🎙️ NEW PODCAST 🎙️ Where should I start? I am launching a new academic podcast called “Scaling Theory”. I am of course incredibly excited, but more importantly, I hope you’ll find it interesting. I want to explore the power laws behind the growth of businesses, technologies, legal systems, and living systems. The podcast will feature scholarly discussions with select guests (I’ve already recorded a couple, to be published very soon!!) and deep dives into the academic literature. Everything is explained in the introductory episode. ➝ Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/7o5GqR… ➝ Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas… ➝ YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCoxJ0e-…

On @cornell_tech campus yesterday. Great cohort of students! law-tech-econ.github.io

TikTok’s best fact: 77 to 82% of its users also use Facebook or Instagram, so it locks nobody in. The Commission has accepted that kind of argument 19 times in merger cases. In court it has never changed an outcome. If the top court follows its adviser, it will not under the DMA either. thecompetitionsystem.substac…

NYC. 👻

If AI produces 35 of the top 40 product ideas, what is left for entrepreneurs? @emollick’s answer on Scaling Theory is that AI ideas are good but alike, so outliers still win. “This is like the golden age of entrepreneurship.” The full episode also covers law schools that ban AI, which Ethan reads as a rearguard action, and the one line he wants machines to read at the bottom of this page. YouTube: youtu.be/dzNRxTQBBAI Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1vQ… Apple: podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcas…

Getty is/was my favorite example of counter-positioning in the age of AI. Many of my students will recognize the example. The company simply could not replicate the business model it was competing against without cannibalizing the entirety of its business models. This also shows that having access to very unique, specialized data (here: millions of photos) does not guarantee survival in the age of AI. This is how it logically ends.

I have the unique, distinct pleasure of going back to @cornell_tech this week to teach a course entitled “Law & Technology & Economics of AI”. The course brings together law, computer science, and MBA students to look at AI from all three perspectives and, most importantly, to combine them. I am sharing the syllabus at the link below in case it is of interest to some of you: law-tech-econ.github.io It includes detailed readings, hypothesis card (as each lecture will indeed test an hypothesis), case studies, and role plays. I am so very much looking forward to teaching it this academic year again.

Under the Digital Markets Act, a company that hits three numbers is presumed to be a gatekeeper. To escape, it must show a “high degree of plausibility” that it is not. That phrase appears in one EU judgment out of 1,000+. To block a merger, the Commission only needs “more likely than not”. The company must prove more than the regulator. thecompetitionsystem.substac…

Such a privilege to be presenting to that many African competition agencies. More digital brains are being created as we speak. This is very exciting for the field. #computationalantitrust

Grateful to SCOPE Global Exchange for the invitation to talk about the draft EU Merger Guidelines and how they handle dynamic competition. A few thoughts, for those interested: youtube.com/watch?v=g2N-rIxY….

Interested in doing a PhD in #spacelaw? Come do your PhD under the supervision of my incredibly knowledgeable colleague Ioana Bratu (@spaceliability): linkedin.com/jobs/view/44767…

TikTok is fighting its label as a “gatekeeper” under the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Just last week, the Advocate General said TikTok should lose. His opinion cites 12 judgments. Not one is about competition law. So I checked where the DMA’s rules actually come from: thecompetitionsystem.substac…

Fun one in Bucarest.

In Bucharest for the LIDC Congress, speaking on AI and the law’s fixed categories. AI now helps build its own successor. Any box the law draws today describes yesterday’s model. Categories (e.g. the ones in the DMA) age, measurement updates. The paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.…

The DMA says steering must be “free of charge”. The Commission read that to cover the sale that follows. Apple’s terms since 1 October charge 15% within 7 days of a link-out. The @EU_Competition welcomed them. Whether the two fit is open. What the text says: thecompetitionsystem.substac…

I spent a couple of days redesigning the Network Law Review. I hope you enjoy it, and above all that it gives every article the spotlight it deserves.

Today I speak at the @CompBureau BeSci Speaker Series on #cognitiveantitrust. My message is simple. A claim about human behavior holds best in court once it becomes a claim about what a system does to a population. That claim, the other side can re-run. 🍁

EU digital law says “free of charge” 161 times. In 125 of those rules, the text says nothing about the commissions, bundled fees or ancillary charges that may follow. The word “indirectly” appears once. What a free lunch obliges, in 34 laws: thecompetitionsystem.substac…