Lina Khan: The 32-year-old taking on Big Tech(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Lina Khan: The 32-year-old taking on Big Tech
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57501579
74 comments
Yes, though the age is a red herring: they are colloquially known as "patsies" or "fall guys" [1]. When faced with a problem with an obvious but costly solution, a common strategy is to find a popular but incompetent/inexperienced individual to put in charge of fixing it. Their incompetence/inexperience leads to an inevitable worsening of the problem until everyone is willing to pay the cost of the obvious solution, at which point the fall guy/gal's popularity is used to create The Downfall distraction. Meanwhile unpopular politicians implement what they wanted to all along while scoring political brownie points for saving the day and ammunition for next time.
My mom says I should have been a politician...
Edit: I'm not saying that's what's happening now. I have no idea whether Lina Khan is qualified or not
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_guy
My mom says I should have been a politician...
Edit: I'm not saying that's what's happening now. I have no idea whether Lina Khan is qualified or not
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_guy
While it is really more of a mid-size agency at 1000-ish folks, there are typically also a number of career execs managing each of the divisions to help assist the executive in delivering on their vision for the organization. Further, the FTC is a commission, so while the Commissioner is technically the head of the org, all of the other commissioners also have their roles day to day.
Personally, I think 32 is an OK age for such an appointment, especially if you have background in relevant subject matter. For many of these appointments you're looking for someone to set direction / mission, rather than micromanagement if the org is already functioning at a relatively high level (FTC is #2 ranked employer for mid-sized agencies which tells me they're doing OK by that standard).
Personally, I think 32 is an OK age for such an appointment, especially if you have background in relevant subject matter. For many of these appointments you're looking for someone to set direction / mission, rather than micromanagement if the org is already functioning at a relatively high level (FTC is #2 ranked employer for mid-sized agencies which tells me they're doing OK by that standard).
The FTC certainly has been slow about dealing with Qualcomm/Google/Apple WRT phones. That may sound like a silly complaint but phones have almost completely replaced personal computers for most people along with almost every form of communication (both n to n and 1 to n.) Phone OS vendors abusing their position as monopolists on user's access to information is a serious threat to democracy and it's not something that can be just ignored.
If you read her writing or listen to her speak it will quickly become clear that she's a highly intelligent and measured individual that has a nuanced understanding of these issues. IMO she is eminently qualified for the position.
Given that our society idolizes 20-something billionaire tech founders without questioning their capacity to run massive billion-dollar companies, why is it such a stretch to envision a 30-something running a government office?
I don’t know why people keep making this comparison. Billionaire founders become billionaire founders because they build companies and manage people. No one appoints them to the office of CEO of a completely unrelated company at age 25.
The main function of a federal agency head is navigating the political landscape; they're the bureaucratic janitors tasked with maintaining the organization so its subject matter experts can make better decisions. She has demonstrated that she has political capital by getting the appointment and confirmation, just like billionaire founds have demonstrated they have financial capital.
This is probably the most viable take. It doesn’t exactly make our government leaders look too bright, though...
Thanks for the comment.
Thanks for the comment.
I don’t know why you have a problem with one 20-something managing a ton of people because the market rewarded his idea while you have a problem with a different 30-something managing a ton of people.
To argue that young founders that run big companies are capable while questioning if young bureaucrats are is purely ageist.
To argue that young founders that run big companies are capable while questioning if young bureaucrats are is purely ageist.
This line of reasoning makes no sense.
A founder CEO is there because it’s his/her company. They built it up, they grew the company and grew with it. That’s how a business works.
This is not the same thing as a person with little or no managerial experience being appointed to one of the the highest offices available.
Your comparison would make sense if young businesspeople with little experience were made CEOs at blue chip companies. This obviously doesn’t happen very often.
A founder CEO is there because it’s his/her company. They built it up, they grew the company and grew with it. That’s how a business works.
This is not the same thing as a person with little or no managerial experience being appointed to one of the the highest offices available.
Your comparison would make sense if young businesspeople with little experience were made CEOs at blue chip companies. This obviously doesn’t happen very often.
