Why Getting an AI ‘Selfie’ Is the Smartest Move You Can Make Right Now (Before Everyone Else Does)

 

Why Getting an AI ‘Selfie’ Is the Smartest Move You Can Make Right Now (Before Everyone Else Does)

Mark Zuckerberg said ‘Nothing is the future forever.’ This new tech trend is proving him right.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @TULLMAN

Jun 1, 2026

 

Those of us who remember the 70s may recall the famous quote from Jon Landau that appeared in Boston’s The Real Paper about Bruce Springsteen. In May of 1974, after watching a show where Bruce opened for Bonnie Raitt at the Harvard Square Theater, Landau wrote “I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” Apart from his grammar, which left a bit to be desired, he was—as we used to say back then—“Right on.” Jon jumped right on the Bruce train and a couple of years thereafter became his lifelong manager. Right place, right time.

I realize that our culture today is overly obsessed with the constant search for the next new thing and that, as Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), is fond of saying, nothing is the future forever. But there are in fact moments when you do see and feel something that makes you wonder if, in fact, the Earth hadn’t just moved for a moment and in that instant changed the future forever. It seems to me that we might just be on the cusp of seeing the next new thing and that nobody who’s anybody is going to want to miss the chance to get in on the ground floor while the gettin’ s still good. FOMO is a very powerful force, and no one wants to miss the moment or be left behind. Plus, if you don’t get yours while it’s available, it may soon be gone.

Of course, timing is everything, and the conditions and the context have to be just right to trigger a substantial shift in the way that the world does things. Sad to say, for all of Zuck’s grand schemes and dreams, Meta is very old news for the kids and, as Yogi Berra once said: “the place is so busy that no one goes there anymore.” Snap might be a resurrected distant second and X is always going to be a cross between a toilet and a sewer where it’s all about enragement rather than engagement. All the other players aren’t even also-rans, they’re “whatever became of” has beens.

For the next couple of generations, the only social channels that matter are Instagram, Tik-Tok and maybe YouTube. These are the most powerful communication tools that we have today for our youth, but—given the enormous volume of activity and the number of participants—they’re largely overwhelming, even for the most active posters and, as a result, they’re rapidly becoming a second day job that no one wants.

The truth is that even the most dedicated and well-intentioned creators on any of these platforms couldn’t possibly read, much less personally respond to, the zillions of posts that they receive constantly. The bad news is that, increasingly, even the most ardent fans are starting to notice. Fans are fickle and flighty and loyalty today only means that they haven’t seen anything better yet. Every entrepreneur’s job is exactly the same—find the next wave, race to the front, ride it for all it’s worth, and then move on before the inevitable crash.

Perhaps more important is the fact that these days, the true qualitative metrics of value and longevity aren’t about gross numbers, fans, followers or traffic volume. They’re about the artist’s ability to create and manage authentic and intentional sharing that drives caring and connection. As I wrote recently, the smart players want to own their own platforms and their content, connect and transact directly with their fans, ditch the gatekeepers, and cut out all the other layers and intermediaries that get in the way of direct and “personal” communication. For sure, this desire is based in no small part on economics, but it’s also about emotion.

Our early social technologies helped to manufacture thinly-related “friends” and the artificial impression of intimacy, but any real communicator, performer or other talent would tell you that mass means nothing and that meaning means everything. They’d all rather have a smaller collection of real and sincere fans than millions of nobodies that they’ll never meet. Those are the kinds of relationships that are still manageable and which pay off in multiple ways. And they provide demonstrable psychic benefits to the performers and help avoid burning out.

It turns out that an essential part of any artist’s preserving their own talent and humanity is their feeling and ability to believe and demonstrate that they’re not simply talented robots on the stage replicating the same performances night after night, albeit all over the world, but instead that they’re caring and committed professionals with the time, talent and artistry to do and share what they love doing. The last thing they want is to be chained to a desk or a phone feeding the social media beast all day long instead of doing what they wanted to do all along. It could be singing, dancing, teaching, or painting, but, for sure, they didn’t sign up to be posting all day.

