there is never amount of money a business could pay to influence the overall. >> if i had a small tablet of what cement and a stylus, would yell be willing to write into that tablet a commitment to that through 2025? >> it has always been our commitment since the company was founded. >> every day, the farmer comes to the chicken and feeds it. [laughter] >> the court didn't even have to get to the point of addressing whether or not the claim we made was true. >> i am asking. can you imagine the company promising for the future it will resemble the past in that way? >> generally speaking, i would say most companies have an ethos they were founded on and follow. that has been one of the core ethos of yelp.

>> we are not going to move a car office lot today. >> exactly. >> but it is something you might be willing to consider. it brings us full circle to the beginning of the panel with joel pointing out we might get rid of stuff under the aup but we are not messing with the feed. one might wonder, could that amount to a commitment of some kind in the future or not? obviously, we are not going to move a car office lot today. those might be interesting to think about to bridge the gap alex is invoking. >> even though yelp and other companies would not do it, they would argue in court for the right to do it because they have first amendment rights. that is the way they are interpreting them. that is going to be a real issue. >> why not establish a reputational stake in something? i don't know if google regrets it, don't be evil.

that is a way of saying come at us if we let you down. >> google has ways of looking at this issue. the right to do what you want to with the data you collect is an interesting question the courts will have to deal with. >> alex, thank you for that intervention. wonderful. adam, let me turn to you. >> adam connor applegate, a new startup. we want to change the world and save government trade with the eyes of the world upon you. >> thank you. we have the spirit of the startup are presented here.

catherine, nancy? pass. nicco? >> i reserve the balance of my time for the subsequent session. >> join me in thanking the panel. [applause] we stand adjourned until 11:00. >> more from the internet policy discussion on internet startups. this is an hour and a half.

>> welcome back. welcome to the folks who have joined us. my name is nicole mille -- n icco mele. i am teaching my first class of the semester as soon as we wrap this up at 1:00. i thought the title of this part of the program is called "your next big start up idea, why your net policy matters." the goal is to get into a discussion about what it means for newer companies and startups, what internet policy, ways it can constrain and encourage newer companies entering the space.

before we do that, at the end of the last session, we had a compelling comment from alex jones. alex mentioned two things. one was the san francisco court judgment on -- during the yelp case. there was another story wanted to mention. >> they are related. the other one was from china. the leading financial news organization of china has been charged by the chinese government was extorting money from prospective advertisers or clients or businesses in order to prevent or publish certain stories. in other words, the idea is they were extorting money and cooking their reports. that is illegal in china.

they were charged with that. this is a great area for american journalism because it is true news organizations all over the country have long been seeking advertising from people they also cover. but you may not extort. you may not threaten. the issue for the web, it seems to me, is that there are laws that put limits on what news organizations can do in terms of their own reports. even in the first amendment environment, there are things you cannot do. the penalty for journalism for publishing something erroneous is liable. defamation that does damage to people that is something the courts have said you can take a claim about -- make a claim about. as i understand the web attitude

about data and all the information they gather and what they put on their sites, there is an argument being made constantly that they have first amendment rights to do whatever they want. in the case of the yelp data, it was a case of saying we are not going to do this. we are not going to misuse this data. but that is something they reserve the right to say -- and there is no kind of law that is going to put constraints on that. however, if you are looking at yelp, google, and other entities publishing after a fashion, even though they just call it aggregating, information that could do damage, they're going to find themselves in the realm of libel if they are going to claim first amendment protections. i think the question is, where

is the control of this fast amount of data going to reside? is it going to be considered a first amendment issue or something that comes under a different kind of legal regulation? i think the web world will resist anything that puts constraints on them aside from voluntary ones. i don't know whether that is going to stick. >> to the questions i would open to the room. one is about the role of the first amendment in the issues we are talking about around speech and regulation. many companies and organizations operate in the public sphere and there are speech considerations. the second is, you added at the end some concern about resistance to regulation in the industry. >> i don't know if that is the core problem. >> i am going to interrupt and

say the not so enviable task of following the professor and follow the same rules to ask you to keep yourself to one point and introduce yourself at the beginning. >> i am from "the boston globe." you're talking about regulation and legal issues. i don't know if the problem gets that far. in media, the classic way of expressing bias is not lying about people or providing distorted information. it is about what you decide to cover and not to cover. you can have a huge impact on businesses individuals based on whether you show something online or don't show it. one thing i worry about is facebook or google or online services could advantage or

disadvantage certain groups or political parties by simply choosing to show more of that perspective and less of something else. they could advantage a company by showing more data related to that company and less related to somebody else. i don't think you can do anything legally about it. that is the thing that is much more concerning. >> i would take your point. i think the fact is as the power of these websites is consolidated, as they grow, unlike "the boston globe," if you don't like the way you are covered, you can go somewhere else. but if you are a business covered by yelp and you are going to be impacted financially by where you lie in the advertising-driven yelp rankings and yelp has the right to put you anywhere they want a stun whether or not you buy advertising, that is not the way

the "boston globe" does business. there's is not a viable alternative to being on yelp's list. this is an area i believe yelp would claim first amendment rights and they have been given them by the warts -- courts to put any list together on any basis. it is also true those lists are clearly capable of doing significant financial damage to someone. >> there are other responsibilities and considerations that come with first amendment rights. >> i would disagree to an extent. if yelp or any other site is not being responsive to the user enter arbitrarily having the rankings and it is no longer useful, people will no longer use it. there are alternatives. they will go to the sites most useful for the users.

