Tim O'Reilly

Looking forward to this. I'll be talking about the need for tech platforms to support their ecosystems and to create more value than they capture if they want to stick around for the long haul.

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I've just published the overview paper covering the work I've been doing with Ilan Strauss and Mariana Mazzucato at UCL's Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose to show how big tech companies algorithmically manipulate their users' attention in order to extract "rents" (essentially income derived from market power rather than real service improvements) from their ecosystem of content or product suppliers. While the theory applies to everything from search to app stores to social media and recommendation services, we have focused primarily on Amazon's marketplace advertising, because it represents such a clear abuse of power via what we are calling "algorithmic attention rents." This paper will be followed shortly by two others, one a deep dive on Amazon's business in the context of existing antitrust theory, and the other an empirical study demonstrating an approach to measuring the impact of attention manipulation in Amazon's marketplace. Would love your thoughts.

Algorithmic Attention Rents: A theory of digital platform market power Authored by Tim O'Reilly, Dr Ilan Strauss and Professor Mariana Mazzucato

A few thoughts in response to the White House Executive Order on AI.

Preliminary Thoughts on the White House Executive Order on AI Why the White House should mandate more robust disclosures

I've been working for the past couple of years with a small team at UCL's Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose on a new approach to thinking about Big Tech's market power. We have been exploring what we call "algorithmic rents," and in particular, the way that algorithmic control of user attention turns into pecuniary rents extracted from a supplier or advertiser ecosystem. In addition to developing the theory, we've done some interesting empirical work on application of the theory to Amazon Marketplace advertising. We're presenting our research tomorrow - at a challenging time for US participants unfortunately (10:30 am BST) - but I hope some of you will be able to join.

Algorithmic Rents research showcase The UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose invites you to a research showcase Mariana Mazzucato, Tim O’Reilly and Ilan Strauss.

I just published a new post on oreilly.com. Understanding why Elon Musk is rich in a different way than Bill Gates, Larry and Sergey, or Mark Zuckerberg gives a unique perspective on our two-track economy, in which it seems ever easier to become a billionaire while ordinary people struggle.

Two economies. Two sets of rules. Elon Musk isn’t superman. He does have supermoney.

I've just published a new piece on oreilly.com. Understanding why Elon Musk is rich in a different way than Bill Gates, Larry and Sergey, or Mark Zuckerberg gives a unique perspective on our two-track economy, in which it seems ever easier to become a billionaire while ordinary people struggle.

Two economies. Two sets of rules. Elon Musk isn’t superman. He does have supermoney.

I just published a piece about scenario planning and the post-covid19 future. I talk about how events like this lead to persistent changes, that the direction of those changes is often uncertain, and how to develop a "robust strategy" that will serve you well regardless of how the future turns out. The essay provides a brief lesson in scenario planning and how it can be applied to the current moment.

"By separating the receptive imagination from the quest for certainty, it is possible to prepare for a wide variety of unknown futures, to imagine how you might respond, and to make plans that hold up across a range of possible outcomes. So, while you may hope for a return to normal, and plan for that as one of your scenarios, it is worth taking the time to think through what you might do were the world we knew to be swept away as surely as the 19th century certainties were swept away by the events of the early 20th century."

Welcome to the 21st Century: How To Plan For The Post-Covid Future - O’Reilly Media The 20th century didn’t really begin in the year 1900, it began in 1914, when the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand triggered long-simmering international tensions and the world slid, seemingly inexorably, into a great world war, followed by a roaring return to seeming normality and the...

I couldn't agree more. This is a must-read: "In the modern era, there are few if any examples of a country with a healthy, thriving economy and a broken political system. What distinguishes a successful economy from a failing one — what distinguishes Denmark from Italy and South Korea from North — is not how much capital it has or technology it produces but the quality of its institutions — the laws, rules, norms and policies that create the framework in which any economy operates. And there should be no doubt that as a result of broken politics, the quality of the United States’ institutions is already on the decline."

Perspective | Our current economic boom is a mirage, and our politics are going to break it The impeachment trial has exposed the dysfunction in Washington. At some point, it will have a significant economist cost.