The Morning After the Coming Silicon Valley Bust as Part of Who Owns the World? PCC Conference at The New School 2019

Summary

The Morning After the Coming Silicon Valley Bust at Who Owns the World Conference, convened by the Platform Cooperativism Consortium at The New School in November 2019. This session is led by Nathan Schneider and Sandeep Vaheesan.

Acknowledging techno-authoritarianism and the chasm between the upper few and the lower many, antitrust scholars and activists are gaining momentum. They are questioning—and presenting alternatives to—current market and firm structures. Could cooperatives emerge in the wake of antitrust legislation? In the coming Silicon Valley bust that will spell the end of many high-flying “disruptors,” will we be ready to take over key infrastructure?

Nathan Schneider is an Assistant Professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he leads the Media Enterprise Design Lab. He has lectured at universities including Columbia, Fordham, Harvard, MIT, NYU, the University of Bologna, and Yale. In 2015, he co-organized “Platform Cooperativism,” a pioneering conference on democratic online platforms at The New School, and co-edited the subsequent book, Ours to Hack and to Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, a New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet.

Sandeep Vaheesan is legal director at the Open Markets Institute. Vaheesan previously served as a regulations counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he helped develop and draft the first comprehensive federal rule on payday, vehicle title, and high-cost installment loans. Vaheesan has published articles and essays on a variety of topics in antitrust law, including the relationship between antitrust and workers and the political content of antitrust.