Skip to content

Portrait of Lina Khan

Lina Khan

100 quotes in 322 categories

Lina Khan says antitrust is about competition on merit. She warns that the public should not bear the burden of cleanup. She also calls for reviving antitrust rules to keep markets diverse and fair. She notes that past lawsuits against big companies opened up new ideas.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Lina Maliha Khan is a British and American legal scholar who was the chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from 2021 to 2025. She is also an associate professor at Columbia Law School.

Quotes by Lina Khan

My focus is not listening to what CEOs are saying on TV.

Ceos

Image

Facebook is a repeat violator at the FTC.

Facebook

Image

Monopolies harm Americans in all sorts of ways.

Americans

Image

Fear stifles free speech and undermines economic liberty.

Communication

Image

I think all decisions are political.

Decision making

Image

The world of private equity is only likely to get a lot bigger.

Image

I got my start as a journalist, talking to actual market participants.

Image

We want to make sure that major businesses are not exploiting their power to inflate prices for American families at the grocery…

Image

If you're deceiving people through algorithms, you don't get some type of free pass because you're saying, 'Oh, the machine did it.'

Computers

Image

From our perspective, as an antitrust enforcer, we're supposed to protect competition in all markets. That includes labor markets.

Antitrust

Image

To stay ahead globally, we don't need to protect our monopolies from innovation - we need to protect innovation from our monopolies.

Image

We required AT&T to open up its patent vault. We ended up broking them - breaking them up. That ended up feeding…

Image

We heard from employees who, because of noncompetes, were stuck in abusive workplaces.

Image

The trajectory of the Web 2.0 era was not inevitable - it was instead shaped by a broad range of policy choices.

Choices

Image

Like many across government, the FTC is watching closely as the release of sophisticated AI tools creates both opportunities and risks.

Image

Going back all the way to the founding, there was a recognition that in the same way that you need the Constitution…

Checks and balances

Image

Our focus is on making sure that we are enforcing the rule of law. And I see an enormous amount at risk…

Enforcing

Image

In nursing homes, we saw an increase in the mortality rate after private equity buys them. There are just very real life…

Death

Image

Even in cases where you're not going to have a slam-dunk theory or a slam-dunk case, or there's risk involved, what do…

Image

It's incredible, once you start studying industry structure and see how much consolidation there has been across industries - in airlines, contact-lens…

Image

Laws reflect values. Antitrust laws used to reflect one set of values, and then there was a change in values that led…

Antitrust

Image

I think we've seen all too often instances in which companies play fast and loose with the rules, especially right at the…

Beginning

Image

Congress asked us to enforce the merger laws and that is necessarily a predictive exercise. As a result, the inquiry that we…

Image

Microsoft had captured control over the operating system. And the reason it was able to maintain that dominance is because there was…

Control

Image

In Washington, it's very easy to privilege just some set of voices and not another set of voices. And so we try…

Congress

Image

It's both exciting and unsettling to have a realistic conversation with a computer. Thanks to the rapid advance of generative artificial intelligence,…

Around the world

Image

Amazon knows that a lot of small businesses live in constant terror of Amazon, because they know that with the press of…

Image

One of the effects of antitrust becoming a more technocratic enterprise and arcane over the last few decades has been that in…

Business

Image

When you say something like, 'Well, there's a lot of visceral dislike of what our agency is doing,' I think you have…

Country

Image

For most people, their everyday interaction with power is not with their representative in Congress, but with their boss. And if in…

Boss

Image

The FTC Act prohibits unfair or deceptive practices, and Congress didn't create a closed list or say that only applies to some…

Image

I think for some time, issues of antitrust were viewed as somewhat arcane.

Antitrust

Image

We want open markets, rather than a lack of competition resulting in coercion.

Coercion

Image

As antitrust enforcers, we must update our application of the law to new realities.

Antitrust

Image

There are probably deal-makers out there who wish we didn't have the antitrust laws.

Antitrust

Image

There can be this basic indignity of being a consumer in America today. And that's what the FTC's trying to fix.

America

Image

We've actually seen some executives boast on earnings calls about how inflation is great for their bottom line.

Bottom line

Image

I actually simultaneously applied to law school and a job at the Wall Street Journal.

Image

Our economy has changed significantly since 2010. Markets have changed since then.

Image

In some cases, companies may think it's worth the cost of doing business to risk violating privacy laws.

Business

Image

Lina Khan by topic

Business (22) Investing (21) Technology (14) Antitrust (14) Law (12) Innovation (12) Market (10)