they will do other searches. they will look on facebook and asked friends. every time i am on facebook, someone asks about a good restaurant in boston. if any side is not being responsive to users or productive enough for him -- fo rum, people use alternatives and there are other sites. >> libel is geared toward the individual publishes and whether it does damages that can be proven. if yelp and others are claiming first amendment protections that goes with the territory as well. i wonder how that is going to sort itself out. >> introduce yourself. >> joel kaplan from facebook. since we were referenced, i'm going to violate the rule and make two points. i will make them quick. i grew up in boston and love the

"boston globe." i find it extraordinary the notion that in the internet era were the most significant impact has been the small democratization and the ability of individuals to have voice the notion in the times when i grew up in, there was "the globe" and "harold -- the herald." now on the internet, everyone has a voice. they can have it on facebook yelled, any number of distribution mechanisms. facebook is trying to provide the information to the individual that is most useful and interesting to them. if we fail people will stop coming to facebook and will stop using the newsfeed. the second point i want to make that is relevant to the topic of this session of startups is this

issue of liability protection for internet companies that are just showing user generated content is probably the single most important protection that led to the proliferation of successful startups and the internet we as we know it today. it is a great point you brought up to start the conversation. i think you cannot overstate how important the intermediate liability is to the success of the companies around the table and the ones thinking about how they will reach their audience in the first place. if they will be subject to lawsuits for everything there millions of users put on the site those sites will not be created and will not succeed. >> i want to take that as an opportunity to shift our discussion to the sharing economy. in this session, we are joined by a number of folks lyft, airbnb uber.

i was in germany and took uber home from my restaurant. i woke up tuesday morning to take uber to my first meeting and discovered it was not allowed to operate, may be illegal. looking at how that has played out in the united states, it seems it is happening on the basis of municipalities. different municipalities and states taking different approaches from a regulatory perspective. i am wondering about that in the context of, should we have a broader more uniform way of regulating some of the questions arising out of the sharing economy? is there some advantage to more of a piecemeal municipal approach at this stage in the game? this is an issue almost every company is facing in some way.

the public servants around the table are also dealing with this. very interested in your thoughts as well. >>move the mic closer. >> brian worth with uber. the german court ruled uber did not have the proper permits to operate in the country. we are appealing and still operating in germany. sign-ups for uber gone up 590% in germany. people vote with their wallet. i think the german people are showing what they are interested in. they are interested in having companies like that operate in their country. we are hoping for a good resolution through the court system. as far as whether one solution, i think it depends on the country and what the solution is. we have jurisdictions we work well with. we have good relationships with cities.

the state of colorado past peer-to-peer ridesharing legislation and set up regulations. it is a good regulation. it is something we work under. it is a good thing. there are other states where it is tougher. it is going to depend on the jurisdiction. one catchall solution that does not work is not any better than 50 different ones you're haggling with. my colleagues that run all over dealing with it city by city probably wish there were one solution as opposed to 50. in our space this is something local governments have traditionally dealt with as far as the transportation market. companies like uber, i think we ought to work with those governments to come up with a workable solution. >> molly from airbnb. i would like to make an important point when it comes to

the sharing economy and regulation. for the most part, the sharing economy companies are dealing with regulations that have nothing to do with the internet. airbnb, all of the regulatory issues we are working on around the world have to do with the laws o ur hosts have to comply within their municipality which have nothing to do with the internet read the internet simply enabled the hosts to do it more than ever before. land use is regulated at the local level. there is no way around that. land-use laws have good reasons to exist. they protect safety and other things we rely on. thank goodness airbnb hosts live in safe homes. it makes it more complicated

to advocate on behalf of our hosts in those cities, but i would echo uber's perspective that we have to work with the cities to figure it out. hopefully, we can come up with a couple of solutions that might be applicable to thousands of cities around the world. >> anybody else want to comment? >> chris matthews with lyft. i agree wholeheartedly. we have patchwork legislation across the country. we are dealing with laws written before anything like what we operate was contemplated. in some cases, dating back to the 1800's. what we provide to local governments is the opportunity to move into a new generation of innovation. we work collaboratively with cities and states.

i imagine congressional members will get involved in the conversation. for the most part, this is a localized issue. we help them understand how to address mobility. what lyft has seen as a desire to move towards the next level of innovation regulation. we can come to the city of boston and say we want to be able to provide a positive mobility option for citizens. but we can work with you to provide some datasets so you understand how people are moving around the city and become a benefit to the cities as opposed to -- >> offering some data collected for the purpose of public policymaking. >> i think we will have to partner with cities. we are already finding ways to work with these cities. that is just the next step. >> very briefly, it is

encouraging to hear the sharing economy companies talking about collaboration with local governments. i work for the city of boston. we are trying to craft appropriate regulations that address the public policy needs we have as well as ensure these kinds of new services can deliver benefits to citizens. the challenge we face is we have to look at these problems not only from the question here is a new service used by a small slice of the population that has certain self-regulating characteristics. when you think about a regulatory regime, that will apply not only to what exists today but also what comes after it, how these services evolve, what new services are created.

