Episode 258: The Past and Future of Big Tech

In March, the Justice Department filed a major antitrust complaint against Apple accusing the tech giant of maintaining a monopoly over the smartphone market. This is just the latest action the government has taken against Big Tech in recent years, marking a clear shift from the cozy relationship the industry long had with Washington. What’s behind the love/hate relationship between Big Tech and our government? And what can Silicon Valley’s past reveal about the way this might all play out going forward? In this archive episode, originally recorded in September 2021, Professor Margaret O’mara digs into the history of Silicon Valley – from its early beginnings to the days of the internet boom – to explain the Valley’s ever-present intersection with US politics and make sense of the recent shift.

For more of Margaret O’Mara’s work:

• Read her most recent book The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America.

• Check out her prior book, Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley

• Find her prior opinion pieces about the tech industry in The New York Times