Tim Wu

For the musician, see Elephante.

Timothy Shiou-Ming Wu (born 1971/1972) is a Taiwanese-American legal scholar who served as Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy at the United States from 2021 to 2023.^[2][3][4] He is also a professor of law at Columbia University and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. He is known legally and academically for significant contributions to antitrust and communications policy,^[5][6] coining the phrase "network neutrality" in his 2003 law journal article, Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination.^[7][8] In the late 2010s, Wu was a leading advocate for an antitrust lawsuit directed at the breakup of Facebook.^[9]

Tim Wu
吳修銘
Wu in 2014
Born	Timothy Shiou-Ming Wu 1971 or 1972 (age 51–52)^[1] Washington, D.C., U.S.
Education	McGill University (BSc) Harvard University (JD)
Known for	coining "net neutrality"; late 2010s revival of antitrust
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Kate Judge
Children	2
Relatives	Alan Ming-ta Wu (father) Gillian Edwards (mother)
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	吳修銘
Simplified Chinese	吴修铭
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wú Xiūmíng Wade–Giles Wu^2 Hsiu^1-ming^2 IPA [ǔ ɕjóʊmǐŋ]
Website	www.timwu.org

Wu is a scholar of the media and technology industries, and his academic specialties include antitrust, copyright, and telecommunications law. He was named to The National Law Journal's "America's 100 Most Influential Lawyers" in 2013, as well as to the "Politico 50" in 2014 and 2015. Additionally, Wu was named one of Scientific American's 50 people of the year in 2006, and one of Harvard University's 100 most influential graduates by 02138 magazine in 2007.^[10] His book The Master Switch was named among the best books of 2010 by The New Yorker magazine,^[11] Fortune magazine,^[12] and Publishers Weekly.^[13]

From 2011 to 2012, Wu served as a senior advisor to the Federal Trade Commission,^[14] and from 2015 to 2016 he was senior enforcement counsel at the New York Office of the Attorney General, where he launched a successful lawsuit against Time Warner Cable for falsely advertising their broadband speeds.^[15] Wu also served on the National Economic Council in the Obama administration under Jeffrey Zients, and served under Director Brian Deese during the first term of the Biden administration.^[4] In the Biden administration, Wu notably helped author the 2021 Executive Order on Competition.^[16]

Early life and education

Wu was born in Washington, D.C.,^[17] and grew up in Basel and Toronto.^[18] His father, Alan Ming-ta Wu, was from Taiwan^[19] and his mother, Gillian Wu (née Edwards),^[20] is a British-Canadian immunologist.^[21] Wu and his younger brother were sent to alternative schools that emphasized creativity, and he became friends with Cory Doctorow.^[20]

Wu attended McGill University, where he initially studied biochemistry before switching his major to biophysics, graduating with a BSc in 1995.^[6][20] He then attended Harvard Law School, graduating with J.D., magna cum laude, in 1998. At Harvard, he studied under copyright scholar Lawrence Lessig.^[6]

Career

After law school, Wu first spent a year at the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. He then spent two years as a law clerk, first for Judge Richard Posner on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1998 to 1999, then for Justice Stephen Breyer at the U.S. Supreme Court from 1999 to 2000.^[22] Following his clerkships, Wu moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, worked at Riverstone Networks, Inc. (2000–02)^[23] and then entered academia at the University of Virginia School of Law.^[22]

Wu was associate professor of law at the University of Virginia from 2002 to 2004, visiting professor at Columbia Law School in 2004, and, in 2005, visiting professor at both Chicago Law School and at Stanford Law School.^[22] In 2006, he became a full professor at Columbia Law School.^[24]

The Master Switch

Wu's 2010 book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, described a long "cycle" whereby open information systems become consolidated and closed over time, reopening only after disruptive innovation. The book shows how this cycle developed with the rise of the Bell AT&T telephone monopoly, the founding of the Hollywood entertainment industry, broadcast and cable television industries, and finally with the internet industry. He looks at the example of Apple Inc., which began as a company dedicated to openness, that evolved into a more closed system under the leadership of Steve Jobs, demonstrating that the internet industry will follow the historical cycle of the rise of information empires (although Wu discussed Google as an important counterpoint). The book was named one of the best books of 2010 by The New Yorker magazine,^[11] Fortune magazine,^[12] Amazon.com,^[25] The Washington Post,^[26] Publishers Weekly,^[13] and others.^{[citation needed]}