there needs to be an open-mindedness on the part of local governments but also a measure of caution that says what works for transportation company x may not be sufficiently protective of the public interest in a comes to transportation company y that starts next week. that is the balance we have. we have found most companies have been very open to working with us at the local level. it is a dialogue that boston is open to having. >> adam? >> adam connor, i work at brigade. these examples of collaboration with government is encouraging. in having worked with state governments, federal agencies were first interested in using facebook. collaboration is not the word of

would use. it was we want to use your service. here are the tremendous amount of things you have to do to let the government use your service. you have to do all the arbitrary things for the government to use your service for free. it was not necessarily collaboration. there were good people working to push it forward. i would go to a meeting in 10 government lawyers would say here are 32 things you have to change for us to use your free service. why won't you embrace the spirit of working with government? there is a burden on startups for collaboration. we come back and say is there any world in which you might think about changing their policies were talking about modernization? no we are not going to change anything on our end. what is nice about the local model is many people in government are doing good work. there needs to be a chance to

modernize things as well in government to allow new technologies, for agencies to use that. that is another part of the conversation. if we want to benefit through these new technologies, we need to make sure the rules are considered to modernize them. it is an unfair burden we willing to take on at facebook -- we were willing to take on at facebook. and startups don't have that ability. that is a tremendous loss for everyone. >> tod cohen from ebay. i appreciate what my colleagues and they're properly respectful attitude towards potential government regulation of their services and the need to collaborate at the local level. i wholeheartedly endorse them to do that.

but with the reality that there are very entrenched economic interests that have every desire to put startups like that out of business. they work actively and have political power and engage in the worst type of regulatory models. we want to have a level playing field is the classic example. therefore, we should have unnecessary burdens placed on new entrants that had nothing to do with the service underlying that. i am pleased to see what the german people are responding with. it is what people want. i would make sure you try to get in early and inoculate yourself. try to make sure you find regulators not only captive but

that understand what is going on. it is an example of fraternity hazing. we got hazed. when you join, you will get hazed when you want to join the fraternity. i appreciate everyone has the right attitude of wanting to collaborate and work with government. let's be clear. there are a lot of people that want to stop the services and will spend effort and political power to harm. >> that is a great point. we are talking about startups and why internet policy matters to startups. we are thinking about every company in the room is pretty young compared with the much more established industries you are frequently dealing with on policy and regulation. it seems there are two challenges. one is a challenge of entrenched industry trying to protect their turf from challenges from

unexpected quarters. another might be a generational gap among decision-makers. on monday when i was in germany i was meeting with a group of very senior german officials who had no idea what uber was. they wanted me to show it to them on my phone. this goes to adam's comment about the challenges facing these institutions. what are the right strategies? what have some of the experiences been dealing with government institutions that may have a generational gap in understanding these issues and experiencing them? coupled with some organizations companies, comcast as a decades

long history in washington. what kind of environment that creates for shaping public policy? >> adam with google. i thought tod's comments were right on. if you are only playing the inside game with policymakers, there is a good chance newer companies and industries are going to lose simply on the basis of older industries having been there longer. not just the taxicab or hotel industry, for the content industry telecommunications firms. these are companies that are regulated. they have been players for policymakers for a long time. one tool that has been effective is showing policymakers when

they are out of tune with consumers. the hippaa-sopa battle is the quintessential example. that has an inside game debate. it was not until it became an outside game with consumers weighing in that policymakers put the brakes on what they were doing. unfortunately, i think that tactic is probably going to have to be used. in the wake of that, we have observed policymakers in the u.s. are extremely cautious about legislation becoming the next one. they don't want their bills to get that. they don't want to be the recipient of thousands of phone call saying they are on the wrong side of something. there are going to need to be moments of things where newer companies confront policymakers

saying it is us on the side of consumers. i think one of the scariest things a policymaker can encounter is they are not on the side of consumers. they often switch sides quickly to avoid that situation. most policymakers are not going to last very long if they are completely, in a sustained way out of touch with what their voters want. >> if i could add onto that -- i am trying to find my e-mail, but it is not working. i seem to remember getting an e-mail from uber about a year ago about the challenges they were having in d.c. i thought that was remarkable. they were going to their customers to say, we need to be engaged on this. they made a great decision to

hire david. that is a tactic he is familiar with. >> what do you mean? >> grassroots organizing. using technology to play an outside game. as companies start to debate and realize that an inside strategy is maybe not sufficient and playing outside game, it is just mind-boggling the amount of power that these companies with large membership lists have to advocate for corporate interests. >> i agree wholeheartedly with the importance of grassroots organizing and advocacy, but a unique challenge to startups regarding that is for the ones that are smaller than those of us of this table, they do not

have the power to do the advocacy. in addition to advocacy, i think education is really important and airbnb has done a lot to study the impacts this has, to dispel a lot of information out there and really educates policymakers so that they are not relying on an anecdote from their nephew who used airbnb two weeks ago. and again, start ups the do not have the scalability or the scale to make those decisions. >> i think it is more a way of keeping companies honest about what issues they take on and maybe when and how they can mobilize their users. our people are not going to follow us unless they understand the positions -- how the

positions we're taking have a direct impact on them. we have been doing a ton on net neutrality lately because our users care about it a lot and they are worried that a slowdown on the internet will have a direct impact on their small business. they are crafting pillows that say protect innocent internets which is great, and also makes us feel confident that when we mobilize our users next week to contact congress, they have our back and we are not diverging from the interest of our community. >> thank you. the first dramas -- the first premise it is important to recognize is that there is no advertising model for democracy. there's not a way to sustain civic states with an advertising model. it has never been that way and

