Snapshot · The a16z Show
Regulating before harm occurs doesn't prevent it — it constrains the available solutions, potentially freezing innovation at an immature stage, like locking the internet at AOL Instant Messenger.
Where this was said
At 10:40 · chapter starts 10:15
The precautionary principle, Sinofsky explains, isn't just a philosophical error — it's a structural one [1] — Steven Sinofsky "The precautionary principle sounds sensible but leads to one outcome: you freeze the technology at whatever stage the government is most co…" 10:12 . Regulators don't get hired to not regulate; they come to work to craft rules, and the precautionary principle gives them a mandate to act before anything bad happens. The problem is that early regulation doesn't prevent harm — it constrains the solution set, locking the technology at whatever stage the government is most comfortable with. Sinofsky's illustration is the internet: if precautionary regulation had been applied in the mid-1990s, the government would have blessed two companies — Yahoo and Excite — and frozen web development at Web 1.0, with no video, no audio, no commerce. The companies that were already dominant would have captured the regulatory process, pushing it in their direction. He notes this is a consistent historical pattern: whatever company is ascendant when regulation begins tends to define what regulation looks like. Technology incumbents have historically said 'hands off,' but AI companies have done the opposite — a reversal Sinofsky finds genuinely shocking given his Microsoft background.
Two years ago, AI company executives went to Congress with fear in their eyes, begging to be regulated. That wasn't safety-consciousness — it was regulatory capture. They handed government the opening it had been waiting for since it missed regulating the PC, the internet, and the mainframe.
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