2014 New York lieutenant gubernatorial election and aftermath

 

Tim Wu at a campaign event

Main article: 2014 New York gubernatorial election

Wu ran for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of New York in 2014, campaigning alongside gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout.^[27] Wu and Teachout ran against Andrew Cuomo, the incumbent governor, and Kathy Hochul, an upstate Democrat and former Representative in the House. Teachout and Wu ran to the left of Cuomo and Hochul. Hochul won the race for Lieutenant Governor; Wu took 40% of the popular vote.^[28] Wu's campaign received an endorsement from The New York Times editorial board, although they offered no endorsement for the office of governor.^[29][30]

In a Washington Post interview discussing his candidacy, Wu described his approach to the campaign as one positioned against the concentration of private power: "A hundred years ago, antitrust and merger enforcement was front page news. And we live in another era of enormous private concentration. And for some reason we call all these 'wonky issues.' They're not, really. They affect people more than half a dozen other issues. Day to day, people's lives are affected by concentration and infrastructure... You can expect a progressive-style, trust-busting kind of campaign out of me. And I fully intend to bridge that gap between the kind of typical issues in electoral politics and questions involving private power."^[31]

In September 2015, The New York Times reported that Wu was appointed to a position in the Office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.^[32] During the 2018 New York Attorney General election, Wu was mentioned as a possible candidate, though he ended up not mounting a bid.^[33]

Biden administration

Following Joe Biden's election as President of the United States, Wu had been mentioned as a possible appointee to the Federal Trade Commission, a body for which he has previously served as a senior advisor.^[34]

On March 5, 2021, Wu confirmed a previous report^[35] that he would be joining the Biden administration's National Economic Council as a Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy.^[4] As a member of the Biden administration, Wu was responsible for helping to author the antitrust-focused Executive Order 14036.^[16]

On August 2, 2022, Bloomberg News reported that Wu would leave the White House to return to his professorship at Columbia in the following months.^[36] However, Wu, responded to the report by promising to not leave his position "anytime soon".^[37]

On December 31, 2022, The New York Times reported that Mr. Wu's last day at the National Economic Council would be Wednesday, January 4, 2023, ending his 22-month tenure as special assistant to the Biden administration. Mr. Wu said he would return to his previous job, as a professor at Columbia Law School.^[38]

Influence

 

Wu spoke on a panel at Wikipedia Day 2017

Wu is credited with popularizing the concept of network neutrality in his 2003 paper Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. The paper considered network neutrality in terms of neutrality between applications, as well as neutrality between data and quality of service-sensitive traffic, and he proposed some legislation, potentially, to deal with these issues.^[7][8] In 2006, Wu also was invited by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to help draft the first network neutrality rules attached to the AT&T and BellSouth merger.^[6]

In 2011, Wu joined the Federal Trade Commission as an academic in residence and Senior Policy Advisor,^[39] a position later held by Paul Ohm in 2012^[40] and Andrea M. Matwyshyn in 2014.^[41] Wu has appeared on the television programs The Colbert Report^[42] and Charlie Rose.^[43]

Wu has written about the phenomenon of attention theft,^[44] including in his 2016 book The Attention Merchants.

Wu has been described as a leading member of the New Brandeis movement.^[45][46] His 2018 book, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age, analyzed the history and principles of antitrust enforcement in the United States and argued that increasing corporate consolidation presented threats not only to the U.S. economy but also to American political system.^[47]

Personal life

Wu is married to Kathryn Judge, fellow Columbia law professor and lawyer. They have two daughters.^[1] Wu has won two Lowell Thomas Awards for travel journalism,^[48] and was on the Director's Advisory Group for the Sundance Film Festival in the late 2010s.^[49][50]

Selected publications

Books

• Wu, Tim (2018). The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. Columbia Global Reports (ISBN 978-0-9997454-6-5)
• Wu, Tim (2016). The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads. New York: Knopf (ISBN 978-0-385-35201-7)
• Wu, Tim (2010). The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. New York: Knopf (ISBN 0307269930, ISBN 978-0-307-26993-5)
• Goldsmith, Jack L., and Tim Wu (2006). Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World. New York: Oxford UP (ISBN 0195152662, ISBN 978-0-19-515266-1)

