Slate Money Money Talks: Don't Be Evil-ish
18 snips
Dec 9, 2025 
Tim Wu, a Columbia Law School professor and author of The Age of Extraction, joins Elizabeth Spiers to discuss the troubling dominance of Big Tech. They explore how corporate greed has led to the erosion of ideals surrounding the internet as a democratizing force. Wu highlights the pressures from shareholders that drive extractive practices and the alarming shift toward monopolization, which he warns could lead to authoritarianism. He also touches on the potential impacts of AI and emphasizes the need for regulatory reform to combat tech concentration.
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Monopolies Can Fuel Political Breakdown
- Wu maps a path from monopolization to extraction, mass resentment, democratic failure, and potential authoritarianism.
- He warns the U.S. is well into extraction and rising mass resentment that could deepen without redistribution of power.
Focus On Power, Not Just Taxes
- Prioritize power redistribution and decentralizing economic control over pure tax-and-redistribute schemes.
- Wu favors breakups, stronger bargaining power for workers, and wider ownership of production means.
How Invitation Homes Extracts From Renters
- Invitation Homes bought foreclosed houses en masse after the Great Recession and treated rentals like extractive software-driven assets.
- Wu describes corporate landlords raising rents, adding fees, and skimping on repairs to maximize returns.