32 doesn't seem "so young" to me, given that you only need to be 35 to be president.
That is an interesting comparison in theory only; in reality, the youngest president elected was 42 (JFK). The median age at inauguration is 55.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit....
What was life expectancy back in 1776? A quick search suggests 54 for men.
As the sibling notes, the current median age for a US president at inauguration is 55. Most people weren't expected to even live to 55 back then.
(Although, you can make the argument that life expectancy figures can be skewed downward by high infant mortality to the point where they're not that useful a measure anymore.)
As the sibling notes, the current median age for a US president at inauguration is 55. Most people weren't expected to even live to 55 back then.
(Although, you can make the argument that life expectancy figures can be skewed downward by high infant mortality to the point where they're not that useful a measure anymore.)
a talk that explains her stance on things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XujlefsuTS0
American politics is a sequence of issues left to fester followed by severe overreactions.
Mark Zuckerberg is 37. How are we deciding who has power? Is he the right person for that massive office?
Mark Zuckerberg is an entrepreneur that started a business 15 years ago. He isn’t in a governmental office.
I agree he probably shouldn't have had such power at 22 either. Why are we talking about her age? Who benefits?
We're talking about it because it's in the headline of the article. Why is it there? Presumably an editor (or the original author) thought that the age was either the most newsworthy fact here, or the one that would attract the most clicks. Given your question, I assume you don't think it's newsworthy, so it must be the latter explanation.
Who benefits? The BBC benefits from running clickbait headlines, since they carry ads.
Happy to help!
Who benefits? The BBC benefits from running clickbait headlines, since they carry ads.
Happy to help!
I don't understand how someone so young is made responsible for such things. They'll have possibly never even managed 5 people, let alone large organizations. She's a Associate Law prof barely out of school.
If they are 'brilliant' - that's great - then the should be senior advisors to the Head of the Commission, not Head of the Commission.
We don't want theoretical ideologues in those kinds of positions.
We ended up with companies like Facebook partly because we put 'really young people in enormous positions of power'.
These kinds of jobs is also as much about politics, people, relationships and 'knowing the system' as they are 'being brilliant'.
At my age, I'm keenly aware at how I was not ready for a whole bunch of things 10 years ago. Experience is real, just just 'an age'.
Edit: responding to the commentor below, yes thanks I should have added, at age 32 you're not tangled up in a web of politics. Also what's hard to describe is that the wager and risk becomes much great as you go on. At 32, you have your life ahead of you, you can burn political capital. At 50, you have to absolutely be making sure you're either 1) keeping your job a long time or 2) making a major transition, enabled by doing favours, political things etc. - you have your retirement, a spouse and 3 kids all going to Uni to worry about. That mental state is an advantage. But again, the skills you start to gain after age 32 matter a lot and that someone who's brilliant like this is much better able to help as a senior adviser to someone with the organizational political skills.
If they are 'brilliant' - that's great - then the should be senior advisors to the Head of the Commission, not Head of the Commission.
We don't want theoretical ideologues in those kinds of positions.
We ended up with companies like Facebook partly because we put 'really young people in enormous positions of power'.
These kinds of jobs is also as much about politics, people, relationships and 'knowing the system' as they are 'being brilliant'.
At my age, I'm keenly aware at how I was not ready for a whole bunch of things 10 years ago. Experience is real, just just 'an age'.
Edit: responding to the commentor below, yes thanks I should have added, at age 32 you're not tangled up in a web of politics. Also what's hard to describe is that the wager and risk becomes much great as you go on. At 32, you have your life ahead of you, you can burn political capital. At 50, you have to absolutely be making sure you're either 1) keeping your job a long time or 2) making a major transition, enabled by doing favours, political things etc. - you have your retirement, a spouse and 3 kids all going to Uni to worry about. That mental state is an advantage. But again, the skills you start to gain after age 32 matter a lot and that someone who's brilliant like this is much better able to help as a senior adviser to someone with the organizational political skills.
