Google’s Dominance, and Smart Cities
After Hours
TED Audio Collective / Youngme Moon, Mihir Desai, & Felix Oberholzer-Gee
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2021
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is Google so successful because it excels at building incredibly smart products? Or is it dominant in many markets because it stifles innovation and abuses its market power, as several antitrust lawsuits allege?
Rebecca, Mihir, and Felix discuss the merits of recent antitrust actions against the search giant. They also debate the promise of smart cities, and why Cisco and Google pulled back from their smart-city initiatives. Should we stop dreaming of living in smarter cities?
Recent picks, and recommended reading/websites:
- City so Real (National Geographic)
- City Hall (PBS)
- Online exercise classes
- “The Composer Tyshawn Sorey Enters a New Phase” (The New York Times)
Visit our website at HarvardAfterHours.com. Email your comments and ideas for future episodes to: harvardafterhours@gmail.com. Follow Youngme, Mihir, Rebecca, and Rawi on Twitter at: @YoungmeMoon, @DesaiMihirA, @RebeccaReCap, and @RawiAbdelal.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ted Audio Collective. |
| 0:02.0 | Audio Collective. |
| 0:04.0 | Hey listener, a quick favor. |
| 0:09.0 | We are conducting an audience survey and we'd be really grateful if you could take just a few minutes to respond. |
| 0:14.4 | Please visit survey.PRX.org slash after hours to take the survey today. |
| 0:21.0 | That's survey. |
| 0:22.1 | PRX.org |
| 0:23.4 | slash after hours. Thanks. |
| 0:27.7 | HBR presents. Hello everyone you're listening to after hours I'm Felix I'm Rebecca and I'm me here it is |
| 0:49.9 | spring it is spring we're back in the classroom can you believe it? |
| 0:54.8 | I always thought it was weird when academic calendars it's like January and you're like |
| 0:59.1 | spring yeah I was going to say it's not spring I'm sorry for it. |
| 1:03.2 | Actually Harvard official terminology is pessimistic they call it the winter semester |
| 1:08.2 | even though it ends in May. |
| 1:11.2 | Even my expression wasn't quite right we We're not actually back in the classroom. |
| 1:14.1 | So much of the teaching is still in Zoom. Is your sense it's okay? |
| 1:17.8 | I have to confess that my experience in the fall was quite positive in its own way. |
| 1:22.0 | I found it oddly kind of an interesting way to kind |
| 1:24.7 | of connect with students in new ways. So for example office hours become easier and the conversations |
| 1:29.8 | I think are a little bit different. I don't know Rebecca, what's your experience been? I'm with you me here I've gone from raging against it to |
| 1:37.6 | well we can have really good conversations and really push each other hard and there have been moments when I've forgotten I'm on Zoom and I'm just focused on the ideas. |
| 1:50.0 | And I'm really hoping that's happening for the students too. |
... |
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