So, the challenge for all these artists and performers is how do you create and deliver these kinds of experiences and connections at scale. The fact is that we’re all stretched and pulled in many directions all day long and, in addition to being weary and close to shutting down, if an artist is honest with himself or herself, they’re likely to acknowledge that sometimes they feel that they’re doing a halfway job and not delivering what was promised to their fans and followers. It’s far too easy to get spread a mile wide and an inch deep and disappoint everyone including yourself.

That’s why I think that, for anyone with an active and expanding social audience, getting yourself a Selfie—a digital twin that you can build in minutes—is the smartest thing you can do right now. I think of this as an investment in the future rather than in the present, and if you don’t start taking steps to invest in the future, it’s highly likely that you won’t have one.

And honestly, since we haven’t figured out how to physically clone ourselves, it’s pretty clear to me that soon everyone will have a personal digital twin like Selfie to write, post, comment and respond for them automatically and on a 24/7 basis in a manner that accurately reflects their intelligence, use of language and slang, writing style and conversational phrasing. I’m not talking about some business bot or shopping widget—that’s boring, already overdone, and mostly disappointing.  

I’m talking about a highly personal and social online twin (what better name for it than Selfie) that—solely on demand—automatically ingests all your social feeds, all your photos and videos, and anything and everything else that you supply it and builds a “brain” that thinks like you, writes like you, reflects your typical style and tone, and can answer questions from your fans, followers, family, friends or anyone else based on everything that it knows about you and on nothing else. No hallucinations, no out-to-lunch responses, and polite enough to say from time to time that it simply doesn’t know.  

You are always totally in control of your Selfie and can edit anything it writes, improve or add to its suggestions and responses, and/or decide to simply trash any post or comment or answer that it makes for you. Your Selfie gets smarter all the time based on your actions and also by virtue of additional information and material that you add to its content base over time. Plus, it regularly polls all your authorized social feeds and adds all your activity in those channels into its knowledge base as well.

Bottom line: nothing in our lives is a scarcer resource than our time. Agents are already all over the business world, for better or worse, but the Selfie is the first substantial attempt to create a personal agent/digital twin that fully and fairly represents you in social interactions at scale without taking more than five minutes to launch a Selfie and without spending more than an hour or two adding content to really make it your own. It’s easy to predict what the future will eventually look like; it’s just hard to determine when it will be here. But the Selfie is here—up and running today—and just waiting for you to get yours before someone else does.

HOWARD TULLMAN JOINS LISA DENT ON WGN RADIO TO DISCUSS GEN Zers AND EARTH DAY

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE 

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN BY HOWARD TULLMAN

 

We Need to Give Gen Z a Little More Help   

Spending your days alone in front of a computer screen–even on Zoom–is a recipe for social disintegration. We need to get Zers more engaged.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1

APR 22, 2025

We already know that for all the substantial benefits that various new digital tools and technologies have created and notwithstanding the many ways in which they have irrevocably altered our lives, these disruptive change agents have been accompanied by a host of problems, trade-offs, and downsides.

Facebook may have proposed to connect the whole world, but basically that global reach has facilitated the company’s ability to spread its social media poison worldwide and empower MAGAts and trolls everywhere. Targeting and tormenting vulnerable teenage girls for creeps and corrupt advertisers isn’t exactly an achievement that Sheryl Sandberg should be proud of leaning into. Zuck’s mindless and shameless promotion and amplification of Russian and right-wing rumors, lies and propaganda undoubtedly help to elect the Orange Monster who is now destroying both our democracy and our economy.

Unfortunately, even though we see more and more of these adverse consequences on our employees, families, and country, we’ve decided to largely feign ignorance and to spend as little time as possible admitting, addressing or attempting to remedy any of the ills we’ve brought upon ourselves and our children.

