big Tech companies had declined to appear. But a representative from PPI shows up. PPI has taken funding from a number of these companies. And the point Generis makes is Big Tech should, you know, if Big Tech believes that it's in the right, it should just make this, you know, argument on its own.

• 30:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  So I guess, you know, we're in the middle of this period where we're seeing legislation introduced in Congress, a stronger FTC, and arguments being made that some of the excesses of these companies, like I know you mentioned that some people say they should be dissolved. I think the broader argument is that some of the excesses of these companies should be reined in. Why do we need these third-party organizations that seem to show that there's more support for these companies than there really is that are funded by these companies? Why do we need them to be out there making the argument? Why can't the companies on their own do the same?

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, first of all, you know, I think all the things you describe or contribute to the reason why I say explicitly, you know, we are an industry group. Here's our supporting partners. We're not trying to deceive anybody about who our funders are or what our interests are.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Why don't companies speak up on their own behalf? I don't know. You know, I think sometimes, I think sometimes one tech in particular faces a lot of policy threats, not just federally, state and locally. And sometimes it might be a volume question. I wouldn't be surprised if sometimes companies feel...

• 32:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  How could it be, I mean, a volume question? These are trillion-dollar companies.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Sorry, not volume, not volume in terms of like how loudly they can speak. But, but, you know, I think, for example, that we just ended at the state legislative session, right? Most state legislatures had, and there were hundreds of bills that are proposed in state legislatures that, you know, would affect tech. Most tech companies don't have, you know, a Minnesota lobbyist and a Montana lobbyist, right? But, but there are trade organizations who work on behalf of industry collectively who have the ability to monitor legislation in those states. And so sometimes what happens is, you know, the industry representative says, here's, here's what the effect on industry would be, just because, again, of the volume of attacks.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  I wouldn't be surprised that as you see companies, as you see proposals advance, I think companies tend to speak up more, the more serious a proposal is, candidly. When I was at Google, I was involved in work around the, this SOPA-PIPA legislation. And Google was among several companies that did a, basically a homepage promotion, wasn't a blackout. There were some sites that did a blackout that day.

• 33:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  I remember that. Yeah. Like, when you think about this new, new package of antitrust bills, I mean, this is like part of the reason why I thought it'd be great to have a conversation with you is... They've been largely silent, but you've been very loud. I've seen your name everywhere. And so, yeah, I do wonder, okay, this seems like it's raised to the level of of seriousness. There's five bills that have been introduced in the House of Representatives. And I do wonder, you know, if if organizations like yours, CCIA, Progressive Policy Institute, you know, all dropping quotes and and making the case and showing up at hearings, making the case that that, you know, big tech is being unfairly targeted or that the legislation is off,

• 34:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  whether that shows, you know, creates an illusion that there's actually more support for them than there actually is, A. And B, you know, sort of paints them as being calm, cool and collected above the fray, while sending out others to, you know, and so not defensive while sending out others to defend them.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't, again, I can't speak to their motives. And as I said, I actually think that probably companies will speak up if they feel the threat is serious enough to influence their their their customers, right? And the products that they offer. So I wouldn't be surprised if you see that happening as as some of these proposals advance. You know, I, look, I think that I can only speak for our organization. We try to be clear about who are, you know, who are supporting companies are. We are an industry group. And, you know, and and and try to be upfront about that and then hopefully make arguments that people either feel are valid arguments, or some of some policymakers might reject those arguments. So,

• 35:06Speaker 01

  you know, so I I think that's kind of how I would, how how we approach it as an organization.

• 35:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. So transparency is important to you.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  So I have some questions on that front. Will you guys list a report maybe annually of who funds you and the dollar amounts that they're giving?

• 35:23Speaker 01

  We'll do what it will. We already do what more than most associations do and list who our partner companies are. We won't list. And we won't list individual amounts, but we'll file the 990 reports that are required every year that that list where funding comes from.

• 35:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  What is a 990 report?

• 35:42Speaker 01

  It's an IRS form that all nonprofits have to file every year that includes all of that information.

• 35:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  Why not list the individual donations of transparency as part of one of the core values here?

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Well, I just think we've said that we're going to be transparent on more transparent than most groups and listing partners. I don't know that there are any that do. Some companies actually choose to list how much they how much they fund. But yeah, I mean, we're also not inviting journalists into our meetings, right? I mean, transparency always has some limits.

