Big tech needs to stop hiding

By Mariana Mazzucato and Ilan Strauss

Mariana Mazzucato is a professor at University College London, and Ilan Strauss is a research associate at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

One of the main reasons for the market dominance of large technology companies is the fact that they are currently able to hide more detailed financial and operational information from regulatory scrutiny. To counteract this, a more proactive regulatory agenda is needed, as well as improved 10-K reporting, analyze Mariana Mazzucato and Ilan Strauss.

In 2021, Alphabet (Google’s parent), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook’s new alias), and Microsoft were among the world’s largest companies in terms of revenue and profit. These five companies alone increased their market capitalization by an amount greater than Italy’s G D P ($2.5 trillion vs. $2.1 trillion). Big Tech now accounts for nearly a quarter of the S&P 500’s index and a quarter of research and development spending by US publicly listed non-financial firms. Amazon is the world’s fifth-largest employer, and it is still growing.

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