Google, a monopoly? Hold my beer, as the other would say. Wait until you read these fall novelties from Amazon, Facebook, Intel and billionaire Elon Musk, which are finally arriving in French in Quebec. The stranglehold on our world by tech giants and the leaders who pull their strings is enough to send shivers down your spine. At least until Halloween!
Elon Musk the Con Man
Nothing seems to be able to stop the richest man on the planet. Even those who are disgusted by his words and behavior on X, his own social network, struggle to leave a mark on the gleaming bodywork of Tesla vehicles, the car brand of which he is the big boss. In the eyes of his most loyal fans, Musk has the aura of a visionary entrepreneur who owes his success to his intelligence alone, who built his fortune alone, from almost nothing.
This is obviously a completely fabricated image. It is to omit the fact that his father, whom he practically disowns in public, financed his first steps in the business world. It is to neglect the fact that Tesla owes its success to two brilliant engineers, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, whom Musk slowly ousted from the management, between 2003 and 2010, thanks to financial maneuvers that are not at all revolutionary.
Even SpaceX, which Musk founded in 2002, would not be as successful as it is today if NASA and the US federal government had not decided to privatize space exploration as quickly as possible… by heavily subsidizing the sector. It is difficult to admit, for a libertarian opposed to any form of capital taxes, that its success is due to… massive government aid.
This is not the only contradiction, of course. Boris Manenti, editor-in-chief of the Economy department of New Obshe obviously notices this throughout the portrait he paints of him in Elon Musk. The huckster, published by Editions du Rocher.
Amazon Confidential
Which company among the GAFAM is the most powerful, according to you? The journalist at Wall Street Journal Dana Mattioli suggests that it is Amazon, not without making excellent arguments. Behind its image as a hyper-efficient cyber-retailer hides a company that “is now in a position to threaten freedoms — those of the market and of consumers,” she says.
It must be said that behind this facade of a retail giant with a smiling logo lies a machine ready to do anything to crush all competition: industrial espionage, anti-competitive measures, invasion of privacy, etc. It is not for nothing that Jeff Bezos has been able to line his pockets: the company he created 30 years ago has become a champion of tax avoidance, preferring to enrich its directors rather than pay a reasonable minimum of tax on its income.
It remains to be seen how long Amazon can continue to play by its own rules. Now that the U.S. government has successfully pinned Google on its anticompetitive practices in online search, Amazon is now in its crosshairs. If Google’s parent company Alphabet ends up being broken up, could Amazon be broken up as well? This book gives us the clues to answer that question.
The Truth About Facebook
THE Facebook Files were published with great fanfare in the spring of 2021. They revealed how Facebook management allowed algorithms to be used to fuel polarization, political extremism, and misinformation. Facebook, by the way it operated, was apparently pouring oil on the fire of online hate and violence with impunity. It was Frances Haugen, a data engineer who worked at Facebook, Google, Yelp, and Pinterest, among others, who subsequently became the spokesperson for these claims, including before the U.S. Congress and the international press.
The Truth About Facebook is the story of Frances Haugen and how she became a modern-day social media Joan of Arc, standing in the way and causing Facebook to falter, so much so that the company had to change its name to cover up its less-than-glorious business model.
The Semiconductor War
If you read only one book this fall to understand the world, make it this one. The United States, China, Intel, Huawei, electric cars, the iPhone, the China Sea, Taiwan—it’s all in there. On the dust jacket of this translation of Chip Warsby Chris Miller, the New York Times is quoted as saying that “if you only read one book to understand Silicon Valley, make it this one!”, but it goes a little further than that.
Because the whole planet is turning these days to the rhythm of transistors that are not 3 nanometers long. Semiconductors are everywhere, including in the nuclear weapons that are exchanged by the United States and Israel as well as Russia, China and others. And whoever is the master of chips, in this context, is also, in a way, the master of the world.