• 36:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, yeah, I do find it sort of sad that the bar is so low that simply disclosing funders is doing better. But I suppose that's not your issue. But it does sort of speak to the swampy nature of a lot of this stuff. Yeah, so, all right, we'll be able to see some transparency, not all of it on that. Well, I have another question. When you speak with journalists, will you insist that there's going to be a disclosure when they quote you about where the money's coming from?

• 36:44Speaker 01

  We have it in our press releases. We have it on the press. Again, I think that almost every time I'm quoted somewhere, it actually reporters will say, you know, this is a group that's supported by these companies. So.

• 37:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I've seen I've looked through some of the quotes, some, but not all. And maybe that's something, okay, like, I'm not going to be someone who stands up here and says reporters are perfect. Maybe that's something reporters need to be better on is showing adding disclosures like this. So and then when you write op-eds, so Alex Stapp, who was at the Progressive Policy Institute, he wrote this op-ed for the MIT Tech Review about how like all these ideas about antitrust with big tech are like totally off. And then, you know, eventually they never disclosed that PPI is funded in part by the big tech companies. And they had to like do a correction and put.

• 37:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  That disclosure on the bottom. So when you write op-eds, is that something that you'll disclose?

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Yep, absolutely. It's something, as I said, we have it on our website. We, I think it's an important principle.

• 37:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. What do you think about the practice? It's called Grass Tops. I've written about in the past where trade organizations will recruit small businesses to say, you know, these regulations will harm small businesses and you end up getting like, you know, these very wonky op-eds that show up. Like there was one in the Kansas City Star that was attacking Josh Hawley, for instance, for his, for his anti-tech approach. And then you go to the small business owner, you know, it's, and I'm not saying a hundred percent is what happened in this case in particular because I don't have it in front of me. But you go to the small business owner and you say, all right, well, it was this, this

• 38:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  draft was actually written by an organization that big tech funds. No disclosure at all in the op-ed. Do you think that your organization will engage in this practice? Or, you know, can you state that, you know, if you do recruit smaller businesses to help make big tech's arguments for them, that they will, that they'll disclose that there was support that came from your organization? Or are you going to swear the practice off completely?

• 39:04Speaker 01

  I don't, it's not something, it's not an activity we're planning on doing. But no, I think in our advocacy activity, one of the things we, we have been very careful about is saying, yes, we are a chamber of progress. We're an industry organization and here are the companies that support our work.

• 39:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Now, okay, I want to go back to one other thing that you said before. You said you think that the companies will end up speaking up on their own. Okay, that's good. But I still, you know, we even started this conversation talking about how the views, some of the views, I think you mentioned this, that some of the views that you're advancing are views that belong to a very good chunk of the members of Congress anyway. You know, that they don't want to totally crush big tech, that they want to maybe rein them in to some extent, but you know, not, not in the way that some of these bills out there are saying it. So, you know, even if, is it anything outside of volume? I mean, do you see that, like, you know, potentially the benefit to big tech

• 40:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  of having you guys out there, you know, taking some of the flak on their behalf?

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know. I think I think a lot of it is about talking about what we perceive as the impact of some of these things. So for example, you know, one of the proposals that we've been speaking up about is this proposal from Congressman Cicilline and actually another related proposal from Congresswoman Giappal that would target what they call discrimination or conflicts of interest. And what it what it is, if you look at the legislation, Congressman Cicilline's legislation would ban the kind of product integration, right, that allows your iPhone to come with iMessage and FaceTime, that allows, you know, Facebook to come with Messenger, that allows Amazon to come with Amazon Prime.

• 40:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  There's been some debate on that.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Well, I don't actually think there has been. I don't think the bill, the bill, I mean, there was a, I think, there was Congressman Cicilline was, was, I think, splitting some hairs about a separate provision of his bill, but he acknowledged in an interview this week that the bill would ban Amazon Prime products, our Amazon Basics products. So I, that's a goal of the legislation.

• 41:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  The thing that I was pointing to under debate was that in terms of installing the apps on iPhone products, they could come pre-installed, you just have to be able to delete them.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  I don't think that's true, actually. That, I mean, the legislation bans, it bans a covered service, including Apple, from advantaging its products.

