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The fate of Googles vast empire is now in the hands of a federal judge in Washington, D.C., as hearings begin to determine whether the tech giant should be broken up for maintaining an illegal monopoly in search. If the court rules against Google, the outcome could send shockwaves through the tech industry. The company might be forced to divest major assetspotentially including its Chrome browser or even the Android operating system. While the government has taken similar antitrust actions in the past, it’s been more than 25 years since a household name faced a breakup of this scale. So, what happened to the companies that were split upor nearly split upunder government pressure? Lets take a look back. Microsoft In 2000, Microsoft came dangerously close to being forced to separate its Windows operating system from its Office suite after a court found it had illegally stifled competition in the personal computer market. However, the breakup order was overturned by an appeals court the following year. Still, the monopoly ruling left a lasting mark on Microsoft. The company could no longer block PC makers from distributing software from competitors, paving the way for Google and others to grow. As web browsers became increasingly central to the computing experience, that shift proved critical. AT&T The government made multiple attempts to break up AT&T, starting in 1913, but didnt succeed until 1984. The result was the dissolution of Ma Bell into several smaller regional companiesknown as the Baby Bellsincluding US West, Ameritech, Nynex, and BellSouth, which handled local calling. AT&T retained control of its long-distance network but soon faced competition, driving prices down. To put it in perspective: A three-minute coast-to-coast call in 1987 cost $3.08 (about $8.45 today). Now, long-distance calls are typically unlimited and included in your monthly plan. Those Baby Bells grew up and became a strong competitor for AT&T, too: Nynex, GTE, and Bell Atlantic merged to become Verizon, whose market cap is now roughly equal to that of AT&T. Standard Oil The John Rockefeller energy company was broken up in 1911, one of the first dissolutions of a giant monopoly. It was split into 34 different companies, including Exxon Mobile, Chevron, and BP. That breakup changed the oil industry, sparking competition that has continued through today. It also changed the landscape for antitrust, introducing the “rule of reason,” which says businesses are anticompetitive only if they work against the public interest. That’s the rule judges are considering today as they weigh whether to break up Big Tech companies. IBM IBM could have been an early cautionary tale for todays Big Tech giants. In 1969, facing a looming antitrust suit, the company chose to preemptively unbundle its hardware and software businesseseffectively treating them as separate entities. At the time, IBM commanded 70% of the computer market. This voluntary separation helped the company avoid an antitrust judgment, though it still spent years in court and tens of millions of dollars in legal battles. Missteps with subsequent product launches further eroded its market share and leadership. But the rise in competition ultimately lowered costs and helped spark the personal computer revolution. As legal scholar Tim Wu noted in 2018, Apple as we know it might never have existed without the governments prosecution of IBM. “If IBM had been completely unwatched by regulators, by enforcement, doing whatever they wanted, I think IBM would have held on and maybe wed still be using mainframes, or somethinga very different situation,” he said in an interview with Vox. American Tobacco Before Big Tobacco became a catchphrase, there was American Tobaccoa company deemed so dominant that in 1911 it was found in violation of antitrust laws. Unlike other breakups, however, the dissolution of American Tobacco had little real impact on market dynamics. The newly formed companiessuch as R.J. Reynolds and Liggett & Myerscontinued to dominate, forming an oligopoly. With just a few players controlling the industry, prices remained largely unaffected by competition. Instead, increased marketing budgets drove a rise in consumer use.
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E-Commerce
Last week, news broke that the Trump administration intends to propose zeroing out Head Start in the upcoming budget. While many peoples immediate concern is rightfully for the hundreds of thousands of children and families whose lives would be upended, attacks on programs that exclusively serve low-income Americans are a popular tactic because that population votes at low rates. In this case, however, the administration has picked an atrocious target: Even setting the immorality of causing so much harm aside, you benefit from Head Start programs whether or not you or anyone you know has ever stepped foot in one. Head Start (and Early Head Start, its companion program for children younger than 3) has enjoyed bipartisan support for almost 60 years and serves multiple functions: Sites provide important opportunities for child development, offer medical screenings for kids, connect families with local resources, and can serve as community hubs. They are also a critical source of free childcare for more than 700,000 families. Who are the 700,000 Head Start families? Who are Head Start families? They consist of many of the people we called essential just five years ago: grocery store stockers, home healthcare aides, hospital custodians, even staff in the childcare programs that serve middle- and high-income families. They are rural families; in many rural counties, Head Start is literally the only childcare program around. They are military families; there is even an on-base Head Start at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. They are agricultural workers who pick the produce that appears in your supermarket; in fact, more than 26,000 children of seasonal farm workers attend a Head Start. Imagine for a moment that Congress goes along with the administrations proposal. All of these families lives will be thrown into chaos. As anyone who has a child can tell you, theres no abundance of alternative affordable childcare options out there. Instead, people will do what they need to do, sacrificing their well-being along the way: Theyll cut back hours, work laddered shifts, find care of questionable quality that leaves them anxious and distracted. They may even drop out of the labor force altogether. Crippling system already in crisis Indeed, it may be helpful to reframe the headline here as Trump administration seeks to shutter more than 3,000 childcare programs, and then to consider just how