Now we face the likelihood that A.I. in all its incarnations will only exponentially accelerate these critical threats and societal concerns. As older adults, with the benefit of prior times and the attitudes of the good old days, we’re fairly safe and secure; theoretically, we can consciously assume the risk of these threats in part because we’ve had an appropriate and thoughtful foundation as we grew up. Also, because we won’t be around here too much longer anyway to be subject to the perils of the new world.01:49

But what about the problems we’re foisting on our younger employees and our kids, who have no choice in the matter? Can we give them a hand and a little help before we shove off?

So much of what we’re likely to see in the future will be simulated, synthetic, and soulless that it’s extra important now to try to share and sustain a few important traditions and rituals that were a part of our own youth. Mentors can work miracles if anyone’s willing to listen to them. This critical sharing, spreading, and transferring of knowledge and experience to future new business builders and leaders as well as to our own offspring is how we can try to create compelling cultures, preserve morals and values, and help sustain a solid societal foundation for our country. That’s especially true in turbulent and confusing times like these.

By simply targeting the technologies and platforms and blaming the tools, we don’t even fairly acknowledge our own roles in enabling some of the longer-term damage and lasting adverse emotional and psychological effects these developments are having, especially on Gen Zers. Surveys from Gallup and the Walton Foundation report that this generation basically doesn’t trust anything. Not politicians, not lawyers or courts, not academics, and not law enforcement.

Apart from the depressing list of consistent disappointment they grew with, including 9/11, the non-existent weapons of war offered as justifications for invasions, the Iraq war, the financial crisis, and the pandemic, it’s no wonder that they have no faith, no anchors, no fundamental values, and no patience. They’re all in a hurry, they think they’re making good time, but they’re going nowhere. Dopamine, constant consumption, and the desire for instant gratification drive their behaviors and it’s all facilitated by our manipulative technologies.

Pervasive and omnipresent technology has sped up every aspect of our lives (call it “hurry sickness”) with all of us as willing participants and beneficiaries who are pleased and grateful without really understanding or appreciating the accompanying costs. In addition, the new tools – especially the smart phone with its embedded camera – have done a great job of sterilizing our interactions, hiding our appearances and emotions, and separating us from actually and authentically experiencing so many important aspects of our day-to-day lives.

Do you think for a moment that anyone has actual friends on Facebook? I’ve asked dozens of these Gen Zers how many close friends they have from their childhood, which is where the most important connections begin or, for that matter, how many they have right at the moment and the responses are unbelievably depressing. Most men are lucky, if pressed, to recall a single good one that they’ve kept in regular touch with over the years and most also report that, apart from peers at work who they sometimes socialize with, they have no other close companions. Families these days are also widely dispersed and no longer provide the support, connection and stability they previously did, regardless of their economic level.

Sitting for untold hours in a closed room before a screen – regardless of its content – is no substitute for face-to-face interactions with parents, peers and prospective partners. It’s no way to form lasting memories, and it’s ultimately an emotionally sterile and unsatisfying experience. You don’t “play” a computer game – it plays you. You sit largely passively before a device designed to serially challenge, seduce and reward you for a bunch of useless accomplishments and valueless achievements. You never directly interact with another person and frankly you ultimately learn nothing from the process. Endless effort, empty calories and no gain.

We have kids hiding behind keyboards to bully and torment others, and creeps spending all day trying to seek out children for every kind of perverse purpose. Snapchat publicly admits to receiving 10,000 reports of sextortion per month. And with the explosion of mobile sports gambling hard on the heels of online gaming, things will only get worse and more perilous.

We’ve made the speed (of everything) the prime directive and objective in our lives. Time is scarce, attention is fleeting, and the technocrats have taught us to believe that we can have it all and have it right now as well. Our world spins faster and faster and we never really have the time any more to luxuriate in the moment or recall a storied past.

Everything, as President Barlett always asked in The West Wing, is about “what’s next?” and we quickly lose sight of and interest in virtually everything that is and was. Thinking about tomorrow is all well and good, but not if it immediately diminishes the value and importance of today.

