Summary: The Master Switch

Words: 433
Pages: 2

Ardalan Mahdavieh
Mike Gildersleeve
CS 408
10 November 2015

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by: Tim Wu

Tim Wu is an information policy advisor, professor at the Columbia Law School and he is a Harvard Law School graduate. Tim Wu was named in Harvard’s top 100 most influential graduates back in 2007 and he is best known for coming up with the term, “Net Neutrality”. Tim Wu’s book, “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires” was published in 2010. And the book was named one of the best books of 2010 by many magazines such as, The New Yorker Magazine and The Washington Post.
In his book, Tim Wu describes a very long cycle which he believes takes place every time there is a new revolutionary invention; such as the telephone, radio, television and the latest one, the internet. He divides the cycle into
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Tim Wu states that revolutionary technologies are never developed or invented by industry insiders. They are always invented by an outsider who is extremely brilliant and gifted and ready to challenge the existing company or companies within that industry. He uses the invention of the telephone for his first example. Back in March 1876, Alexander Bell made his first ever prototype telephone. A year later he created his own company named after himself, the Bell Company in order to sell his newly invented telephones. Bell Company was now in a competition with a well-established telegraph company called the Western Union. However Western Union did not consider Bell Company a threat to their business and subsequently they turned down an offer to purchase Bell’s patents for one hundred thousand dollars in 1877. Soon Western Union realized that people loved and preferred to use telephones instead of telegrams and it was then when they realized that they need to enter the telephone market as soon as possible. Western Union hired an inspirational young inventor by the name of Thomas