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Tim Wu
Timothy Shiou-Ming Wu (Chinese: 吳修銘; born 1971 or 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. 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, coining the phrase "network neutrality" in his 2003 law journal article, Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. In the late 2010s, Wu was a leading advocate for an antitrust lawsuit directed at the breakup of Facebook.
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. His book The Master Switch was named among the best books of 2010 by The New Yorker, Fortune, and Publishers Weekly.
From 2011 to 2012, Wu served as a senior advisor to the Federal Trade Commission, 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. Wu also served on the National Economic Council in the Obama administration under Jeffrey Zients, and served under Director Brian Deese during the Biden administration. In the Biden administration, Wu notably helped author the 2021 Executive Order on Competition.
Wu was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Basel and Toronto. His father, Alan Ming-ta Wu, was from Taiwan and his mother, Gillian Wu (née Edwards), is a British-Canadian immunologist. Wu and his younger brother were sent to alternative schools that emphasized creativity, and he became friends with Cory Doctorow.
Wu attended McGill University, where he initially studied biochemistry before switching his major to biophysics, graduating with a B.Sc. in 1995. He then attended Harvard Law School, graduating with J.D., magna cum laude, in 1998. At Harvard, he studied under copyright scholar Lawrence Lessig.
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. Following his clerkships, Wu moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, worked at Riverstone Networks, Inc. (2000–02), and then entered academia at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Wu was an associate professor of law at the University of Virginia from 2002 to 2004, a visiting professor at Columbia Law School in 2004, and, in 2005, a visiting professor at both the University of Chicago Law School and at Stanford Law School. In 2006, he became a full professor at Columbia Law School.
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 several publications, including among others, The New Yorker, Fortune, Amazon.com, The Washington Post, and Publishers Weekly.
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Tim Wu
Timothy Shiou-Ming Wu (Chinese: 吳修銘; born 1971 or 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. 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, coining the phrase "network neutrality" in his 2003 law journal article, Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. In the late 2010s, Wu was a leading advocate for an antitrust lawsuit directed at the breakup of Facebook.
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. His book The Master Switch was named among the best books of 2010 by The New Yorker, Fortune, and Publishers Weekly.
From 2011 to 2012, Wu served as a senior advisor to the Federal Trade Commission, 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. Wu also served on the National Economic Council in the Obama administration under Jeffrey Zients, and served under Director Brian Deese during the Biden administration. In the Biden administration, Wu notably helped author the 2021 Executive Order on Competition.
Wu was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Basel and Toronto. His father, Alan Ming-ta Wu, was from Taiwan and his mother, Gillian Wu (née Edwards), is a British-Canadian immunologist. Wu and his younger brother were sent to alternative schools that emphasized creativity, and he became friends with Cory Doctorow.
Wu attended McGill University, where he initially studied biochemistry before switching his major to biophysics, graduating with a B.Sc. in 1995. He then attended Harvard Law School, graduating with J.D., magna cum laude, in 1998. At Harvard, he studied under copyright scholar Lawrence Lessig.
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. Following his clerkships, Wu moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, worked at Riverstone Networks, Inc. (2000–02), and then entered academia at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Wu was an associate professor of law at the University of Virginia from 2002 to 2004, a visiting professor at Columbia Law School in 2004, and, in 2005, a visiting professor at both the University of Chicago Law School and at Stanford Law School. In 2006, he became a full professor at Columbia Law School.
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 several publications, including among others, The New Yorker, Fortune, Amazon.com, The Washington Post, and Publishers Weekly.