> One of the longest-running tropes at The Verge is that a workable antitrust policy for the United States would be simply to forbid companies from buying Time Warner because it has never worked and it may never work again, and that we should just pass one law.

Checks out:

Jan 11, 2001: AOL and Time Warner merged to create AOL Time Warner

June 14, 2018: AT&T acquired Time Warner, renamed WarnerMedia

April 8, 2022: WarnerMedia spun out of AT&T, merged with Discovery

▲

gcanyon an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I was at HBO during the AOL merger, and for a time my work email became gcanyon0264@aol.com, because AOL corporate email shared namespace with its customers, and my personal AOL account was… gcanyon@aol.com

▲

s3p 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Oh this is hilarious. Didn't AT&T also acquire HBO and spin them off too?

▲

lukemercado 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They did, but first they rebranded them as Max, thus destroying the incredible name value of HBO. It was renamed back to HBO as part of the spinout IIRC.

▲

rwc 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The "credit" for that move actually belongs to WarnerBros Discovery

▲

brendoelfrendo 5 hours ago | parent [-]

My favorite part of that story is that McKinsey both advised WarnerBros Discovery to make that change, and then advised them to change it back, making millions each time. I wish I made that much money being bad at my job.

▲

overfeed 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

McKinsey and other management consultants exist to launder decisions made by upper management that management do not want to face consequences for. "It's not my fault, the consultants advised me that was the best option"

▲

6510 4 hours ago | parent [-]

One of those jobs LLMs can easily take over.

▲

maccard 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Nope the entire point of the job is to have a person to blame when it goes wrong.

	▲	nom 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		the blame is absorbed by McKinsey the corporation, not the people working there they'll just use AI like everyone else but charge extra for it

▲

dylan604 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm not sure if you are suggesting the CEO hedging their bets or the consultants, but I'd say both of those jobs could be replaced by an LLM.

	▲	newsclues 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You can replace low and maybe mid skill employees with software but it’s the high end ones consultants or CEO that are great at their jobs with good software can be orders of magnitude more efficient.

▲

Melatonic an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They also somehow made everyone download new apps because apparently the old one couldn't be updated.

▲

nikanj 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You misunderstand their job. They get paid millions to carefully construct a report that supports whatever stupid plan the coke-fueled execs came up with.

	▲	paimapi 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They are also functionally both a way for certain well-connected shareholders to exert disproportionate influence and a placating propaganda machine for the shareholders who aren't Grease on the very corroded wheel of modern capitalism

▲

lotsofpulp 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

HBO was part of Time Warner.

▲

benced 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Companies wasting their money is the company's problem and it's really unclear to me why the government should give a single damn.

▲

NewJazz 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Because big companies destroying value makes the world worse? They're sucking up capital and not delivering anything to justify it.

▲

IncreasePosts 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Won't investors just learn to avoid investing in companies like that?

▲

nothercastle 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

With passive investment everyone is buying crap all the time because they have no ability to discern what is or isn’t crap and the base assumption is 95% of stocks are losers but the other 5% win big

▲

paimapi 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

are you too young to have lived through the multiple recessions that have happened in the past few decades or Bernie Madoff or Enron? Or Theranos and FTX? and that's just off the top, give me ten minutes to dig in and I'll get you at least twenty more

▲

SideQuark 2 hours ago | parent [-]

None of those were the result of mergers.

	▲	paimapi an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Pedantic. The point was "aren't investors rational" and they clearly hop on short term fads to their and our detriment. Plus saying Enron wasn't a product of a merger is very funny

▲

CursedSilicon 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Would you like to buy some tulips?

	▲	Exoristos 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Deep cut, this[0]. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania?wprov=sfti1

▲

tclancy 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Just because they get it wrong doesn’t make it right. You don’t even need to reach back 100 years to sort this.

▲

xbar 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

March, 1989: Time and Warner announce merger, Paramount launches hostile bid for Time. January, 1990: Time responds by buying Warner Communications for $14 billion.

...Paramount sulks, and bides its time....