On Wednesday I spoke with antitrust attorney Gary Reback , the man who spearheaded the push to break up Microsoft in the nineties. The event was hosted by HBSTech at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. If anyone in the world can make antitrust law interesting, it’s Reback. Much of the hour plus conversation focused on the history of antitrust law and Reback’s experience in big antitrust cases from his new book , Free the Market!: Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive ( buy it here ). But we also spoke about current events and his concerns that lax antitrust enforcement has led to less competition today in tech than is optimal. We spent a lot of time on Google. His chief concern is Google Books (jump to the 30 minute mark), and he argues that a DOJ investigation is appropriate. I’m more concerned with competition in search and search

marketing , and we spoke about this as well. One interesting insight from the conversation: I ask Reback if he thinks we’d be in a better world if Microsoft had in fact been broken up into two or more companies as was originally ordered. His response - “no.” The investigation and lawsuits themselves, he said, did enough to force Microsoft’s hand and allow browsers like Firefox, Chrome and others to blossom. We’re giving away 15 autographed copies of Reback’s book . We’ll determine the winners in the same way we did with Sarah Lacy’s book - retweet this post using the green button below. We’ll select the winners randomly from retweets that occur by midnight California time on July 3rd. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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My Interview With Antitrust Expert Gary Reback: Google’s Looming Antitrust Issues