In a brief friendship filed within the framework of the antitrust trial brought by the United States Department of Justice against Google, Combinator has expressed an concern rarely formulated publicly by an actor as central to the Tech ecosystem. According to the accelerator, Google’s dominant position would harm the financing and emergence of new startups in fields deemed strategic, including online research and artificial intelligence.
A “Kill Zone” around Google
In this document transmitted to American justice, Cominator evokes the existence of a “” Kill Zone »» – A gray area in which investors hesitate to finance projects likely to compete with Google. According to the brief, this dynamic ” dissuades investment in venture capital in critical fields of the digital economy “, etcOntribue to freeze the American technological landscape ».
The text specifies: ” When Google already occupies a market, startups are often not considered to be investable. Not due to a lack of ambition or technological quality, but the simple fact that there is a high probability that the dominant company uses its market power to neutralize its growth. »»
A targeted criticism of Google’s practices
The document more precisely points to two practices deemed problematic. On the one hand, the exclusive agreements between Google and the manufacturers of aircraft or OS, especially the one that allows Google to remain the default engine on Safari, for several billion dollars paid to Apple each year. On the other hand, the exclusive control of the research index, which makes it difficult to train competing artificial intelligence.
“” It is increasingly difficult for startups developing AI agents or intelligent response models to compete in an environment where Google has data, access to users and infrastructure », Says there Combinator, who calls for the supervised opening of the index to other actors under transparent conditions.
A call to reform, not to dismantling
Unlike certain more radical positions, Cominator does not require Google’s split. The brief offers in place a period of five years to review certain practices and set up a regulation more favorable to competition. “” If no significant reform is initiated, the authorities will have to consider more restrictive structural measures, including the use of activity separations “, Specifies the accelerator.
The president of Y combinator, Garry Tan, summed up this position in a formula: “ We do not want a dismantling in principle, but we must keep the use of the ‘Spinoff Hammer’ as a lever if things do not evolve. »»
An ambivalent position
The combinator’s approach arouses various questions, insofar as the links between the accelerator and Google are old and multiple. Google Cloud is a long -standing partner of the program, providing young shoots supported by YC with privileged access to technical resources such as NVIDIA GPUs. Furthermore, Google has acquired or invested in several startups from the Cominator portfolio.
At the same time, YC is historically linked to Openai, a direct competitor of Google in the race for artificial intelligence. Openai was founded under the aegis of YC Research and directed at its beginnings by Sam Altman, then president of the accelerator.
A structuring debate for the future of the sector
Beyond cyclical tensions, this position reflects a deeper evolution in the power relations between large technological groups and promoters of innovation. The Californian accelerator, historically associated with the emergence of tech champions, now seems to defend a more pluralist vision of competitive dynamics, where the prolonged domination of an actor, if it is historically innovative, could harm the next generation of entrepreneurs. It remains to be seen what influence will have this position in the procedure initiated against Google.