While I think there is some validity in your point. I also think there is value in sometimes bringing in someone young and without the years of baggage/relationships that morph their views and may also leave them with "favors" they need to return once in power. I can't see an industry veteran being willing to make such drastic changes without worrying about who they would offend.
Since graduating she has worked as
Legal director at the Open Markets Institute, became Columbia Law School academic fellow, a Legal Fellow at the FTC, counsel to the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law (leading the congressional investigation) and published The Separation of Platforms and Commerce.
Legal director at the Open Markets Institute, became Columbia Law School academic fellow, a Legal Fellow at the FTC, counsel to the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law (leading the congressional investigation) and published The Separation of Platforms and Commerce.
I disagree, but I upvoted because it is a perfectly valid point of view and expressed politely. Consider that this is a super outlier when it comes to government leadership, so maybe there is something to it.
Government is absolutely packed with old people[1], to the point where the young don't have much of a voice despite being a large US demographic. The average age of the 117th Congress is 59 years old. Only a single Senator is under 40. The house has only one member born in the 90s. The age groups with the biggest gains compared to the last Congress are 80+ and 50-59. Congress is old and getting older.
1: https://fiscalnote.com/blog/how-old-is-the-117th-congress
Government is absolutely packed with old people[1], to the point where the young don't have much of a voice despite being a large US demographic. The average age of the 117th Congress is 59 years old. Only a single Senator is under 40. The house has only one member born in the 90s. The age groups with the biggest gains compared to the last Congress are 80+ and 50-59. Congress is old and getting older.
1: https://fiscalnote.com/blog/how-old-is-the-117th-congress
> you have your retirement, a spouse and 3 kids all going to Uni to worry about
On the flip side, I'm not sure we really want the "move fast and break things" mentality moving into government, which seems to be a feature of leaders with less to lose.
(Certainly government moves too slowly most of the time, but there has to be a middle ground.)
On the flip side, I'm not sure we really want the "move fast and break things" mentality moving into government, which seems to be a feature of leaders with less to lose.
(Certainly government moves too slowly most of the time, but there has to be a middle ground.)
I'm using this as an excuse to read through her Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox Yale Law Journal article as it just became more important. Before I might have read it as a dissent; there are lots of dissents. Now as FTC Chair, she has a seat at the table.
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...
Better place to start is a review article from Lina Khan wrote that explains the new New Brandeis Movement.
The New Brandeis Movement: America’s Antimonopoly Debate by Lina Khan https://academic.oup.com/jeclap/article/9/3/131/4915966
(US moved into Borkian antitrust principles in the Reagan era, New Braindeis Movement moves is correction to more conventional view of antitrust)
The New Brandeis Movement: America’s Antimonopoly Debate by Lina Khan https://academic.oup.com/jeclap/article/9/3/131/4915966
(US moved into Borkian antitrust principles in the Reagan era, New Braindeis Movement moves is correction to more conventional view of antitrust)
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Economists: Was "Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox" really as big of a deal as the reporting says?
As someone who doesn't know much about economics, I never assumed that a monopoly would be merely defined as a cost-based analysis of corporate products. I assumed basically what the paper was arguing was how the system worked - you can be a monopoly even while providing the lowest cost to consumers.
As someone who doesn't know much about economics, I never assumed that a monopoly would be merely defined as a cost-based analysis of corporate products. I assumed basically what the paper was arguing was how the system worked - you can be a monopoly even while providing the lowest cost to consumers.
This is my field. I read the article some years ago and looked over parts of it again yesterday. I was and remain _extremely unimpressed_. I do not think the article had much of any influence on the thinking of economists on the issues it covers. I have never heard it discussed or mentioned in an economics seminar, nor is it taught.
There are economists in industrial organization who think big tech firms need a different regulatory approach. This is fair. But this opinion is not generally informed by khan’s arguments.
In my opinion, you can make the case for regulating tech firms most easily for Facebook (which acquired competitors WhatsApp and Instagram and probably shouldn’t have been allowed to).
The big tech firms have also done things occasionally which are clearly anticompetitive. Google and Facebook had a (recently revealed) secret anticompetitive agreement about bidding on ads, for example. That was a clear antitrust violation. Likely Google’s payment to Apple to remain the default search engine on iOS is at least questionable.
