NYU Strategic Management Initiative Speaker Series Book Talk: The New Goliaths

James Bessen will speak at NYU’s Strategic Management Initiative Speaker Series on his book, The New Goliaths on November 17, 2022. This talk will be held virtually from 12:00-1:00pm. 

Historically, competition has powered progress under capitalism. Companies with productive new products rise to the top, but sooner or later, other companies come along with better innovations and disrupt the threat of monopoly. Dominant companies like Walmart, Citibank, and Google argue that this process of “creative destruction” prevents them from becoming too powerful or entrenched. In his book The New Goliaths, James Bessen argues that this is no longer the case. Instead, capitalist competition has fundamentally changed thanks to a new generation of information technology. Documenting how the threat of competition has sharply decreased over the last twenty years, Bessen describes the ways today’s corporate giants have come to power through the use of proprietary software systems, creating an unlevel playing field. This development has increased economic inequality and social division, slowed innovation, and allowed firms to evade government regulation. In the face of increasing calls to break up the largest companies, Bessen argues that a better way to restore competitive balance and dynamism is to encourage or compel firms to share technology, data, and knowledge.