This tendency is why Trump is such a successful and perpetual liar – no one cares or even remembers what he lied about yesterday. Driven by frenzied media, we’re always focused on the next crisis, outrage, or blunder.

Worse yet, our kids have lost all interest in the past, in reading virtually anything, in studying history, in our traditions and – most importantly – in the lessons we’ve learned and the painful experiences we’ve lived through and would love to share. It’s hard to imagine how a culture will persist and strengthen over time if we continue to teach the next several generations that everything is temporary; all material matters are readily disposable or replicable; and that there is nothing to be gained by looking backwards.  And that we can quickly and cheaply substitute artifice and artificial environments like amusement parks for the real, hands-on, and authentic activities and the crucial inter-personal communications and relationships that were so much an important part of our own youth and development.  

Watching concert attendees attempting to view and capture a performance through their phones rather than simply watching and listening is a sad sight. Seeing parents directing and ordering their kids around and ignoring guests at the kids’ own birthday parties in order to frantically pose all the participants for crappy videos which few, if any, will ever see again sucks all the joy and actual enjoyment out of the occasion. We seem to forget that as adults we’ve already made most of our memories – now it’s our kids’ turn – but we’re intent on enlisting our own offspring in painful and stressfully staged rituals that are no fun for anyone and certainly nothing to fondly remember.

Or worse yet, we drag them to Disney-like artificial environments where the entire family can substitute conspicuous consumption for any kind of substance, learning or truly memorable experiences. The Space Mountain in the Magic Kingdom will never replace the Matterhorn, or for that matter, even an evening in a make-shift tent under the stars in your own backyard.

NEW INC. MAGAZINE ARTICLE BY HOWARD TULLMAN

 

What to Do When People Ask You to Lie

Defendant Don demanded unquestioned obedience to his requests to subvert authorities. Business owners can't afford to operate by that standard.

 

BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS@HOWARDTULLMAN1

 

As the Trump cesspool of crime continues to swirl, widen and deepen, another group of poor, loyal suckers who worked for Defendant Don at the Mar-il-Legal and at the White House are now being drawn into the vortex of lies that surrounds the Orange Monster. Many of Trump’s past and present attorneys are already seeing their careers disintegrating. All six of his alleged co-conspirators in the latest indictment are attorneys, including No. 1, Rudy Giuliani. They and the rest of the world are watching their lives and futures (and possibly their freedom) being sacrificed on the altar of Trump’s epic narcissism and delusions.

 There are plenty of lessons in this sad saga, but the most critical one is what to do -- or more importantly not to do -- when you’re asked by your boss, your peers or anyone else in your business, to lie. In addition to dozens of people employed by Trump or working in the White House, Trump is also specifically alleged to have asked election officials and others in Arizona and Georgia, not to mention former vice president Mike Pence, to lie for him. 

 And, by lying, I don’t merely mean overtly and directly telling lies. A half-truth is a whole lie. Lying by omission, fake ignorance or turning a blind eye to illegal actions and behaviors beyond the pale are equally criminal and repugnant. Hiding or casually neglecting to produce inconvenient documents or, in the case of Northwestern University, standing by and saying nothing as football hazing and baseball abuse take place right before your eyes, is just as dishonest and dishonorable as holding up a bank, burning critical documents in the White House fireplaces, or flushing notes down the toilet. These people are merely choosing the comfort of ignorance over the inconvenience of truth. 

Silence is a tax on the truth.

To be very clear, we’re not talking here about vague matters of degree or simply shading the truth a little bit as when the founders of Snapchat lied about the way their product actually worked.  This isn’t a case of situational ethics, which are bad enough to be sure and a challenge for every entrepreneur. And, as sick and criminal as “fake it ‘til you make” has been shown to be in the recent past, the present cases of lies and concealment are even worse.