I say all of this to illustrate that I’m not a skeptic about regulating tech firms vis antitrust law.
However, the firm where I think this is hardest is Amazon. I don’t see them as being too large or too dominant. As of 2019 Walmart did about 3 times as much retail business as Amazon, iirc. Amazon faces competition from Walmart, Target, and any firm who sells a product online. The cost of going to a competitor’s website is zero. If consumers are repeatedly buying from Amazon instead, that’s a sign that Amazon is doing something right.
The claim is made here frequently that AWS is a monopoly. That is very hard to square with the existence of serious competitors like Microsoft and Google.
To respond to one more of your points: if you achieve a near monopoly by offering lower prices we economists would say that is good! Quantities are high and prices are low. You are a better option than your competitors. Khan seems to think that this is somehow bad for consumers, perhaps bc “eventually” Amazon will raise prices. (This is not remotely plausible.)
If you want a vastly, VASTLY better take on modern antitrust which includes good discussion of tech firms and dominant platforms, read “the antitrust paradigm” by jonathan baker.
There are economists in industrial organization who think big tech firms need a different regulatory approach. This is fair. But this opinion is not generally informed by khan’s arguments.
In my opinion, you can make the case for regulating tech firms most easily for Facebook (which acquired competitors WhatsApp and Instagram and probably shouldn’t have been allowed to).
The big tech firms have also done things occasionally which are clearly anticompetitive. Google and Facebook had a (recently revealed) secret anticompetitive agreement about bidding on ads, for example. That was a clear antitrust violation. Likely Google’s payment to Apple to remain the default search engine on iOS is at least questionable.
I say all of this to illustrate that I’m not a skeptic about regulating tech firms vis antitrust law.
However, the firm where I think this is hardest is Amazon. I don’t see them as being too large or too dominant. As of 2019 Walmart did about 3 times as much retail business as Amazon, iirc. Amazon faces competition from Walmart, Target, and any firm who sells a product online. The cost of going to a competitor’s website is zero. If consumers are repeatedly buying from Amazon instead, that’s a sign that Amazon is doing something right.
The claim is made here frequently that AWS is a monopoly. That is very hard to square with the existence of serious competitors like Microsoft and Google.
To respond to one more of your points: if you achieve a near monopoly by offering lower prices we economists would say that is good! Quantities are high and prices are low. You are a better option than your competitors. Khan seems to think that this is somehow bad for consumers, perhaps bc “eventually” Amazon will raise prices. (This is not remotely plausible.)
If you want a vastly, VASTLY better take on modern antitrust which includes good discussion of tech firms and dominant platforms, read “the antitrust paradigm” by jonathan baker.
> The big tech firms have also done things occasionally which are clearly anticompetitive. Google and Facebook had a (recently revealed) secret anticompetitive agreement about bidding on ads, for example. That was a clear antitrust violation. Likely Google’s payment to Apple to remain the default search engine on iOS is at least questionable.
Why occasionally? The vast majority of their products at the very least seem like textbook cases of predatory pricing to this layman. Throw in all the other anticompetitive stuff and big tech starts to look like the Uber/Airbnb of the rule of law.
Why occasionally? The vast majority of their products at the very least seem like textbook cases of predatory pricing to this layman. Throw in all the other anticompetitive stuff and big tech starts to look like the Uber/Airbnb of the rule of law.
They occasionally do anticompetitive things IMO bc that’s what I’m aware of. There may be (likely are) other anticompetitive things that they do which I am not aware of bc they have not been discovered yet.
“The vast majority” of their products seems like a stretch. But setting that aside, many economists (including me) are skeptical of a “predatory pricing” argument.
The idea that a firm would actually lose money for years to get rid of competitors in order to then raise prices later makes us skeptical. (At the very very least it would be extremely expensive - and then as soon as you raise prices and act like a monopolist you attract the attention of regulators!)
Separate from the question of whether a firm would actually do it, if a firm were doing it, would it be bad for consumers during that time?
