The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

Meanwhile, in 1884, the Bell Company put Vail in charge of a new subsidiary meant to build its “long lines.” Vail named the subsidiary the American Telephone and Telegraph Company—AT&T for short—a name that, one way or another, has figured centrally in the story of American communications ever since. (View Highlight)

He and a group of other financiers aimed to gain control of the Bell company, wishing not only to reestablish its former dominance but to build the greatest wire monopoly the world had ever seen. And he wanted Vail in charge. Vail knew that this man was to be taken seriously—for this seasonal resident of Jekyll Island was none other than J. P. Morgan, one of the greatest monopolists of that era or any other.13

It is the same logic Microsoft would follow in the 1990s, when its Windows operating system was similarly run as a partially open system. Like AT&T, Microsoft invited its enemies to connect, to take advantage of an open platform, hoping they wouldn’t notice or worry that the platform came with a spring trap. For as with Bell, once having made one’s bargain with Microsoft, there was no going back. (View Highlight)

The jujitsu of Vail’s anti-antitrust strategy of the 1910s remains an apt lesson to any aspiring monopolist. The key was earnest profession of a good no one could dispute: making America the best-connected nation on earth by bringing the wonder of the telephone into every American home. Appropriating the most appealing rhetoric of the Independents, and arguing persuasively that the Bell system could get the job done more effectively, Vail turned his monopoly into a patriotic cause. (View Highlight)

Vail saw no harm in, and indeed believed in, giants, so long as they be friendly giants. He believed power should be beneficently concentrated, and that with great power came great responsibility. (View Highlight)