absurd such an action would be. After all, the childcare shortage in the U.S. is already harming the stability of family life and the economy. President Donald Trump himself declared in 2019, In more than 60% of American homes, both parents work. Yet many struggle to afford childcare, which often costs more than $10,000 per year. And it’s devastating to families, frankly. Fewer choices and longer waits Whats more, the 700,000 families who will lose their childcare if Head Start goes away will not simply disappear. Instead, they will be thrust into the failed market for private childcare services, introducing yet more competition for scarce slots and scarce aid dollars. All Head Start families qualify for, but generally do not utilize, childcare subsidies available through a federal block grant program intended to serve both low- and moderate-income families (i.e., those making up to 85% of state median incomearound $82,000 for a state like Michiganor below, though states can and do set their limits lower). That subsidy program is already so underfunded it can reach only one in six eligible households. Take away Head Start, and existing waitlists and enrollment freezes will only get worse. The administrations ostensible logic for squashing Head Start requires entirely eliding the childcare role Head Start plays. The budget document states, This elimination is consistent with the Administrations goal of returning education to the States and increasing parental choice. The Federal government should not be in the business of mandating curriculum, locations, and performance standards for any form of education. Ignoring for a moment the glaring factual inaccuracies (Head Start merely requires sites to adopt some form of reasonable curriculum, not a specific one, and local agencies or groups apply to get funding for locations where they wish to host Head Start classrooms), this is a feint. There is no commensurate increase of early care and education grants to states being proposed to offset Head Start elimination, so parents will simply have fewer choices. In this respect, the educational content of Head Start is immaterial, and getting drawn into a debate over Head Starts effectiveness is a distraction. Hypothetically, the administration could apply this exact same reasoning to shutting down the hundreds of schools and child development centers that are run by the Department of Defense, all of which come with curricula and performance standards. But of course they wont propose that, because while some military families are struggling due to administration policies, such a large-scale cut would leave tens of thousands of service members with no access to care. Head Start is not a perfect program. There is a worthwhile conversation to be had about how Head Start may need to evolve if and when the nation moves toward a more comprehensive family policy that includes universal childcare and early learning alongside structural reforms that break down barriers keeping families in poverty. But this is not, in the end, really about Head Start itself. If America is to be strong and prosperous in an uncertain era, the well-being of American families must be placed front and center. There is no American familyand therefore no American businessthat would be untouched by the ripple effects of abruptly gutting Head Start, and doing so would set the country on course for a future marked by yet more scarcity. The administration must turn back.
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E-Commerce
Electric vehicles have seen a lot of success in recent years, but there are still some concernsfrom range anxiety to insufficient charging infrastructurethat limit their overall adoption. Hybrids dont have those same worries, and hybrid sales have been gaining momentum as the growth of EV sales has slowed. Thats caused some carmakers to pull back on EV offerings and prioritize hybrids instead. But now a company called Horse Powertrain is offering an alternative to carmakers who are hesitant to go fully electric while still allowing them to develop EVsand keep their EV production lines. Called the Future Hybrid Concept, its essentially a way for automakers to retrofit a battery electric vehicle into a plug-in hybrid. That means automakers could have one production line that makes a variety of powertrains, both developing EVs and also offering hybrid versions. [Photo: Horse Powertrain] Horse Powertrain is a joint venture by French auto manufacturer Renault and Chinese conglomerate Geely (Geely subsidiaries include Volvo and Polestar) created to develop low-emission hybrid and combustion systems. Horse Powertrain is unveiling its Future Hybrid Concept at the Shanghai auto show this week. The Future Hybrid Concept is one compact unit that includes an internal combustion engine, an electric motor, and a transmission. This allows automakers to hybridize their existing battery electric vehicles, the company says, to meet fluctuating customer demands while also “eliminating the need for multiple platforms and production lines. The Future Hybrid Concept can bolt directly onto an EVs subframe with minor modifications, per Horse. This means that carmakers could manufacture both EVs and hybrids on one assembly line, reducing complexity. Currently, hybrids are often assembled on the same production lines as internal combustion vehicles, and EVs on another, because of the distinct components they need. Some manufacturers have found ways around this: Honda, for instance, upgraded its Ohio factories so that gas vehicles, hybrids, and EVs can be manufactured on the same lines. But for other automakers that have yet to make those upgrades, or that have prioritized EV innovation but now want to diversify their offerings, Horse Powertrain says its retrofit concept can fit into existing operations. It would also eliminate most of the tooling and unique assembly steps hybrids need, the company says, so that manufacturing lines can be simplified. Through our innovation, we can deliver a full hybrid powertrain system that seamlessly integrates onto a battery electric vehicle platform, Matias Giannini, CEO at Horse Powertrain, said in a statement. The Future Hybrid Concept system includes an onboard charger, and could work with a variety of fuels, including gas, ethanol, methanol, and other synthetic fuels. The first vehicles using Horse Powertrains Future Hybrid Concept are expected to be on the road as early as 2028. Horse Powertrain already has 17 production plants and five R&D centers across Europe, Asia, and South America, and expects to produce 5 million powertrain engines annually.
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E-Commerce
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