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From your perspective, who is better suited to oversee tech regulation from the White House, Biden or Trump?

Well, I think it's pretty clear that uh that Joe Biden um has uh a thoughtful set of policies, whereas when we watched the Trump administration for four years, they were bouncing from this policy to that policy depending upon apparently uh what the president uh was feeling that day.

How confident are you? It doesn't sound like you're too confident. But if we do see some sort of gridlock in Washington following these results, what does that then tell us about the likelihood that we will actually make any progress on these types of regulations against Big Tech? And I'm curious from your perspective, what needs to be done or what would your advice be for lawmakers here given the fact that this has been an issue that has been brought up on both sides of the aisle, yet either side can't seem to agree with each other on exactly how to address these issues.

Well, first, you said against Big Tech. And I'm I am I am not proposing we do things against Big Tech. What I'm suggesting is that we need to have a countervailing force. That, you know, for the last 25 years, you had a wonderful lead into this segment about the history of meta. For the last 25 years, we have said, okay, innovators, you make the rules. And we the public we're just taking those. I mean, who decided that we would have no rules about protecting privacy? Who decided what the structural kinds of issues could be? Who decided that we will see the kind of uh aberrations and truth and trust that we have seen? What we need are a set of counterbalancing expectations, not the micromanagement that we saw in the industrial era, but expectations that set the behavioral standards for these incredibly important companies. And um and I think it requires a whole new way of uh of thinking about this. You were you were kind enough to mention my book Techlash. Uh that's what the thing that's what the conclusion of that book is, that we need to take an entirely new look at how we structure our oversight, that we have to have oversight of this uh incredibly powerful, important and contributory new set of technologies. Um and that like the technologies innovators themselves, we must become equally innovative in how we create guard rails to protect consumers, to protect competition.

And it is a good point what what what you raised the issue with my question just saying against Big Tech. And I think that goes to this reframing of the conversation, right? So so I'm curious from also from your perspective, what do you think the involvement should look like from those within the industry when we're talking about how best to regulate the tech industry?

Yeah. I I think the key is participation rather than um standing in front and saying no. That that, you know, the first rule in Washington is it's always easier to kill something than to pass something. And um and I would hope that what we could begin to see is the uh the tech leadership sit down and say, we need new rules. Let's work together to draft them. You know, Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, and Mark Zuckerberg, um who you just did a piece on, have both endorsed the idea that we need a new digital platform agency with new approaches to regulation. Let's move beyond that. Let's sit down and start talking legislation. Senators Bennett and Welch have introduced a proposal like that in the Senate. Let's get specific um and start talking about really how do we create these guard rails in this new era.

Tom Wheeler, unfortunately, we have to leave it there. Former chairman of the FCC. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us and congratulations on your new book.

Thank you.