Suppose Amazon is currently engaged in predatory pricing and is selling everything at a loss, below cost, but will in the future drive all of its competitors out of business and then raise prices... (note: I don’t think this is a plausible theory of Amazon’s behavior at all.)
Why shouldn’t the regulator just take its time regulating? If everyone in the market is getting goods below cost, that seems like a win for consumers. If and when Amazon decides to act like a monopolist and raise prices later... regulate them! But if they want to lose money selling cheap stuff now, this seems like a win for consumers now so... let them!
Predatory pricing arguments are not that well received in most of the economics profession, in part for these reasons.
“The vast majority” of their products seems like a stretch. But setting that aside, many economists (including me) are skeptical of a “predatory pricing” argument.
The idea that a firm would actually lose money for years to get rid of competitors in order to then raise prices later makes us skeptical. (At the very very least it would be extremely expensive - and then as soon as you raise prices and act like a monopolist you attract the attention of regulators!)
Separate from the question of whether a firm would actually do it, if a firm were doing it, would it be bad for consumers during that time?
Suppose Amazon is currently engaged in predatory pricing and is selling everything at a loss, below cost, but will in the future drive all of its competitors out of business and then raise prices... (note: I don’t think this is a plausible theory of Amazon’s behavior at all.)
Why shouldn’t the regulator just take its time regulating? If everyone in the market is getting goods below cost, that seems like a win for consumers. If and when Amazon decides to act like a monopolist and raise prices later... regulate them! But if they want to lose money selling cheap stuff now, this seems like a win for consumers now so... let them!
Predatory pricing arguments are not that well received in most of the economics profession, in part for these reasons.
> As someone who doesn't know much about economics, I never assumed that a monopoly would be merely defined as a cost-based analysis of corporate products.
That's new! Borkism! The terms of anti-trust were redefined in Reagan's time by Robert Bork, an appeals court judge & attorney general under Nixon (and failed Supreme Court nominee, thank the stars).
Cory Doctorow had a bunch of threads on this shift on what anti-trust is. I think this modern re-definition is incredibly incredibly important, at the crux of what happened to let the competitiveness in the US collapse, to allow giant monopolies & this acquisition culture to form. I guess the main thread is [1]. There's also discussion on Klobuchar's trust-busting desires[2], and NY attempting some reform[3], and some other mentions, all of which mention Bork & this recent narrowing re-definition. The last starts off with a discussion of Kahn's Anti-trust Paradox, ha!
This very much feels like a root cause, of how America became utterly ineffective at regulating anti-trust behavior & monopolies: limiting the definition of what it would consider to cost-based analysis of corporate products. Unbelievably limiting view, huge screw up.
Wikipedia page on Robert Bork for some more general background: [4].
[1] https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/10/borked/
[2] https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/06/calera/
[3] https://doctorow.medium.com/new-york-to-revolutionize-antitr...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork
That's new! Borkism! The terms of anti-trust were redefined in Reagan's time by Robert Bork, an appeals court judge & attorney general under Nixon (and failed Supreme Court nominee, thank the stars).
Cory Doctorow had a bunch of threads on this shift on what anti-trust is. I think this modern re-definition is incredibly incredibly important, at the crux of what happened to let the competitiveness in the US collapse, to allow giant monopolies & this acquisition culture to form. I guess the main thread is [1]. There's also discussion on Klobuchar's trust-busting desires[2], and NY attempting some reform[3], and some other mentions, all of which mention Bork & this recent narrowing re-definition. The last starts off with a discussion of Kahn's Anti-trust Paradox, ha!
This very much feels like a root cause, of how America became utterly ineffective at regulating anti-trust behavior & monopolies: limiting the definition of what it would consider to cost-based analysis of corporate products. Unbelievably limiting view, huge screw up.
Wikipedia page on Robert Bork for some more general background: [4].
[1] https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/10/borked/
[2] https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/06/calera/
[3] https://doctorow.medium.com/new-york-to-revolutionize-antitr...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork
Although they often intercept, her paper was not an economics paper, it was a legal treatise. I think the novel portion was that she used modern economic theory to create a legal framework that could be used for enforcement.
