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0 pointssmallerfish4y ago0 comments

It's an interesting thought experiment at least. What would the hidden incentives of something like that be?

For example, if a company wanted to keep growing, it would have to split organically into separate corporate entities. What would stop them establishing "favored" relationships with each other? Say for example Facebook splits out "Zuckerburg data centers inc" - what's to stop them pricing themselves above market to avoid taking on other customers, and then giving FB a hefty discount? You could mandate that there be no board overlap, but shareholders would probably receive a split.

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3 comments · 2 top-level

CPLX4y ago· 1 in thread

You'd need to actually draft a law rather than write it on a napkin and there would be armies of very well paid lawyers trying to avoid it, but that's common to any attempt to break up concentrated power.

In that context it wouldn't be all that hard. You'd need to figure out some definitions for common ownership, joint enterprise, and so on. A lot of those laws and definitions already exist. It's only really in the last few decades that we've abandoned antitrust law but we have successfully done things like this in the past.

ameister144y ago

When have we capped the potential revenue of companies successfully in the past? I've never heard of it

amelius4y ago

If Zuckerberg data centers wants to keep growing, then at some point they will have to find external customers.

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