Recently announced antitrust investigations, pending or otherwise, are raising important questions around the current frameworks for inquiry, investigation and enforcement of such laws and statutes. 

Our economy is changing, and it has changed dramatically so in the last half-century. A critical enabler for growth has been innovation in technology. As the innovation economy has exploded, entirely new markets have emerged. When long-distance carriers were promising us just “10 cents a minute,” could we have ever imagined a world with unlimited data plans on a mobile device? Of course not. 

In an entrepreneurial state like Colorado, we know that markets change, tech develops, economies of scale shift and new consumer habits emerge — and companies respond. We must maintain a climate of innovation for companies to succeed, continue to invest and take risks to envision new opportunities. 

A heavy-handed, regulatory approach to antitrust without a clear consumer harm will throttle innovation in this country, throwing sand in the gears of innovation and potentially squelching some of the next great ideas to emerge. We didn’t know it at the time, but the last thing any of us would have wanted over these past 30 years is a rotary phone.