Articles

• "A Historic Decision": Tim Wu, Father of Net Neutrality, Praises FCC Vote to Preserve Open Internet. Democracy Now!, February 27, 2015. Accessed October 20, 2015.
• (2013) "How the Legal System Failed Aaron Swartz—And Us", The New Yorker News Desk blog, January 14, 2013.
• (2007) "Wireless Net Neutrality: Cellular Carterfone and Consumer Choice in Mobile Broadband" 2015-02-13 at the Wayback Machine, New America Foundation: Wireless Future Program. Working Paper No. 17, Newamerica.net
• "Why You Should Care about Network Neutrality: The Future of the Internet Depends On It!". Slate, May 6, 2006. Accessed August 24, 2008.
• "Keeping Secrets: A Simple Prescription for Keeping Google's Records out of Government Hands". Slate, January 23, 2006. Accessed August 24, 2008.
• (2003) "Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination", 2 J. on Telecomm. & High Tech. L. 141 (2003).

See also

• Chinese Americans in New York City
• Taiwanese Americans in New York City
• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 2)

References

1. Vilensky, Mike (July 27, 2014). "Ivy League Power Propels Columbia's Tim Wu in Bid to be New York's Lieutenant Governor". Wall Street Journal. from the original on November 5, 2018. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
2. Tracy, Ryan (2021-07-09). "Meet Tim Wu, the Man Behind Biden's Push to Promote Business Competition". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
3. "Net neutrality advocate Tim Wu joins White House". POLITICO. 18 August 2016. from the original on 27 June 2018. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
4. Kang, Cecilia (March 5, 2021). "A Leading Critic of Big Tech Will Join the White House". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 5, 2021.
5. Wu, Tim (2007). "Wireless Carterfone". International Journal of Communication: 389–426. from the original on November 26, 2007. Retrieved September 11, 2007.
6. Ante, Spencer E. (November 8, 2008). "Tim Wu, Freedom Fighter". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. from the original on September 24, 2019. Retrieved September 24, 2019.
7. Wu, T. (2003). "Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination". Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law. 2: 141–179. SSRN 388863.
8. "Tim Wu Elected Board Chair At Free Press". Columbia Law School. from the original on 2016-05-10. Retrieved 2019-09-24.
9. Lohr, Steve (July 25, 2019). "Chris Hughes Worked to Create Facebook. Now, He Is Working to Break It Up". The New York Times. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
10. . OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy, June 2008. Archived from the original on January 18, 2009. Retrieved 10 December 2008.
11. "A Year's Reading". The New Yorker. December 6, 2010. from the original on July 13, 2019. Retrieved September 24, 2019 – via www.newyorker.com.
12. Wu, T. (December 22, 2010). "America's Original Startup: The Phone Company". Fortune. from the original on September 24, 2019.
13. . www.publishersweekly.com. Archived from the original on 11 November 2010. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
14. "Professor Tim Wu Named Advisor to Federal Trade Commission on Consumer Protection, Competition". Columbia Law School. Retrieved 2020-11-27.
15. Lovett, Kenneth (18 December 2018). "EXCLUSIVE: Charter/Spectrum Cable agrees to record $174M settlement for misleading customers on internet speed: AG's office - NY Daily News". nydailynews.com. from the original on 27 December 2018. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
16. Cassidy, John (2021-07-12). "The Biden Antitrust Revolution". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2022-11-14.
17. "TIM WU". General Assembly. from the original on September 10, 2014. Retrieved September 10, 2014.
18. Sommer, Jeff (May 10, 2014). "Defending the Open Internet". The New York Times. from the original on September 11, 2014. Retrieved September 10, 2014.
19. Chen, David W. (31 August 2014). "Inspired by His Father's Activism, Tim Wu Is Running for Lieutenant Governor as an Outsider". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
20. Warnica, Richard (September 6, 2014). "Toronto superstar academic who coined 'net-neutrality' could be nominee for N.Y. lieutenant-governor". National Post. Archived from the original on September 10, 2014. Retrieved September 10, 2014.
21. Chen, David W. (August 31, 2014). "Inspired by His Father's Activism, Tim Wu Is Running for Lieutenant Governor as an Outsider". The New York Times. from the original on September 4, 2014. Retrieved September 10, 2014.
22. Wu, T. "Tim Wu [faculty page]". Columbia University School of Law. from the original on 2008-12-17.
23. Kim, Ryan (January 25, 2008). "Net neutrality guru to speak at USF". San Francisco Chronicle. from the original on September 11, 2014. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
