On behalf of the UCLA School of Law and Samueli School of Engineering, the Institute for Technology, Law & Policy welcomes Professor Tim Wu to UCLA for a discussion of his forthcoming book, The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity (Knopf, 2025), in conversation with ITLP Executive Director Professor Julia Powles.

This event is co-sponsored by the Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy and the Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology & Sports Law.

RSVP HERE.

Tim Wu: Tim Wu is Julius Silver Professor of Law, Science and Technology at the University of Columbia. Hailed as the “architect” of the Biden administration’s competition and antitrust policies, Professor Wu writes and teaches about private power and related topics. First known for coining the term “net neutrality” in 2002, in recent years he has been a leader in the revitalization of American antitrust and has taken a particular focus on the growing power of the big tech platforms. From 2021 to 2023, he was appointed to serve in the White House as special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy. Professor Wu is the author of four other books: The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age(2018); The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads (2016); The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires(2010), and Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World (2006, with Jack Goldsmith). Professor Wu was a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and also has written for Slate, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post. He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School and B.Sc. from McGill University.

Julia Powles: Julia Powles is the Executive Director of the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law & Policy at the UCLA School of Law and UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, and Tech Policy Lead for the University-wide initiative, UCLA DataX. Professor Powles researches and teaches in the areas of privacy, intellectual property, internet governance, and the law and politics of data, automation, and artificial intelligence. Prior to joining UCLA, she was the founding Director of the UWA Tech & Policy Lab and Associate Professor of Law and Technology at the University of Western Australia. She previously held academic appointments at Cornell Tech, New York University, and the University of Cambridge, and worked at The Guardian, World Intellectual Property Organization, and MinterEllison. Professor Powles earned her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and B.C.L. from the University of Oxford. She also holds a B.Sc. (Hons) and LL.B. (Hons) from the Australian National University and University of Western Australia.

About the book: Our world is dominated by a handful of tech platforms. They provide great conveniences and entertainment, but also stand as some of the most effective instruments of wealth extraction ever invented, seizing immense amounts of money, data, and attention from all of us. An economy driven by digital platforms and AI influence offers the potential to enrich us, and also threatens to marginalize entire industries, widen the wealth gap, and foster a two-class nation. As technology evolves and our markets adapt, can society cultivate a better life for everyone? Is it possible to balance economic growth and egalitarianism, or are we too far gone?

Tim Wu—the preeminent scholar and former White House official who coined the phrase “net neutrality”—explores the rise of platform power and details the risks and rewards of working within such systems. The Age of Extraction tells the story of an Internet that promised widespread wealth and democracy in the 1990s and 2000s, only to create new economic classes and aid the spread of autocracy instead.  Wu frames our current moment with lessons from recent history—from generative AI and predictive social data to the antimonopoly and crypto movements—and envisions a future where technological advances can serve the greatest possible good. Concise and hopeful, The Age of Extraction offers consequential proposals for taking back control in order to achieve a better economic balance and prosperity for all.