As with the industrial revolution and the Gilded Age it created, new digital technology has changed commerce and culture, creating great wealth in the process, while being essentially unsupervised. Wheeler calls for an era of public interest oversight that embraces new protections for consumers and competition and encourages continued innovation.

Businessman, venture capitalist, and former chairman of the Federal Communication Corporation during the Obama administration, Tom Wheeler is the author of several books including, most recently, From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future (Brookings, 2019). He resides in Washington, DC.