The poor, put-upon Trump flunkies were allegedly instructed and directed by their “boss” to lie, obstruct, and conceal books, records, classified documents, videos, and other evidence, in the full knowledge that the materials were actively and aggressively being sought by federal agents and the FBI.  Suggestions of criminal acts to be undertaken by Trump’s counsel were allegedly made slightly more subtle and oblique, although the truth may be that the directions were far more overt. Trump’s lawyers are now calling his vehement and violent directions “aspirational” advice with a straight face. It was only the reticence and restraint of the attorneys themselves in recording and documenting these actions -- for their own illusory protection -- that have led us to believe that these demands were more suggestive than deliberate, direct orders. Time and tapes will tell.

 On the other hand, the one true thing that we’ve already seen is that people who will lie for you will eventually lie to you. As the rats, enablers, co-conspirators, and counsel rush to abandon the sinking Trump ship and make their own deals with the DOJ -- and the MAGA morons and sycophants in Congress continue to publicly support Defendant Don’s growing craziness -- they all take the time to continually reassure the Donald that they have his back.  Only former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has apparently gone entirely radio silent in an obvious bid to save his own skin, which seems to be working. But the knives are out, the proffers are proliferating; they can’t wait to be rid of the cancer, if they could only find the exits. Hopefully, one of the most well-deserved punishments of Trump will be the liar’s curse:  not that he won’t be believed, but that he’ll never be able to believe anyone else.

Whatever the true circumstances turn out to be in the Mar-a-Lago mess, the fact is that managers, team members, outside partners, vendors, and professionals face similar situations in their own businesses on a far too regular basis. Some of the very unfortunate and last-lasting messages and scars of the Trump years are the mistaken beliefs that lying is as common in D.C. as breathing, that everyone cuts corners and shades the truth, and that only losers and suckers try to act fairly and honestly.

 So how do you protect your business, your teams, and your clients and customers from thieves and liars inside your own shop? Be honest with yourself and admit that, especially in tough economic times, there are always far more reasons and excuses to lie than to tell the truth. That’s not an explanation or justification, it’s just a fact of human nature. There really are no good excuses, but they’re abundant, nonetheless. Remember that it’s always easier to be wise for others than for ourselves. Here are a few things to keep in mind.  

 First, have clear written policies and communicate them consistently, but don’t think for a minute that that’s sufficient to get the job done. Don’t worry or be embarrassed because so much of what’s written will sound like cliches and mission statement BS. Northwestern has had a wonderful anti-hazing policy for more than 10 years and it did nothing to address or resolve the problems they’ve had throughout their athletic department. You can’t legislate honesty. You’ve got to make the right behaviors part and parcel of your company culture -- instilled in everyone from the day they start -- which you do through actions and examples, not just talk.

 Second, acknowledge that it’s not ever easy to be the only one in a group who gets it. Plenty of people always know what’s going on, but only a few are strong enough in the face of opposition to stand up for the truth. It takes considerable courage to be the one who says “no.” Speaking up and speaking out are tough, but these are things that you do just as much for the business and the others you work with as for yourself.  In the end, it will turn out that, even if you’re the first, eventually you won’t be alone. Relationships at work or anywhere else aren’t supposed to be easy; they’re supposed to be honest. Being honest may not get you a lot of friends, but it'll always get you the right ones.

 Third, keeping your mouth shut in the interest of keeping the peace isn’t being passive, it’s being complicit. And it’s just as bad for the business as outright lying. There aren’t degrees of the truth. Going along with the group, ignoring the obvious, blaming the circumstances or the times, accepting half-truths and rancid rationalizations and preferring to accept convenient and painless fantasies rather than the thorny and difficult truth are short-term solutions. Such cheap compromises are sure to return to bite you. In addition, they suck all the joy out of the workplace and slowly impair the morale of your best people. No one likes living a lie.

 Finally, remember that determining the whole truth isn’t always that easy, so before you step forward and call anyone out, it’s critically important to do your homework. You can’t take some of these things back once they’re out there. Make absolutely sure you know what you’re talking about before you open your mouth. In some cases, owners and managers don’t know the truth; in others, they can’t acknowledge or face the truth; and then there are those who are lying to cover up the truth.