• 41:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  And and pre-installation would advantage a product. So by the way, now, the easy, the easy response is if Congressman Cicilline did not intend to prevent iPhone from banning iMessage and FaceTime, he could say, let's, let's amend the bill to make that clear.

• 41:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Yeah. No, I hear you. Look, this is going to be a process that ends up going. Through a number of revisions, I imagine.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Sure, and that's into what I said earlier.

• 42:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Part of democracy.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and into your question about members of Congress, like I just, most members of Congress aren't paying attention to tech policy proposals, right? They have other priorities. And part of what we've been trying to say is like, here's what this would mean for your constituents, who probably aren't paying that much attention to politics. If they like their Amazon Prime, like this bill would probably ban that from happening. And so, you know, I think that's a, this is a pretty good example of like, a proposal that would have an impact on people's lives. Now, they might say, yeah, okay, I'm okay with banning Amazon Prime, but at least, at least surface the impacts of these kinds of, these kind of proposals.

• 42:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  How do you think Amazon benefits from having you make that argument, though? And having Amazon sort of sit out of this?

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Well, I'm sure Amazon benefits, but I also think like, Amazon's customers have a stake in this too, right?

• 42:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  I know, I know, but let's, let's go back to the question, though.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  How does Amazon benefit? Well, Amazon wants to be offered, sure, Amazon wants to be able to offer Amazon Prime and Amazon Basics.

• 43:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  In particular, I mean, I'm talking about the organization that, you know, the Chamber of Progress. How do they benefit from having you, you make that argument versus they themselves?

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think part of, right, so, so part of what an organization like

• 43:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  They're not very, they're not very good at this. I mean, they've, they've gone to war with politicians and ended up looking extremely stupid on Twitter, which is again, a place we spend a lot of our time.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Part of, part of what an organization like ours is able to do is say, okay, like, let's look at this legislation, and let's look at the impacts across the board. So we can talk about the impacts on Amazon Prime, on iMessage, on FaceTime, on Google Search, on Messenger, across the board. And that's obviously, you know, each company could certainly, and, and may certainly talk more about the impact on their own products, but, but that's something we can do.

• 43:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and you're also, I would say, maybe it's money well spent for these companies, because you guys can mess up, and it's not going to be Bernie Sanders coming down on like, the head of retail at Amazon. You know, it'll, it'll be, it'll be, they have a bit of a shield, whereas like, you can go and make the arguments of big tech to the.

• 44:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  To the congresspeople that are going to be voting on this and essentially not have some of the downstream risks that Amazon itself would if it did it on its own, which is I imagine why they're funding you guys.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Look, I, you don't have to ask them why they're supporting our work. I know, like I said, I think, again, we're an industry group. So clearly, like all these proposals have implications for industry. By the way, one of the other things that is true is that many of the provisions of these bills were lobbied for by the company, by the big companies' smaller competitors as well, right? And so I think one of the things that does happen in policy debates is that sometimes consumer interests get lost because you have companies are well represented by lobbyists, right? And I'm a company representative, right? I'm

• 45:04Speaker 01

  one of them. But I also think that, you know, each company also has both an interest in trying to protect its own products, but also an interest in trying to make sure that their customers continue to have good experience. No one, I mean, no one wants to be able to have to tell their customers that the government, you know, Amazon doesn't want to tell its customers that the government banned Prime. That's, that would be terrible, right?

• 45:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Of course. This is going to go to another question I want to ask you, which is, do you think that your organization could exist? Like, do you take any public money, like from people? And do you think your organization could exist without the money from big tech? Because if it is in the interest of, you know, the people that ultimately are going to be impacted by these changes anymore, you'd think you'd be able to rally some support from, you know, everyday citizens to help fund it versus the tech companies.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, look, we, I chose for us to structure the organization as a 501(c)(6) trade association funded by companies. There are other organizations that are funded by individual donations. There are public interest groups that are funded by foundations. A lot of foundation, you know, foundation money ultimately comes from companies as well, typically, right? Corporate profits. So I, what I would say-

• 46:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Or billionaires.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, or billionaires, or billionaires, but those billionaires made their money somehow. One of the things I would say about this is that-

• 46:26Speaker 01

  The companies have pretty happy customers, right? They have some of the highest approval ratings of any companies, right? And so there is, I think, a pretty valid argument.

