For the Four “Trust Me” Techies: Your E-Mails May Tell a Different Story

Steve Jobs’s e-mails played an integral role in the Apple/book-publisher antitrust suit. Mr. Jobs had passed away two years earlier, but those e-mails were the damning evidence for the government’s antitrust case. Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Mark Zuckerberg all appeared saintly in their testimony before a House committee. “What? Me engage in anticompetitive behavior? Nay, nay!” But, the e-mails the House staff uncovered and used during the testimony of the tech titans paint a different picture. Mark Zuckerberg was surely putting the pressure on Instagram for an acquisition. Here is an excerpt used by the House staff to make the case that sure look like the words of a monopolist:

“One way of looking at this is that what we’re really buying is time. Even if some new competitors springs up, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc now will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again. Within that time, if we incorporate the social mechanics they were using, those new products won’t get much traction since we’ll already have their mechanics deployed at scale.”

Forty-five minutes later, a repentent Zuckerberg sent a sort of retraction:

“I didn’t mean to imply that we’d be buying them to prevent them from competing with us in any way.”

Those who were his targets referred to Zuckerberg’s acquisition strategy as “Copy, acquire, and kill.” The giants threaten the startups with a plan to mimic them unless they agree to be acquired. Instagram gave it up for a billion bucks. Mr. Zuckerberg said that he was really “buying time.” He would get “a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again.” Hmmm — those on not the words of a formidable competitor. Those are the words of a giant whose day has passed. Devoid of ideas, and rich in cash, you take them before they come up with anything else that is clever. The old question in antitrust was once, ‘Did you get ahead because you built a better mousetrap or did you just squelch the little guys who were in the process of doing so? The e-mails always tell the truth. The hearings are feigned humility under oath.

About mmjdiary

Professor Marianne Jennings is an emeritus professor of legal and ethical studies from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, retiring in 2011 after 35 years of teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in ethics and the legal environment of business. During her tenure at ASU, she served as director of the Joan and David Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics from 1995-1999. In 2006, she was appointed faculty director for the W.P. Carey Executive MBA Program. She has done consulting work for businesses and professional groups including AICPA, Boeing, Dial Corporation, Edward Jones, Mattel, Motorola, CFA Institute, Southern California Edison, the Institute of Internal Auditors, AIMR, DuPont, AES, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Motorola, Hy-Vee Foods, IBM, Bell Helicopter, Amgen, Raytheon, and VIAD. The sixth edition of her textbook, Case Studies in Business Ethics, was published in February 2011. The ninth edition of her textbook, Business: lts Legal, Ethical and Global Environment was published in January 2011. The 23rd edition of her book, Business Law: Principles and Cases, will be published in January 2013. The tenth edition of her book, Real Estate Law, will also be published in January 2013. Her book, A Business Tale: A Story of Ethics, Choices, Success, and a Very Large Rabbit, a fable about business ethics, was chosen by Library Journal in 2004 as its business book of the year. A Business Tale was also a finalist for two other literary awards for 2004. In 2000 her book on corporate governance was published by the New York Times MBA Pocket Series. Her book on long-term success, Building a Business Through Good Times and Bad: Lessons from Fifteen Companies, Each With a Century of Dividends, was published in October 2002 and has been used by Booz, Allen, Hamilton for its work on business longevity. Her latest book, The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse was published by St. Martin’s Press in July 2006 and has been a finalist for two book awards. Her weekly columns are syndicated around the country, and her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Reader's Digest. A collection of her essays, Nobody Fixes Real Carrot Sticks Anymore, first published in 1994 is still being published. She has been a commentator on business issues on All Things Considered for National Public Radio. She has served on four boards of directors, including Arizona Public Service (1987-2000), Zealous Capital Corporation, and the Center for Children with Chronic Illness and Disability at the University of Minnesota. She was appointed to the board of advisors for the Institute of Nuclear Power Operators in 2004 and served on the board of trustees for Think Arizona, a public policy think tank. She has appeared on CNBC, CBS This Morning, the Today Show, and CBS Evening News. In 2010 she was named one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Business Ethics by Trust Across America. Her books have been translated into four different languages. She received the British Emerald award for authoring one of their top 50 articles in management publications, chosen from over 15,000 articles. Personal: Married since 1976 to Terry H. Jennings, Maricopa County Attorney’s Office Deputy County Attorney; five children: Sarah, Sam, and John, and the late Claire and Hannah Jennings.
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