we have to figure out what is a sustainable business plan in civic engagement data in general. this is a conversation that is starting to happen. the other thing is, our institutions have to be psychologically self determining to some extent. we have to give them capacity. in one of the ways we can do this is by giving congress staff. why don't we have maker fellows? why don't we have a code for america's staff that reinvents the land-grant interest. what members of congress don't have his basic situational awareness. the less they have of a basic process, the more complex ideas migrate to the military service. this is a classic example. when you do technical competence

and reward the defense department, a lot of responsibilities that are too difficult for civilians are going to go there. they have had the tools and awareness for decades now. there are probably a couple hundred fellows inside congress. if you need that, you ask for a military fellow. the state department probably has two dozen. almost 50% of house staff has been moved into the district. in less we create some kind of high-quality decision support system for the legislative branch in the states, it is good -- it is not going to appear and it is going to continue to look like a proprietary information cartel, which is what congress looks like.

and i say this with a great deal of love for this institution. i am obsessed with it, but it really needs this institutional empathy right now. the executive branch has been the focus of attention, but it is running into a wall right now when it comes to legislative branch capacity to even understand these problems. when you are working on the hill, you ask the person sitting next to you, it could be nuclear nonproliferation or it could be technical i.t. questions. we have to somehow provide them people. >> do you want to jump in there? >> i think there is tremendous potential to bring entrepreneurs or anybody in to government. that is what we are doing with the fellows program and with u.s. digital service. the reason that is relevant to

internet entrepreneurs and startups is that government can be a platform. we are opening up data as fuel for private sector innovation. that is one of many things the presidential innovation fellows work on. >> one of the things you see in the private sector through startups is the disruption of old business models. particularly in an institution like congress, you're not going to see disruption at that level at that pace. that manifest, in my view, through a 7% approval rating. it is not an ideology rejection. it is a process rejection.

in my view that is an extremely important issue for our country. i think the united kingdom has done really exciting work in the legislative community. at a certain point, how can you regulate uber if you live your existence in a motorcade? we need our leaders to be connected with the reality of life in society. we have been here before with the rise of television, with the rise of radio. we will get to the issue of regulations. i think one thing that is remarkable about the technology industry as a whole, at least right now and in the last several decades, is that it

typically protects disruption of itself in a way that most other industries don't do. as technology begins to impact more and more sectors in our society, you see this regulatory response, not as a way of serving public interest necessarily, but as a weapon to protect the status quo. the technology industry needs to keep the public on its side as a primary objective, because without that it will never be able to defeat those static interest. you think about things like self driving cars, which are, in my opinion, a net good for society. how will that impact the insurance industry the transportation industry, the tax industry, and all these other industries? it will be a massive regulatory fight. i don't see the technology industry as being able to succeed in those fights unless

they very cognitively protect the interest of their users so they can leverage that in a modern corporate, grassroots organizing, if you will. >> i would just build on that and say i think there is tremendous opportunity for engaged partnership he between the technology industry, the startup community, and government itself. chris alluded to this by talking about the ways in which lyft could perhaps help the city improve overall delivery service. we have done some studies on this in boston. i reported on broken glass on the sidewalk using a public service app and it had been cleaned up a few hours after i reported it. that is about changing the

expectations of government, not just cleaning up glass. i would ask somebody in government interested in technology to reach out to us and partner with us. we have not only an obligation, but a desire to up our game and match the kind of expectations that people have. instead of thinking about how to we get this regulation or this kind of service, there are mutually benefit -- ways to mutually benefit our lives and a lot of opportunities for citizens or paying customers on the other end of the product. >> you can expect me to ask questions because i don't know anything. i hear people talking about a sort of libertarian momentum politics. i don't know if it is true or not. i wanted to ask -- when you look

at the rise of uber and lyft and the sudden pressure it puts on government to loosen their regulations on transportation. our whole new areas of regulation going to have to be rethought and won't that lead to a general push to deregulate sectors of society to make it easier to have a start up, to make it easier to do things him and her net? are we going to see -- do things on the internet? are we going to see this on an ad hoc basis? >> from trip advisor just to answer your question, i think what you may see his consumer appetite to have -- is consumer appetite to have what you are

seeing with uber, airbnb, flip key, is the bumping up against old regulations that have existed for health, safety, and prosperity. we are for those. brian talked about aggregating and getting 500 people to sign up. that power to do that has not existed up until now. that is an amazing opportunity for an entrepreneur to find a market demand that is pent-up by the populace. as that proliferates and people start doing it and adopting it i think we have seen in many different instances, whether it is the company we named stub hub, ticket regulations, all of these things in the past 10 years, a little bit of hay, easy on the tiller, let's see how this lays out. that's one of the things local government can do, because i do think there is a tremendous

opportunity in the 35,000 municipalities that airbnb or uber are in to test. to iterate. you have an amazing lab right around the world to see what works and what doesn't work. i think i think that can be applied to the federal government and what we are talking about with congress. i think how boston implements technology and uses it, taking the best from what boston can do, or new york city, or chicago, and then seeing what works. i don't know if it will happen from a top-down approach, but sort of a bottoms up, best of the best is something we can reasonably look forward to. >> juliett, then margaret. >> i want to think about

