Will America’s 'Big Tech' firms be reined in?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 13 August 2020
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
US lawmakers are deciding whether to act against the country’s powerful tech giants. Some believe the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple are stifling competition. The companies have made huge profits during the Covid crisis and critics believe they will use this cash to buy competitors. With Charmaine Cozier.
Clockwise from top left: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook. Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the inquiry. I'm Charmaine Cozier. Each week four experts, one question and an answer. Four witnesses in smart suits appear on a large video conferencing screen. |
| 0:20.0 | Over 20 minutes they take turns reading prepared statements of hope and achievement. |
| 0:27.0 | Witness 1 reveals his mum was 17 when he was born, Together with his adoptive dad, a Cuban immigrant, they worked |
| 0:36.8 | hard to make me who I am. Witness 2 had no way of using computers as a child in India. |
| 0:45.0 | He moved to America and says, |
| 0:47.0 | Innovation changed the course of my life. |
| 0:49.0 | Witnesses 3 and 4 want to give people with no voice a chance to be heard and make sure |
| 0:54.8 | that tomorrow will be even better than today. Those two billionaires and two |
| 1:00.4 | millionaires run four of the world's biggest companies. |
| 1:03.7 | Amazon founder Jeff Bezoz, Sunda Picai, |
| 1:06.6 | from Google's parent company Alphabet, |
| 1:09.0 | Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, and Tim Cook from Apple. |
| 1:13.1 | The obligation is now on the US lawmakers they testified before to determine whether these |
| 1:18.2 | American companies use their size and power to exploit customers and crush competitors. So this week we're asking |
| 1:26.0 | will America's big tech companies be reined in? |
| 1:32.0 | Part 1, welcome to the trillion dollar club. |
| 1:37.0 | They are worth over one trillion dollars each with exception of Facebook. |
| 1:47.0 | Thomas Overleti is professor of economics at Imperial College London. |
| 1:54.0 | He says it's crucial to understand that these companies aren't just big. |
| 1:58.0 | They're really, really big. |
| 2:00.0 | Amazon is going to soon reach two trillion dollars in market capitalization. |
| 2:05.5 | So trillion dollars, a trillion is 1,000 billions. |
... |
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