Big Tech CEOs Avoided Answering Dozens of Questions in Testimony
Check out the lowlights from this historic day of testimony
Two weeks ago, four Big Tech CEOs – Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg – testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law.
Most memorable was how much the CEOs “didn’t know” … or at least said they didn’t. It is hard to believe Mark Zuckerberg isn’t familiar with his threats to copy, or antagonize, Snapchat and Instagram – the corporation’s most formidable competitors in the past decade. It is simply embarrassing that Zuckerberg isn’t sure of Instagram’s rank in the social media market.
Jeff Bezos – previously described by employees as “an infamous micro-manager”, who micro-manages “every single pixel of Amazon’s retail site”, approving “even the smallest decisions” – said he wasn’t sure about the fundamental functions of his business, like how Amazon verifies seller identity. Mark Zuckerberg, also known to be a micro-manager, failed to answer questions about how Facebook conducts “competitive research”.
At best, the CEOs are ignorant of major business details and decisions, and unconcerned with reputable allegations that have been made about their anticompetitive behavior. At worst, they are trying to plead ignorance to avoid accountability.
Let us be clear: Big Tech is not above the law. Join us to bring them to account, sever their stranglehold on our democracy, and break up Big Tech.