technological unemployment. and talk a little bit about the economic context in which all of this is happening. partly because i think the sharing economy, tech companies and others claim a lot of good public affects. if we think about the massive employment destroying capabilities of these technologies, that is the flipside of efficiency. you have to own that part of disruptive. and then asked the question, what about technological unemployment? something that came up it really was not addressed well is that it's true that new jobs are created, but if you think about the whole picture of economic analysis and you look at the previous two centuries and how

technological unemployment happen, it was in two ways. one was growth, rapidly growing economies, and number two, massive reductions in hours of work. we went from 3000 hours of work in the late 19th century down to under 2000. in the united states, neither of those conditions is really optimum at the moment. we have slow growth. we are a mature economy. we are facing a future of low gdp growth rates over the next couple of decades and we have big barriers to the reduction of hours. i don't think we can just assume that we are going to be able to absorb. if this sect or wants to be able

to not only promote gains in the narrow but have things work out in a way that yields public good we have to be thinking about those larger labor market policies. >> some of this is the way we want to look at a market in action. if we have maxed out what we are capable of doing as an economy and a marketplace, this is not just a concern, it's a problem. the pie is so much bigger than we realize. as an example in 2013, we added 25,000 rides in chicago. not we took me 5000 from cabs.

-- took 25,000 from cabs. the demand is there for all these services. that man has been out there for this stuff, but now we have -- demand has been out there for this stuff, but now we have the technology to meet it. we are on the cusp of an economic seachange. there was a time when there was a horse and buggy on the road next to a car and people got around that. i think technology is allowing this to happen. these are valid concerns, but there are potential solutions. if we stifle growth out of fear that we do not know what the answer is, we are stuck in ever moving forward. >> we do have janet yellen trying to encourage the idea among economists and employers that increased wages are actually a good sign for

economic growth. and i think about the point that was made about mobilizing customers and using them to advocate change, but that can work the other way as well. people seeking employer and -- employment ken unionizing the a nontraditional way to seek increased benefits -- can unionize, maybe in a nontraditional way, to seek increased wages or increased benefits. >> there was a recent story about the minimum wage and people stuck in these jobs and the growing protests they are launching. but of course, the very technology that we are sitting

around talking about is going to make it very difficult for these protests to pay off in the long run. we already have fast food restaurants moving to kiosks and the like. i think we are going to see wages stay utterly stagnant for a large segment of the population. i think a lot of the technologies we are talking about are part of the problem and we have not quite figured out how to work around that yet. i don't think there is an easy answer at all. >> but the technologies are the answer. that's kind of the point i was trying to make. i was in san francisco. i took an uber ride. her husband came home from work and she would go out for two hours while he was home with the kids. she was not working full-time as

an uber driver. in fact, she turned her lyft app off. whichever one was working, she had on. but that is how people supplement their lifestyles and income in a way that is more convenient. this is opportunity. this is not something that is holding people back. >> it's an opportunity to work three jobs instead of two. >> but it is offering a certain amount of flexibility. it may mean that the workforce has to change and people's expectation of the workforce changes. maybe you are running a small business that is on ebay or at sea while you write articles for the yahoo! small business -- ebay or etsy while you write articles for the yahoo! small business database. the idea that somebody works

from 9:00-5:00 and stays at one job for 15 years doesn't work in this sort of economy, but i do agree with brian. there are certainly problems and opportunities. we don't know yet where all of the opportunities are going to arise. but generally, the technology in the platforms we all use create opportunities. one of the things that has been really fun about working for yahoo! is that there is an opportunity to educate lawmakers about policy issues they have never thought of or technologies they have never used. you are often fighting an entrenched industry, but you're also not set into anyone policy answer. you might have three answers. you get to have that conversation with lawmakers. you get to talk to them about

what are your concerns, what are our concerns, how do you make that work? there is not necessarily one right answer, but there is a huge opportunity to do a lot. one thing is to make sure we bring users along and make sure they are hard of the dialogue, and that is what you are starting to see. >> i think we cannot argue this on the basis of anecdote. there is little doubt that these technologies have him nor ms. labor displacing impact. that is why people like that. it's not to say that uber won't create more rides, but i think there are really two big questions. number one what is the aggregate rate of growth, because that is absolutely essential. and we cannot forget that every

percentage point of gdp growth puts a certain amount of co2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. it's a very close relationship. we are coming to the point where we are going to have those kinds of caps. that's a whole other type of constraint on thinking about what's going on in the nation has a whole. the second is hours of work. if you don't have hours of work, you cannot absorb technological unemployment. just look through history. it's not to say that we should not have technology. but we have to think about it in a framework other than local regulations of taxis. it's also about income distribution, labor market policy, climate policy and all of those things. we need to look at the big

picture to make sure where the game is going. one particular internet company may not want to get engaged in that but the community as a whole has to. precisely because of those backlash issues. >> david simon with salesforce providing software as a service. i think there is a point when you have rapid technology change and rapid displacement, one of the places this needs to be reevaluated is the educational front. this country has very much ignored stem education for most