• 46:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  They're, yeah.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  That they know their customers well, right? They're succeeding and delighting their customers. And so, look, Amazon, Google, Apple have higher approval ratings than most policymakers, right? And so I think there is something that, you know, to, it's an imperfect proxy, but, but there is definitely a dynamic to their advocacy and our advocacy, which is sort of speaking up on behalf of their own customers.

• 47:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and the question is, at what cost do these positive experiences come?

• 47:12Speaker 01

  That is the question. That is the question.

• 47:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  And, you know, even though they have these high approval ratings, which I was gonna bring up.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 47:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Way higher than Congress, higher than journalists, for sure. There's still stuff, there's negative externalities that, I appreciate that. Please vote in the next poll. There's negative externalities.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  And I like most journalists.

• 47:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, it means, well, anyway, I won't go into it. But, anyway, there's, there are negative externalities that need to be.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, look, there's, there's no doubt about that.

• 47:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's why we have government.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And, and, so, for example, like, these, some of these proposals would give an, you know, would give an advantage to someone like Spotify, right? Who's fighting with Apple over the terms of the App Store. And policymakers could say, you know what? We want it, we want to give an advantage to Spotify. But that, that might be at odds with the integrated experience, right? Of the iPhone coming with Apple Music.

• 48:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, now you're really getting at a third rail of this show here. Because I, I think that Apple is, has, you know, obviously makes great devices, but has done tremendous, serious harm to the consumer experience once you're inside them by doing whatever it can to shut out competitors. And this is harming not only, you know. The competitors but Apple as well. And you know, you look at, for instance, and this is a whole another debate, but you look at the HomePod, which just had to basically stop, Apple had to stop producing because they were so insistent, for instance, that you use Apple Music and not Spotify, while like the Echo and the Google Home are thriving. But anyway, that's a whole

• 48:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  different show. So let's leave that. But yeah, I hear what you're saying. And that's why I'm just like, you know, if people are, you know, if, I don't know, maybe I see the point in raising the corporate money. I also wonder if people, everyday people were, you know, going to be passionate about this and believe that they had a lot to gain, you know, maybe.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  We'll see. That's the thing about the, yeah, that's the thing about we'll see about the political process.

• 49:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  But it's telling that, yeah, that the way that you set up the organization was going to be a trade organization versus public interest group.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, there, by the way, I have great respect. There's lots of public interest groups working on these topics and have great respect for them.

• 49:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Great. Well, Adam, look, you know, I told you it wasn't going to be an easy interview.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  No, but that's great.

• 49:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  I think that there's, there's obvious, you know, I'll just say this. I think that the point of my newsletter, the point of this show is to show what's going on behind the scenes and cue people into the way this stuff works. And, you know, I think that like there, there are people who told me, oh, don't give Adam the floor. Personally, I give you credit for coming on. And this has been fun. It's been fun. And look, if listeners to this, to this episode can get a sense of the way that the politics behind the scenes work when it comes to big tech antitrust,

• 50:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  I think that's a good thing. And I agree. You know, my positions on this stuff, I'm still trying to figure out what the legislation means. You know, I think I, I know, I just wrote a story.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  You wrote a great piece about the M and A, the M and A implications.

• 50:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Talking about how one of the bill was particularly misguided. I think, you know, obviously, the tech giants brought this on themselves. They've been anti-competitive in a lot of different ways. That's given Congress the ammunition it needs to start writing bills to try to rein them in. So it'll be an interesting process. Clearly, you're going to play a role. Got the donors to keep you going for a while, I imagine. And so hopefully after today, people will have an idea of what's happening behind the scenes. I appreciate you joining. Thanks, Alex. Great. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Adam. Thanks, everybody for listening. We will be back next week with a fun interview. It's going to be with the CEO of Tinder, Jim Lanzo. So that will be an interesting one.

• 51:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  About to go and record that. If it's your first time listening, please subscribe. We do this every Wednesday with a tech insider or outside agitator. If you are a longtime listener and want to rate us, that would be much appreciated. We're getting close to 100 ratings. Okay, not that close, but we could use your help. Any rating helps on Apple Podcasts. So the big tech companies that Adam represents will distribute us to more people. And we can have more of these conversations. Thanks to Nick Watney for editing the show. Red Circle for hosting, Sony advertising. And thanks again to you all for listening. See you next Wednesday.

• 52:02Speaker 02

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