That said, that and one other paper got her tenure (not just tenure track) at Columbia Law.
That said, that and one other paper got her tenure (not just tenure track) at Columbia Law.
What does the breakup of a big company such as Amazon or Google look like from the inside? How do they manage teams, products, etc?
It's weird how they focus on big tech while ignoring banking, ISPs, healthcare, education, real estate, utilities and many others. Lot of markets that could use more competition.
Big Tech is the only one that actually competes with Journalism's business model. Facebook and Google destroyed media outlets' hold on advertising and disseminating information.
Ding ding ding. We have a winner.
In a democracy, the media has all the real power. That’s why we’re seeing endless op-eds against tech.
In a democracy, the media has all the real power. That’s why we’re seeing endless op-eds against tech.
>Big Tech is the only one that actually competes with Journalism's business model.
A journalist can see reasonable success reporting important stories, big tech only sees success reporting popular stories. Let's not pretend they're doing the same job, journalists have a legitimate beef with big tech.
A journalist can see reasonable success reporting important stories, big tech only sees success reporting popular stories. Let's not pretend they're doing the same job, journalists have a legitimate beef with big tech.
That’s exactly my thought. Except, in many of these cases it’s simply too late. In particular for retail, go to much of the country and the only options for restaurants, grocery, clothing, etc are national chains. Many of these areas just have a Walmart and that’s it. Fast food dominates (along with its hazards). Nothing was done to prevent this, which has been draining local economies for years, and now all the local competition is literally gone.
Even in "tech", they only focus on consumer tech. In healthcare, Epic has done so many things to drive up the cost of healthcare and prevent innovation:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/15/health-care-data-sh...
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/epic-ceo-sends-letter-urging...
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/15/health-care-data-sh...
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/epic-ceo-sends-letter-urging...
Big tech is just the most visible thing to people right now. Just like oil and steel and telecom were when those were broken up (and incidentally breaking those up didn't seem to last).
honestly I hear this a lot - why does it matter? do you think the government isn't working on those other things as well?
misdirection must be the most effective strategy of all time. in an alternate universe this would be "Lina Khan: The 32-year-old taking on ISPs" and there would be an identical comment to yours lamenting why Big Tech isn't being investigated
misdirection must be the most effective strategy of all time. in an alternate universe this would be "Lina Khan: The 32-year-old taking on ISPs" and there would be an identical comment to yours lamenting why Big Tech isn't being investigated
Yes, they aren't. The ISP game is over.
lol, this is not true. The American Jobs Act introduced by Biden explicitly calls out the ISP issue and tries to allow co-ops, municipalities and utilities to compete with local ISPs.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
even if they were not, it's still irrelevant to the issue of Big Tech. people can resolve issues sequentially.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
even if they were not, it's still irrelevant to the issue of Big Tech. people can resolve issues sequentially.
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It's like there's a pattern of behavior here that needs a more generic solution?
Probably coz theyre not growing as fast.
Why does her age matter?
Experience and maturity matters.
When I was young I too thought I knew all I needed to know. The older I get the more I understand that experience is very important.
When I was young I too thought I knew all I needed to know. The older I get the more I understand that experience is very important.
In both cases, young and old seem to believe what is in their self-interest.
My comment was on older-self vs younger-self.
It's not in your "self-interest", the way you mean it, to review your ideas and believes from when you were younger and realize that with your extra experience you see things differently now.
And just to be 100% clear, I am all for having younger people in critical positions and don't try to argue that one is better than the other.
My reply was on how age matters. Don't know why you try to twist it to a generational flame-war.
It's not in your "self-interest", the way you mean it, to review your ideas and believes from when you were younger and realize that with your extra experience you see things differently now.
And just to be 100% clear, I am all for having younger people in critical positions and don't try to argue that one is better than the other.
My reply was on how age matters. Don't know why you try to twist it to a generational flame-war.
One has the advantage of having been in both situations.