 Bottom line: It’s as hard to tell the truth in some cases as it is to hide it, but if you tell the truth, it becomes part of your past. If you lie, it becomes part of your future. And if anyone asks you to lie, they couldn’t care less about you or your future.

New INC. Magazine Blog Post by Howard Tullman

Which of the FAANG's Will Get Broken Up?

Not all of them. And not Amazon. And don't forget to include Microsoft in this bunch of dominant, powerful tech companies. But the idea that they're all going to get trustbusted is silly.

By Howard Tullman

General managing partner, G2T3V and Chicago High Tech Investors

@tullman

I'm surprised at how many smart people don't understand the very different long-term prospects of the members of the FAANG 5. As things begin to heat up and the FTC starts specifically looking at this cast of characters , it's too simplistic to paint them all with the same brush.  Because, while their predatory behaviors may be similar on the surface, there are substantive differences in their businesses and business models. This suggests that the government's likelihood of success in attacking their alleged anti-competitive actions will vary widely.

I spoke last week at a financial conference and one of the other presenters cautioned the audience about how quickly tech-centric businesses can vanish. He noted that only Intel remained today as a major player from a select group of the early semiconductor pioneers.  And he suggested that we'd see a similar turnover among some former tech leaders in the next few years. While he didn't name names, it was clear that his short list included IBM, GE, HP, Xerox, etc. That's astonishing, when you think about it. These companies were once the bluest of blue chips.

I'd say that he will be about half right (two out of five) regarding the FAANG 5.  But to even understand the proper landscape, we probably need to start by changing FAANG to FAAMG. That's because Microsoft will be a major player for a lot longer than Netflix, which is looking more and more like a first-moving, one-trick pony and under tremendous competitive cost, price and content pressures. Meanwhile, unfashionable Microsoft, which still owns the desktop, is just hitting its stride in multiple adjacent verticals, like the Azure cloud. In the end, highly diversified lines of business and multiple material revenue streams will actually aid Apple, Amazon and Microsoft in making their antitrust arguments.

Say what you will about the FTC's light and late responses, at least the agency figured out that taking another look at Microsoft is a lot more relevant than worrying about Netflix. That's especially true if the primary investigative focus is going to be around systemic acquisition patterns that target young, innovative startups before they get big enough to disrupt the industry status quo. Netflix is certainly acquiring and creating content as fast as humanly possible, but so are half a dozen other major media and entertainment players with equally deep pockets and other advantages.  In addition, I'd say that Microsoft's past antitrust traumas along with its new, hyper-low-key leadership, is going to be a pretty effective deterrent and largely inoculate it from much of the saber-rattling.

But unlike Apple and Amazon, you can bet that Facebook and Google are both going to come under repeated fire not simply from federal regulators, but also from every greedy and cash-poor states attorney general, every class action lawyer, and every country in Europe as well. Facebook's $500 million settlement in Illinois for misusing bio-metric data is just an early indicator of the flood of claims and litigation that are coming. These are rich firms, easy targets who haven't handled repeated PR blowups in any effective fashion, and are especially vulnerable around privacy, targeting and data security issues-- which are, of course, at the very heart of their business models.

On the other hand, Apple and Amazon have a much easier path to avoid prosecution and Microsoft also seems to have skirted the whole set of issues in these two areas. In the last year at least, no one I know has Binged anything. And it seems to me that no one ever fretted for a moment about Microsoft's super-sized acquisitions of Skype, LinkedIn and GitHub in terms of stifling young competitors. If anything, given how poor a job Microsoft has done in terms of integrating Skype into its product suite, the concern is almost the complete opposite - that Microsoft will end up ruining Skype and LinkedIn rather than building successfully on them. On the other hand, it's interesting to watch the Teams team from Redmond attack Slack, which feels a lot like Internet Explorer crushing Netscape in the old days. We'll have to see how that plays out; it's unlikely to end in an anti-competitive acquisition anyway.

