Regulatory Entreprenuership, Elizabeth Pollman and Jordan Berry.

Describes a line of business in which changing the law is a significant part of the business plan.

• Cites (well-funded, scalable, highly connected startups with mass appeal) like AirBnB, Uber, Tesla, the UFC, marijuana dispensaries and DraftKings as agents of regulatory change.

• Legislative change is achieved with:

  • an initial breaking/operating in a grey area of the law (asking forgiveness not permission)
  • which continues while the company grows “too big to ban”,
  • and leverages their stakeholders to make the issues in question as publically salient as possible.

• Contrast with regulatory arbitrageurs, who takes law as a given and make minor alterations to their behavior

• Regulatory entreprenuers prefer executive and legislative bodies to judicial ones, which are less likely to be swayed by public opinion / an army of users.

• Silicon Valley is “known to foster a certain libertarian-leaning, freemarket ideology that views technology that appeals to the masses as democratic. Given this confluence of factors, it is not surprising that startups might be inclined to start a line of business fraught with legal uncertainty”

• “Operational deference” also bestowed on tech companies (as a function of public perception)

• Businesses not constrained by geography, while politics is