24. Schneider-Mayerson, Anna (November 20, 2006). "Wu-Hoo! Nutty Professor Is Voice of a Generation". New York Observer. from the original on September 11, 2014. Retrieved September 11, 2014.
25. . www.amazon.com. Archived from the original on 14 November 2010. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
26. "Ezra Klein - The five best books I read this year". voices.washingtonpost.com. from the original on 2012-10-09. Retrieved 2011-01-12.
27. "Exclusive: Progressive Ticket Will Challenge Andrew Cuomo And His Running Mate In New York Primary". BuzzFeed News. 13 June 2014. from the original on 2019-09-24. Retrieved 2019-09-24.
28. News, WNYC Data. "Election 2014 - WNYC". project.wnyc.org. from the original on 12 March 2018. Retrieved 27 October 2017. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
29. "Timothy Wu for Lieutenant Governor" 2016-01-13 at the Wayback Machine, editorial, The New York Times, August 27, 2014. Retrieved 2014-08-28.
30. "The Governor’s Primary in New York: Governor Cuomo’s Failure on Ethics Reform Hinders an Endorsement" 2017-05-22 at the Wayback Machine, editorial, The New York Times, August 26, 2014. Retrieved 2014-08-30.
31. Fung, Brian (June 16, 2014). "15 questions for Tim Wu, the net neutrality scholar who’s running for N.Y. lieutenant governor 2016-03-10 at the Wayback Machine". Washington Post. washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2014-04-16.
32. Kaplan, Thomas (2015-09-13). "Tim Wu, Open Internet Advocate, Joins New York Attorney General's Office". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. from the original on 2015-09-17. Retrieved 2015-12-07.
33. Lovett, Kenneth (18 May 2018). "Columbia Law professor who coined 'net neutrality' term mulling run for attorney general". nydailynews.com. Retrieved 2021-01-22.
34. Hendel, John (19 January 2021). "Media fight hits Supreme Court today". POLITICO. Retrieved 2021-01-22.
35. Levine, Alexandra S. (February 23, 2020). "Antitrust crusader Tim Wu likely landing in the White House". Politico. from the original on March 5, 2021.
36. Birnbaum, Emily; Nylen, Leah; Cook, Nancy (August 2, 2022). "Biden Adviser Tim Wu to Leave After Shaping Antitrust Policy". Bloomberg News. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
37. Birnbaum, Emily (2022-08-09). "Biden Adviser Wu Says He's Not Planning to Leave 'Anytime Soon'". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2022-11-24.
38. McCabe, David (2022-12-30). "An Architect of Biden's Antitrust Push Is Leaving the White House". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
39. "Professor Tim Wu Named Advisor to Federal Trade Commission on Consumer Protection, Competition". www.law.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2020-11-27.
40. "Professor Paul Ohm Named Advisor to Federal Trade Commission". Colorado Law. 2012-05-21. Retrieved 2020-11-27.
41. "FTC Names Latanya Sweeney as Chief Technologist; Andrea Matwyshyn as Policy Advisor". Federal Trade Commission. 2013-11-18. Retrieved 2020-11-27.
42. End of Net Neutrality - Tim Wu-The Colbert Report - Video Clip | Comedy Central, from the original on 2015-07-04, retrieved 2016-07-18
43. "Charlie Rose". Hulu. from the original on 2 June 2016. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
44. Wu, Tim (April 14, 2017). "The Crisis of Attention Theft—Ads That Steal Your Time for Nothing in Return". Wired. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
45. Shay, Christopher (2018-11-13). "Tim Wu Goes After the Titans of the New Gilded Age". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
46. Nylen, Leah (July 9, 2021). "Biden launches assault on monopolies". Politico. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
47. Cassidy, John (July 12, 2021). "The Biden Antitrust Revolution". The New Yorker. from the original on July 13, 2021.
48. "Society of American Travel Writers Foundation Annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition". SATW Foundation. from the original on 21 September 2020. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
49. "Sundance Annual Report 2018" (PDF). Retrieved July 22, 2021.
50. "Sundance Annual Report 2019" (PDF). Retrieved July 22, 2021.

Further reading and resources

Audiovisual resources

• Futures of the Internet (Viewable and downloadable Web Video clip) (Flash, MP3, MP4, RealVideo, WMV, 3GP, YouTube, etc.). New York Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC–NY). 2008-04-16. Retrieved 2008-08-24..

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tim Wu.

• Official website  
• Tim Wu – Faculty biography, Columbia Law School, Columbia University.
• Tim Wu – Publications and papers by Tim Wu in the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) (abstracts; full texts).
• Appearances on C-SPAN