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\u2019s behind the love/hate relationship between Big Tech and our government? And what can Silicon Valley\u2019s past reveal about the way this might all play out going forward? In this archive episode, originally recorded in September 2021, Professor Margaret O\u2019mara digs into the history of Silicon Valley \u2013 from its early beginnings to the days of the internet boom \u2013 to explain the Valley\u2019s ever-present intersection with US politics and make sense of the recent shift.
For more of Margaret O\u2019Mara\u2019s 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
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