Product-first businesses like Apple connect to consumers in far different and more personal/emotional ways. Moreover, Tim Cook has gone way out of his way to make privacy a very clear crusade for Apple as well as a sharp stick in the eyes of Apple's big tech competitors. We'll need to watch closely (no pun intended) as the Apple watch becomes more and more of a wearable medical device - although I'd have to say that's not much of a risk yet as the stupid thing keeps telling me I've fallen down and tries to call 911. Note to Apple: I'm still vertical.  

But, all kidding aside, this is another important and differentiating factor.  The Apple watch arguably--and with my express consent-- uses data to improve my life, my training and physical activities, and my health in relatively non-invasive and additive ways. This is miles away from Facebook and Google selling small slices of my mind-share and attention to every advertiser and marketer extant to serve up an unending flood of ads--product and political-- that do next to nothing except enrage me and waste what little time I have left in my life. It's hard to argue that the ad business has ever been a worthwhile enterprise --JUUL for kids, anyone? Every consumer and regulator knows that any claims by advertisers and marketers of doing any good for society are bogus. They are in it to make billions on their ad sales.

An interesting aside is Google's recent earnings report, which makes it very clear that search--the core and largely worthwhile business until corrupted by Google's strategy of selling the top search result spots to the highest bidders-- was slowing.  Only ad sales associated with YouTube are growing and keeping the ship moving forward. Just to show you how difficult it is to compete with the Big 4, remember that even Google couldn't make a successful social network out of Google+ and had to shut the thing down. Here again, you could argue that it would be a piece of cake for the government to simply slice off YouTube from the Googleplex and turn the video service into a free-standing and viable enterprise. Easy peasy.

If you do the same separation math and pull Instagram out of Facebook, you see a pretty clear indication that the Facebook core is stagnant while Instagram (and especially ad and commerce sales connected with it) continues to grow rapidly. Much like Microsoft needs to be careful around Slack, it's going to be fun to watch the claims and the ultimate litigation when Snap finally shuts the doors and points a nasty finger at Facebook for stealing every single thing that Snap ever did. Of course, the guys at Snap probably deserve every bit of bad news they get.

Amazon is equally well insulated for a couple of important reasons as long as Jeff B can control himself in terms of his private life, his politics, and doesn't get lost in space. First and foremost, a "forced" spin-off of Amazon Web Services (AWS) would be accretive to all the current shareholders and probably quickly add to their respective portfolio values once people learned just how lucrative the cloud business really is and how broadly distributed and entrenched Amazon's customer base is. This may end up resembling the old Uncle Remus story where Br'er Rabbit begged Br'er Fox not to fling him in the briar patch where he could promptly escape the fox's clutches. Let's just say that helping Amazon create a trillion-dollar AWS business wouldn't be the worst thing the government could do to them.

But even more to the point, Amazon actually does use our data to make products and services more relevant and attractive to us. One simple example is that, while Facebook and Google re-target the crap out of us based on our search and traffic activities, Amazon knows what we have actually bought and doesn't waste our time or advertisers' money offering us the same pair of shoes we just bought yesterday.

Another powerful and locked-in incentive - especially for seniors - is automated replenishment, in which refills and new supplies magically appear on time on your doorstep. More than 70% of what we buy every week at the supermarket is the same stuff. Why bother to make that trip and do all that heavy lifting if Amazon will deliver it free to your door?  Amazon Prime with more than 150 million members worldwide and growing is an unstoppable force and so attractive and compelling to people that any politician with a brain is going to steer as far away as possible from interfering with that love affair. And, whether President Trump knows this or not, AWS runs a huge amount of the government's own web services and that area of involvement is also rapidly expanding. Finally, there's no question that we all love a good deal and we're all convinced that Amazon really does offer us the best pricing, service, support and delivery system in the country. Hard to look a gift horse in the mouth.

If you thought the old "I want my MTV campaign" was effective, just imagine the heat and screaming that our super-sensitive politicians and regulators would face from an enraged public if they got in Amazon's way.

PUBLISHED ON: FEB 18, 2020