of a generation. we have yet to really tried to take advantage of the technology. but in terms of stem education for people who are being displaced so that they can get new jobs in a new economy that is valuable -- and by the way community college is a relatively inexpensive way to reeducate somebody when you have the internet. it creates all kinds of problems. how are you going to get your daycare taken care of when you have no income and you have to go someplace? policymakers tend to get stuck in a certain way of thinking whatever their perspective is. you have a real dichotomy of twentysomethings who are doing a lot of work for the policymaker but the policy decision maker is somebody who looks like me who is typically very entrenched and a certain way of doing things

because that is the way they have been doing things for two generations. >> in terms of policy makers i think the single biggest thing that policymakers don't get in terms of economics is the difference between a brand-new niche and a niche that is three or four years old. what we have seen over and over again is that these things lock in very quickly. that is doubly, triply true with the sharing economy niche iss, which are essentially market makers. we have plenty of experience that market making niche is naturally become monopolies. that should make it more important to look at the redistribution of market power. if i want to drive a car for a living, very soon -- how many

ridesharing companies are going to survive? i would bet a month's salary not three. probably not too. -- two. this is where it becomes very difficult for individuals to bargain on their own with these entrenched firms. >> or even where two or three ridesharing companies exist there may be dozens of limo companies or cap companies that they have replaced. >> and by that time, it is very easy for them to collude. by the time you have just a couple of handful of players, so the bees and christie's --

sotheby's and christie's, you don't even have to break the law to make deals about how people sell there are work. >> it is true that technology is both disliked disrupting the labor market and creating opportunity. about half of our folks would not have created businesses otherwise. but i think the stem education, which is important, fills fewer jobs i think, then building the workarounds and preparing both for the new and changing economy that is not the result of technology alone. the economy has been changing for a long time, more flexible work, self-employment, all of these things, and how do we help repair the workers that have been displaced for that new world of informal entrepreneurship is i think a bigger question for policymakers

more broadly. >> i have to say something about the stem comment. just down the street is mr. teitelbaum at harvard saying it does not exist. that there is a traditional cycle that happens time and again. it happened in the 1950's. if you look at employment rates and wage rates for people that have technical training, there does not seem to be a problem. wages have been relatively stagnant even for them. the idea that we can educate our way out of this by teaching everybody math is highly questionable and we need to look at that as well. >> what is the relation between stem education and some of the concerns in the tech industry about immigration?

we are here in a moment where the president is considering executive action on immigration if congress does not act although that seems to be politically charged and may not happen. the u.s. is trying to take a very active role to push some movement on the immigration front. does anybody want to comment on immigration and the role that is taking in this? >> a scam to keep wages low? >> sure. >> my ceo, mark zuckerberg of phase facebook, has taken a very active role in immigration reform in the last year. there are many components of immigration reform. the one i think you are specifically focused on that relates to stem has to do with what i think most of the

companies who operate in this space to perceive as a shortfall of the types of highly skilled trained engineers, computer scientists, who can produce at the level that is required to remain globally competitive. i think most of the companies around here would be interested in reading the work of professor teitelbaum, but as a day to day matter they are not able to find from the u.s. trained work force of u.s. born people a sufficient number of skilled engineers that they need to keep these companies growing innovating, and competing. that is where immigration reform on the high skill side comes in. we probably get about 50% a year of the h one b -- those are

temporary pi visas for high skilled workers. we get about 50% in the lottery each year of people we have given job offers to. as a global company, if we can't ring those people to the united states to work with our engineers in california, we will probably still give them a job. we're just going to put it someplace else, and that's not good for the united states and that's not good for our economy and for building and maintaining the kind of centers of excellence we have in silicon valley, austin boston, and other places that we want to maintain. just taking facebook as an example, but i think it is true for a lot of companies around the table, we have close to 80% of our workforce around the united dates states and 20% outside

the united states. and i think that's what we want to maintain, right? the bulk in the u.s. and growing structures around the world. so prospects of immigration reform are looking dim, i would say, in the current congress. the president is considering taking executive action. we are hopeful that he will tried to address all aspects of the problem, both the current undocumented and the shortage of high skilled workers. >> this whole issue of immigration and what facebook has been up to really makes the case for the tech community to get more invested in long-term policy conversations. we have a military disaster on the border right now with a bunch of seven-year-olds coming in. it's part of a much bigger

systemic problem where issues like governance and failure are big issues. dhs is putting this under the headline of resilience. you are going to see more and more definitions of resilience. mass movements are part of it. unless the community takes on this whole civic problem-solving of complex sorting and filtering of the challenges we are facing as a global society, i think it is going to be hard to get out of this spot at it cannot just be about visas for your company. i was really surprised honestly as someone who has been working in d.c. for the last 14 years is that the most notable thing was the ad buys against environmental issues

proposed by members of congress who you are really going to need on your side in the tech issues. i mean d.c. really is like a junior high. there is a jock. there is a homecoming queen. there are nerds. there is a moment right now with such a need for people to intentionally bring these problem-solving minded folks together and figure out new ways to do this, and it's not going to look like the old model of lobbying. i will tell you what that looks like inside congress, is the tendency to use a campaign technology for governing. it is making governing look like campaigning. i think people who look at congress see this. it cannot be petition sites. congress is dealing with sentiment, not substance. unless we figure out a way to

privilege information that matches institutional functions like what is the subcommittee institutionally responsible for that is the information it needs at the time from authentic, high reputation sources. my dream is that we are going to move to a future where this community reserves or helps create some new roles. i feel it every single time it is these process roles that are just missing and they really don't exist right now for civic central norms. >> i think -- and adam is a great person to talk about this because it facebook six or seven years ago he started trying to educate members of congress about how to use our platform to hear back from their

constituents in new ways. one thing i want to point out is that while all these observations about ways we can educate and change the institutions make a lot of sense, we also need to operate in the world in which we live today, and there's a big difference between silicon valley's approach to the world and washington's approach to the world. silicon valley companies want to see systems and go around them or disrupt them. unfortunately, at least for now congress still operates as a democratic body with members who go home to their districts and while they may care a lot about what people in silicon valley think in alabama or some congressional district, they think a lot more about what members of their districts think.

