Tim Cook says Apple buys one company every month
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Many lawmakers in recent years have called for laws and regulations to rein in dominant tech companies such as Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc, Alphabet Inc's Google, Amazon.com Inc and Apple Inc
Big tech is taking over the world by establishing monopolies. Apple CEO Tim Cook said on Wednesday that it acquires a new company every month.
The acquisition strategy is aimed at offering better services but tech companies are killing competition one sale at a time.
Many lawmakers in recent years have called for laws and regulations to rein in dominant tech companies such as Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc, Alphabet Inc's Google, Amazon.com Inc and Apple Inc.
Turi inc. was once a promising artificial intelligence startup in Seattle. The company helped create software that uses machine learning. Its technology was so promising that Apple bought the company and paid a record $200 million for it.
While buying companies is not new for tech giants, the speed at which they are lapping up competitors is alarming.
Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that they have acquired over 100 companies in nearly six years. This means buying one company every three to four weeks.
This includes the $3 billion takeover of headphone maker Beats and music recognition app Shazam.
Apple isn't the only company that does hostile takeovers. Facebook bought Instagram and WhatsApp when it threatened its popularity within a span of two years.
Big tech giants are on an acquisition spree. Many acquisitions never even make it to the headlines...
The idea is simple: Eliminate potential rivals, kill innovation and poach talent from smaller companies.
At the centre of this is a big tech monopoly. The last two decades have witnessed the rise of five major global tech giants. These include Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft.
Today, these tech giants wield too much power. Each of them monopolistic in their own domain. They exercise enormous power over our digital lives, controlling the way we navigate through the web.
Some are even trying to manipulate the way democracies run while others have taken the privacy of users for granted. The way to restore the power balance is to break up big tech.
Current US antitrust laws allow federal regulators to break up mergers, a move that could promote healthy competition in the market.
For global regulators, breaking up monopolies needs a new legal toolbox. Either way, the idea is to level the playing field and protect the future of the internet.