Technology

Zuckerberg’s Summer Reading List Includes A Book On How To Protect A Monopoly

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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg contributed to a Silicon Valley and Hollywood-inspired reading list published Friday.

Zuckerberg recommended “The Last Days of Night” by Graham Moore — a novel about Thomas Edison’s electricity monopoly and how he protected its growth by pushing competitors out of business.

“It’s about the competition to electrify the nation between Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla,” Zuckerberg told NBC’s Dylan Byers, author of the Byers Market newsletter. “Graham is a great storyteller.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s summer reading is (I am not making this up) a novel about Thomas Edison trying to protect his electricity monopoly by driving his main rival out of business. https://t.co/I2x2EZfIGN pic.twitter.com/JcELnB2sTV

— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) August 2, 2019

The 2017 book has 4.4 stars and 24,293 reviews on the book review site Goodreads.com.

“New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history — and a vast fortune,” a description for the book reads.

“A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win,” it says. “Paul’s client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country?”

The Washington Post described the book as “a model of superior historical fiction … an exciting, sometimes astonishing story.”

Various 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have called to break up big tech monopolies like Facebook and Amazon in an attempt to create more domestic tech competition.

“Facebook has experienced massive growth and has prioritized its growth over the best interest of its consumers especially on the issue of privacy. There is no question in my mind that there needs to be serious regulation, and that has not been happening,” California Sen. Kamala Harris told CNN’s Jake Tapper in May.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote a blog post in March saying, “Today’s big tech companies have too much power — too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy. They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. And in the process, they have hurt small businesses and stifled innovation.”