i think we've made a valiant effort in trying to get comprehensive immigration reform done. you still have to change the minds of the people at home before their members of congress are going to be responsive to them. so the strategy you mentioned of the ad, that was one out as part of a broader effort and strategy to figure out how to build the support in the districts to give members of congress the fortitude to take what might be a popular vote in silicon valley but a difficult vote in their home district. it is this mix that we are still going to have to do for a while when it comes to politics. we are going to have to do some new stuff and try to change it, and we are also going to try to convince people in some old-fashioned ways, although maybe using new tools. greg's first, i used to work in congress. i love the institution.

it also has to be an institution that wants to save itself. that is not always evident in congress. they sign 10 year contracts and don't break them. they cut staff. they don't always want to make hard choices. it is incumbent on us -- you cannot save somebody who doesn't want to be saved, necessarily. certainly, when i look around the table at folks who represent policy shops in washington many of them have connections in washington, when you look at some of these issues you can say we need to be more involved in immigration and other issues. this is not why google or facebook has a job, to solve a job, to solve the refugee crisis in latin america. i think they are willing to play a role, but that is the role of government.

to put the burden on us while trying to simultaneously save an institution, i think the benefit is there are good people in government, in chambers and branches and at the local levels of doing this, but you kind of one both things here. we have to save an institution that might not want to be saved and also simultaneously replace it and how make something better. it's a confusing argument. >> i can say i am definitely confused. >> i just want to make the point that one of the innovations these companies represent is reputational networks. there is a great example of that in the executive branch. 10,000 federal employees are using gibhub, which is a way to

share code as well as dialogue. so you have 10,000 federal employees collaborating, and you have reputational mechanisms that are helping them sort input from the public and from other federal agencies and so forth. a lot happens from congress, but also a lot happens from regulatory agencies. i am excited to see the modern regulatory agencies in the coming decade. as one small example, the platforms that power the regulatory agencies are developing an open read-write api. advocacy platforms, grassroots everyone can, on their own platforms, contribute and we can use technology to sort and way and all those things in the

rulemaking process which is a big part of how we govern. >> on the topic of immigration reform it affects our entire economy and every single industry in this country. when you look at internet companies as a whole, they are new in their development and new to politics and policy. i would argue that when it comes to immigration reform, our companies have done more, and certainly more than their share to move this debate forward. it's not something that happens in one congress or one year. it has been many years since the last reform. i think internet companies deserve a lot of credit for not just ticking up the mantle on what matters the most to their business interests. they have taken up the share of something that matters to the entire economy. on the general topic of this

roundtable, why internet policy matters to startups and companies that are startups of heart, there are a lot of issues . policy makers have to make a decision. are we going to be protectionist and protect industries that have been around -- like, last night jean crawford mentioned that her father was manufacturing railroad ties. when the next generation of railroad ties came out, he had to figure out what to do. part of the great thing about our country is that we come up with new and better ways to improve our society and our economy as a whole. one other issue we have not raised yet which i think is important to startups is the issue of patent reform. we have seen trolls that have gone after larger companies, but there are also various startups where you are trying to create a business but instead you're

having to deal with court cases. our policy makers may have some thoughts on that issue as well. >> we have around the table people from industry, academics public servants, and we have a moment here where we can and should really have a discussion about what is missing. what do we not know. what are some of the things about giving broader context to the policy issues we are looking at? in your mind, what are some important areas for research for discussion ? as we look at the next couple of years, what are areas that really need a lot of attention so that we can make good policy, make good decisions?

>> i think some of that has to start with education and engagement. i think that is one of the reasons you're seeing internet companies come together. that is why you're seeing sharing economies come forward and start to engage the government. but to write policy that works in the long run, i think now is the time for a lot of engagement and a lot of education and a lot of conversation so that the groundwork is therefore smart policy to be written versus where i have seen we have been for the last few years, which is sort of reactionary policy not necessarily based on a real understanding of the industry, the issues, or where the industry is evolving in the future. i think that is sort of a joint responsibility for both government and our industry to really continue that

conversation in that dialogue and start building those bridges. >> from a local level thinking about it, a lot of our challenge is to -- we can articulate what our public policy goals are in regulation around retail service or rental housing, but it is very hard for us to get good data about how effectively or ineffectively the systems being built by some of the more innovative companies in these spaces actually do or don't achieve those goals. consequently, a lot of the decision-making it's done in the realm of anecdote. i heard about this time when this thing happened, so while, of course, the companies in this space have a vested interest in releasing data that tells a particular story i think it's an area for people who are interested in public policy research to look at. what is the overall impact of

the sharing based delivery service alternative to the transportation availability, cost, supply and areas that are undersupplied, and things like that. actually give us some hard data to look at to see how well these services do or don't support the policies that we have. >> adding carbon accounting is a really important -- i think carbon accounting is a really important aspect of the data. at the moment, we don't really know much about how true the claims are. we are going to be doing more and more carbon counting in the coming decades and i think this is an area where the whole industry could get out in front.

