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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ron who wrote (402494)	3/12/2019 1:00:06 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542914

Again, I am a professional IT strategy consultant and I am very familiar with the issues and companies she seems think to know. Warren is out of her depth and is clueless on the real world impact of what she is talking about. Everything in that post reads "I will stifle innovation and will rule like the Queen supreme." Far from using mergers to stifle competition, most of these mergers have fostered them. I am going to use Amazon as an example b/c I've spent many hours in their offices and I know them well, but the pattern generally holds for others. Amazon uses the revenue from retail to invest in other innovations. A great example is the use of AWS Cloud platform. I've watched that industry since before the term was even invented. Sun Microsystem (remember them? They are now part of Oracle), IBM, MS, and every other big tech wanted to provide some form of AS/Cloud service. And they all sucked at it. Why? Because they thought like a tech company and wanted to protect their existing business model. Amazon on the other hand didn't care about having a "tech" business model. All they cared about was to efficiently manage their own IT. And to that end, they created the modern Cloud. I am an IT strategy consultant and my opinion on AWS and their competitors is embedded in several papers from US and Japanese firms who sell those papers at 4-digit prices. And I knew from the start that only Amazon (and later Google) was worth their salt. IBM, Verizon, Centurylink, and all the rest of them sucked. I knew that because I knew how they did business and I saw what AWS was doing. Those who listened, got very rich. Those who didn't, wasted fortunes. But that is besides the point. What matters is that Cloud was a huge innovation that required someone big to unseat IBM and Verizon. If Warren had her way, that would have never happened and we'd still be dealing with crappy tech. And what did Amazon do with that great tech? Unlike Google that mostly keeps it to themselves or doesn't know what to do with it, they shared it as platform at a very low price with everyone. Which pissed off every other big Tech and allowed small - no micro businesses compete with big established players. Because of Amazon, countless other innovative companies were created. From Netflix to Nest to almost all the startup FinTechs. No AWS, none of those innovations. So Warren doesn't like the Whole Foods - Amazon merger - Really?! Why is that? What harm is she seeing in a modern company innovating an old stale supermarket business? For the record, I don't agree with that merger either - but only b/c I think it stretches Amazon too thin and is too far from their core strengths. But let's see where they end up. Do you know why Amazon draws so much heat? Because they partner with Warren Buffet to lower healthcare costs. Because Amazon enabled Netflix to exist and break the Cable monopoly. Because they pissed off Walmart - who had destroyed so many small businesses and allowed small retail compete with Walmart again. And because of so many other such sins. Every time Amazon committed any of these sins, the other guy's lobbyist whispered evil big tech in someone's ear and tried to push them to kill them. But guess what? The antitrust laws don't allow for it b/c Amazon has no monopoly power. So now Warren has decided that they should be broken apart so that we are again at the tender mercy of Walmart, IBM, Oracle, and our Cable companies. If she is not in the pocket of the lobbyists, she is fool. If she is, then she is corrupt. I have read Warren's opinions. She only sounds smart. Thankfully, she doesn't have a snowball in hell chance of getting any real power.