I often think about the old parable about a man walking down a road that comes to a fence. There is another man on the other side. He asks him to open the gate, and the man replies, "I'll open the gate if you can tell me why the fence is here".
Chesterton's fence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...
What matters more is recognizing the grand variance of human experience, and that while some may take a lifetime to accumulate even a little wisdom, others can possess unusual abilities and perspectives at any age. It's not like this is news, history is full of such young figures.
Completely, but it is still worth mentioning the age. I don't know why people get triggered by it.
It's like saying the 16yo chess champion, or the 18yo self made billionaire
It's like saying the 16yo chess champion, or the 18yo self made billionaire
Read her paper on Amazon.
I'd say in this case it's an indication of her likely familiarity/experience with some of the issues she'll work on in the FTC - particularly "Big Tech" as the article calls out.
Less likely to ask Google how an ad showed up on their kid's iPhone, for example.
Less likely to ask Google how an ad showed up on their kid's iPhone, for example.
Young people are probably better at manipulating phones than their elders, but do they actually have a better understanding of what is happening?
Pointless anecdote, but my friend, who is a well educated non-tech white collar professional in their upper 20s who is very active on tiktok/IG, recently let on that they believed cell phones communicated directly with satellites. I asked them why they thought dead zones existed in the countryside, and they said that was probably because there wasn't a satellite overhead. I asked them why they thought they were called "cellular phones", and after a minute of pondering it must be because the phones are very small.
Pointless anecdote, but my friend, who is a well educated non-tech white collar professional in their upper 20s who is very active on tiktok/IG, recently let on that they believed cell phones communicated directly with satellites. I asked them why they thought dead zones existed in the countryside, and they said that was probably because there wasn't a satellite overhead. I asked them why they thought they were called "cellular phones", and after a minute of pondering it must be because the phones are very small.
It isn't totally wrong to surmise that cell phones communicate directly with satellites; Mine is constantly listening to radio streams from satellites and using those to figure out where I am.
I'd say it's pretty wrong considering there are literally satellite phones.
Oh, it's for sure pretty wrong, but I can see how someone would get that impression (especially if they knew satellite phones were a thing but didn't know how uncommon they are).
Some might take her young age to mean she's less likely to have already been bought by the companies they'd like her to reign in.
To the contrary, a young person has a long career ahead of them, and a less scrupulous person could be bribed by the promise of a lifetime cushy job after government.
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It really doesn't and who cares. The source of this article is from the BBC and they and every clickbait tabloid media company does it all the time.
What really matters is if she and her assistants can do anything about the Big Tech problem or not. Otherwise it's a huge waste of time and nothing happens.
What really matters is if she and her assistants can do anything about the Big Tech problem or not. Otherwise it's a huge waste of time and nothing happens.
Because in general it's a very good indicator of idealism vs pragmatism.
Obviously not a be-all, and highly dependent on experience (e.g. are you 32 and spent all your life in academia, or 32 and have 10 years of industry experience, or somewhere in between).
You can also make a myriad of applicable observations based on age, but ultimately it's probably relevant because she is the youngest person in that position ever.
Obviously not a be-all, and highly dependent on experience (e.g. are you 32 and spent all your life in academia, or 32 and have 10 years of industry experience, or somewhere in between).
You can also make a myriad of applicable observations based on age, but ultimately it's probably relevant because she is the youngest person in that position ever.
she is amazing. I can't wait to see what she does.
Can you elaborate or expand on this? What was particularly novel or interesting about her Amazon Anti-trust Paradox article? Or work since then?
Genuine question. I've primarily seen vague praise of the anti-trust stance (no specifics) and fawning/consternation over her age.
Genuine question. I've primarily seen vague praise of the anti-trust stance (no specifics) and fawning/consternation over her age.
From what I understand, Ms. Khan wrote some influential papers against tech monopolies. Congress, wanting to address these monopolies, put her in charge of the FTC purely for this reason, as she has very little experience in anything I would assume to be necessary for running a massive government office.
It seems odd to me, but I don’t really follow the FTC. Am I just being cynical? I don’t get this move and it feels very one-dimensional to me.