Apple v. FBI. Uber and swedish. massage. sex. videosLyft v. Austin. Google v. FTC. Facebook v. Senate.
Those are just a few of the brewing battles in what is becoming an all-out war between tech companies and the governments that try to regulate them.
On this week's episode of Biz Please, we run through that list and then talk to Bradley Tusk, one of the leading lobbyists for tech companies and a person who has spent time on both sides of the issue.
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Tusk's résumé is as distinguished as it is varied. He is the former deputy governor of Illinois, served as the campaign manager for Michael Bloomberg's run for a third term as governor of New York City, and most recently the founded Tusk Strategies, where he's worked with companies like Google, Walmart, AT&T, Uber and many more.
The clash of big tech and big government, Tusk said, is the result of tech moving beyond a niche industry to become a part of every major company.
"Tech in a lot of ways really isn't a sector anymore. Every new company is tech enabled in one way or another," he said. "Some of those companies become very big or very important, and therefore they get into the crosshairs of government."
Tusk is now squarely on the side of the tech industry, working on behalf of big companies like Uber as well as upstarts that are just encountering their first pushback from government regulators.
That doesn't stop him from speaking frankly on companies like FanDuel, an online fantasy sports website that has been blocked in many states.
"There is still a little bit of a misconception on the part of a lot of startups and a lot more established tech companies that government either isn't going to play a role in their lives or if they keep their head in the sand, they don't to have to worry about it," he said.
The startups might have lost that battle, but Tusk thinks they'll still win the war. As for examples of companies beating back the government, he notes that Uber's win in New York City may have made its road ahead easier around the world.
"If you think about the fight that we had last summer with Mayer [Bill] DeBlasio here in New York on behalf of Uber, we smacked him so, so hard and he looked so, so bad that it ended up having a chilling effect on bad regulation all over the world," he said
Listen to the full interview below. And if you like this episode, subscribe to Biz Please here on iTunes, here on Stitcher, and here on Google Play. And you can always find us @Biz_Please on Twitter.
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