Today’s links Kier Starmer appoints Jeff Bezos as his “first buddy”: Regulatory capture, right there out in the open. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2024 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Where I’ve been. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. Kier Starmer appoints Jeff Bezos as his “first buddy” (permalink) Turns out Donald Trump isn’t the only world leader with a tech billionaire “first buddy” who gets to serve as an unaccountable, self-interested de facto business regulator. UK PM Kier Starmer has just handed the keys to the British economy over to Jeff Bezos. Oh, not literally. But here’s what’s happened: the UK’s Competitions and Markets Authority, an organisation charged with investigating and punishing tech monopolists (like Amazon) has just been turned over to Doug Gurr, the guy who used to run Amazon UK. This is – incredibly – even worse than it sounds. Marcus Bokkerink, the outgoing head of the CMA, was amazing, and he had charge over the CMA’s Digital Markets Unit, the largest, best-staffed technical body of any competition regulator, anywhere in the world. The DMU uses its investigatory powers to dig deep into complex monopolistic businesses like Amazon, and just last year, the DMU was given new enforcement powers that would let it custom-craft regulations to address tech monopolization (again, like Amazon’s). But it’s even worse. The CMA and…Pluralistic: Kier Starmer appoints Jeff Bezos as his "first buddy" (22 Jan 2025)