Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss? Not quite. The old boss wanted to sell you a car or learn a bit more about your electronics needs. The new boss wants a permanent place at your work, inside your home, on your wrist, in your pocket, over your eyes, and eventually in your body. The rise of the massive tech company is one of the key storylines of our era — even if no one pays attention to anything but Trump news (and tech is even related to the rise of Trumpism). From John Lanchester: You Are the Product. “Internet companies are working in a field that is poorly understood (if understood at all) by customers and regulators. The stuff they’re doing, if they’re any good at all, is by definition new. In that overlapping area of novelty and ignorance and unregulation, it’s well worth reminding employees not to be evil, because if the company succeeds and grows, plenty of chances to be evil are going to come along.”

+ The Guardian: “While the big banks and pharma giants have flexed their economic muscle in the country’s capital for decades, there’s one relative newcomer that has leapfrogged them all: Silicon Valley.”

+ Ars Technica: Google is losing allies across the political spectrum.

+ “On most culture-war issues, they are unrepentantly liberal. They oppose restrictions on abortion, favor gay rights, support gun control and oppose the death penalty. Now for the twist. The study found one area where tech entrepreneurs strongly deviate from Democratic orthodoxy and are closer to most Republicans: They are deeply suspicious of the government’s efforts to regulate business, especially when it comes to labor.” The NYT’s Farhad Manjoo: Silicon Valley’s Politics: Liberal, With One Big Exception.

+ Big tech’s aspirations are everywhere you look. Facebook just bid $600 million to stream Indian cricket matches. Apple and Amazon are bidding for James Bond film rights. But the trends you can’t see (or might not be paying attention to) are the big story. And even people in the industry are worried. I know because I’m one of them.