I don’t often change my mind in public. Not because I’m stubborn (okay, maybe a little), but because when you’ve been around this industry long enough, you learn to be wary of shiny arguments that feel good in the moment and age poorly over time.

But every once in a while, a good debate does what it’s supposed to do: It forces you to sit back, listen, and rethink assumptions you’ve held for years.

That’s exactly what happened when I watched the recent Open to Debate forum, “Tech Titans or Tyrants? Should the U.S. Government Break Up Big Tech?”, hosted in partnership with the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. The debate—thoughtful, civil, and refreshingly substantive—featured smart arguments on both sides of a question that’s been simmering for more than a decade. You can watch the full debate here:

The core tension was familiar. On one side: Big Tech has amassed too much economic, political, and cultural power, crowding out competition, distorting markets, and acting—at times—like a parallel form of governance. On the other: These companies have delivered extraordinary consumer value, driven innovation at historic scale, and become indispensable infrastructure for modern life. Break them up, and you risk real harm, real disruption, and real unintended consequences.

For most of my career, I’ve landed squarely in the latter camp.

I’ve long believed that breaking up companies à la AT&T was, at best, a blunt instrument and, at worst, a mistake. These companies didn’t become large by accident. They executed, they innovated, they invested, and they took risks. I’ve also been deeply skeptical of government intervention in markets, particularly when that intervention is driven more by political frustration than economic clarity.

And let’s be honest: Today’s tech platforms aren’t just companies. They are the plumbing of the digital age. Cloud computing, search, social platforms, app ecosystems—these are now foundational tools. You don’t just “turn them off” or casually rewire them without consequences. The debate rightly raised the question: without the scale, capital, and operational footprint of these companies, can many of these services even function as we expect them to?

That argument still carries weight with me.

But here’s where my thinking has evolved.

What the debate surfaced—especially from those arguing in favor of breakups—was not a call for wholesale destruction or regulatory vengeance. It was a more nuanced idea: that competition, not punishment, should be the goal. And that there may be logical, targeted ways to separate parts of these companies that actually strengthen markets rather than weaken them.

I’ve always believed that competitive markets are generally healthy markets. Innovation thrives when companies have to fight for customers, talent, and relevance. When competition fades, incentives shift. You defend the moat instead of building a better product.

Consider a few thought experiments—not prescriptions, not policy mandates, just ideas worth exploring.

What if AWS were separated from Amazon’s retail business? Would cloud customers benefit from a provider that wasn’t also competing with them downstream? Would retail innovation suffer—or might it sharpen?

What if Facebook were separated from Instagram and WhatsApp? Would we see more diversity in social platforms, different approaches to privacy, moderation, and business models?

What if Google Search were separated from YouTube? Or Gemini spun out as a standalone AI company rather than being embedded inside an already-dominant ecosystem?

At Microsoft, what would it look like if Office 365 were spun out as its own entity? Or if app stores—on both iOS and Android—were standalone platform businesses rather than tightly coupled to operating systems?

I can already hear the objections. “No one would build phones.” “Integration would suffer.” “Consumers would lose convenience.” Some of that may be true—at least in the short term. There are always trade-offs.

However, history tells us something else as well. Time and again, when dominant structures are loosened—not obliterated, but loosened—unexpected growth follows. New companies emerge. New models appear. Things we never would have designed intentionally suddenly exist because space opened up.

Another thread in the debate that stuck with me was the geopolitical one. Big Tech is often framed as a strategic asset for U.S. global dominance. Break them up, the argument goes, and you hand an advantage to China or other rivals.

Maybe. Initially.

But long-term strength isn’t just about size. It’s about resilience. A more competitive, diverse technology ecosystem may actually be harder to disrupt, harder to capture, and harder to stagnate. Betting everything on a handful of mega-platforms carries its own strategic risk—especially as AI, cloud, and data infrastructure become macroeconomic levers.

None of this is easy. And none of it is imminent. To take steps like these would require a level of political will, nuance, and bipartisan competence that—let’s be honest—we don’t currently have in the U.S.

I’m also not advocating for a regulatory chainsaw. This isn’t about chopping companies into pieces for sport or settling political scores. It’s about asking whether some carefully considered separations could produce a healthier market over time—one with more competition, more innovation, and more choice.

The irony is that, done right, this isn’t anti-capitalist at all. It’s deeply pro-market.

The debate didn’t give me all the answers. But it did something more valuable: It moved me off a position I’d held too comfortably for too long. And in an industry that prides itself on iteration, learning, and adaptation, maybe that’s the most honest outcome of all.

Sometimes the right question isn’t “Should we break up Big Tech?”

It’s “What kind of tech ecosystem do we want to live with for the next 20 years—and how do we get there without breaking what already works?”

That’s a debate worth continuing.