Facebook is leading tech to a Minsky moment, much like the one finance faced a decade ago. Since then, Mark Zuckerberg’s social network feasted on burgeoning data and devices, just as banks gorged on easy money. Society’s focus on benefits over risk gave them free rein – until the resulting abuses couldn’t be overlooked. As user trust in Silicon Valley evaporates, regulation beckons, as it did for Wall Street. The financial crisis showed how boom conditions can make almost everyone complicit. Consumers and lawmakers were too beguiled by the prospect of extending home ownership and driving up household wealth to

Alphabet is stuck at the letter G. The holding company of Google was created to safeguard against conventionality and let moonshot ideas, like self-driving cars, flourish. Almost three years in, it’s basically still just Google. Which means, in turn, that the A in Alphabet stands mainly for advertising. Back in 2015, Google co-founder Larry Page explained the formation of holding company Alphabet was to keep things “crazy.” After all, products like the Android operating system and Google Maps had become less zany as they attracted billions of users. The purpose of Alphabet was to keep that same spirit alive while

The Volcker Rule is emblematic of the latest Federal Reserve nominee’s challenge. Former Treasury Department official Randal Quarles is set to be the central bank’s first vice chair of supervision, a key role in President Donald Trump’s deregulatory push. But even where political consensus exists, like revising parts of the proprietary-trading ban, change requires support from fellow watchdogs. The Volcker Rule, part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation, was hailed by supporters as a way to reduce risks at banks with federally guaranteed deposits by limiting their ability to trade with their own funds. It was slated to go into effect