in theory, it should be a happy story to tell and also to be a model for the kind of putting these accounting systems into place and being proactive about it. i think it could be really fantastic. >> it's interesting. i have never encountered a politician who is anti-innovation, and very few are anti-internet, and yet innovation as we know has effects and consequences. we have talked about them. it can be disruptive. it can cause shifts in the workforce. and the difficulty that a lot of us engaged in public policy are engaged in is that oftentimes there is a quick reaction from policymakers. oh, we were for innovation until we started seeing these

disruptive effects and now we need to put the brakes on it. i think these are all valid questions. look, we have a structure of labor law, of child safety laws, of privacy laws, and we might not agree on the structure but those laws generally reflect the past consensus that those things are important to us. the format those laws take in the future may be very different from the way they have taken in the past. i am not sure the protecting attack seem italian system is the best way to ensure that we have a vibrant -- protecting a taxi medallion system is the best way to ensure that we have a vibrant middle class. walmart faced a lot of criticism for having lower paid workers and impart because of pressure

they were facing they voluntarily acted to give more robust health benefits. i don't know what went into that calculation, but i think they are probably thinking look, we are large employer of middle-class people. we think this is the responsible thing to do. i think as some of these internet businesses become more mature, companies will grapple with a lot of those effects as well. with respect to policy, there can be a do no harm approach to players not acting quickly but i think older laws will manifest themselves in new ways, maybe more modern ways. >> just sitting here listening i was really struck by the comment that a lot of this debate is not about the internet. it has to do with what happening

on the ground, and it's true. a lot of this has not been about patents of technology. people are sitting here saying that the nerds talk about that. what we are seeing is that technology is changing society in a way that is faster than institutions or government can keep up with. i am a little concerned about how we're going to fix these institutions. at the local level, there are a number of folks around doing this that make me very optimistic but when we look at congress, i don't know the path for that. i applaud the people working on non-, but i don't think you've figured it out either. -- working on that, but i don't think you have figured it out either. we definitely in d.c. feel and attitude at times of well, government is broken, ignore them. but where are we going to be in

2030 if we keep that attitude and what are the choices you can make that will help improve our institutions because you are forcing a lot of changes in society that have impacts far beyond getting into a taxi. who is driving the taxi? do they have health care? are a lot of people out of work? it's a rapid change that i am not sure our society can keep up with. a positive note to end on. >> we did ask -- we do have people at the table who have not had a chance to talk. chris, carrie, who else? down on dissent. -- down on this and. do you want to add anything to the discussion before we wrap up? >> hi, i am from trip advisor.

the lawyer in charge of vacation rentals. there are some of these companies that are disruptive companies that are starting to take care of their -- they are not technically employees, but i guess contractors. they have set the minimum wage of $11.20 an hour. they are trying to treat them well by directing them and getting good deals on health insurance and cell phones and so on, tools they might use in their task. with companies that are sort of working through this -- and i

know buber uber faced protests in seattle recently by their drivers who felt their pay was not high enough. i would not want to get into bubeuber if i felt like my driver was not getting paid enough and was unhappy. i asked my driver this morning as she was feeling and she said we are alive and wonderful. i think companies like flip key and vacation rentals are not dealing with labor as much -- >> we appreciate you bringing it up though.

critic>> i think every buber driver i have had has been happy. i worked of flip car before, so -- at flip car bef zipcar before, so it interest me. >> my name is matthew and i am with the harvard innovation lab. this has been a great discussion listening to all of your points. i want to make a comment combining sets and david's points. seth talked about infrastructure within the government and david about the dichotomy between those making the decisions and the consumers of the decisions made. the pattern here is how do we

decrease the distance between the decision-makers and those the policy impacts? san francisco has a platform similar to open idea. they crowd source people living in the city to help solve problems and help decide how to repurpose land. new york is growing in participatory budgeting. i see great opportunity for technology companies to help decision-makers decrease the social distance so that it has a more salubrious impact on society. >> my name is chris from reddit. i am really interested in the disconnect between congress and these companies and how quickly we are moving and users expecting things instantly. i think adam said you just have

to look in the basement of a municipal building for a record, but now you can go get it. what are people expecting from congress in the time it takes to make decisions? i don't know the answer either, but i think with the instant gratification we all have -- you know uber took longer than 20 minutes and refunded my money. so just that instant gratification. >> there is a big difference between policy deliberation and delivery of citizen services. when people think about technology and government, they kind of lump them all together. when you think about being able to see glass on the sidewalk, take a picture, get it fixed that leads to a growing expectation that people should be able to do anything, anywhere, at any time.

having a deliberative body that is rapid is probably a bad idea. making choices and doing things is preferable to the current situation, but you do need to liberation. this does bring up what i think is one of the scariest things about the internet with policy. there is a notion that you have a lot of companies that deliver information to users based on what they think their users want. as you see it develop euro per year, you see the filter bubble -- year over year, you see a filter bubble where people only share with people who have their same worldview. and this is happening in politics. i think it is affecting political debates. i wonder how we stop that. if the model for an internet company is we deliver what users want and try to make our robots deliver