Welcome to Axisprorata, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

Brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank, Ideas Bank here. I'm Danper Mac. On today's show, Snapchat snaps back, and the Fed tackles climate change. But first,

big tech can't fix its DC glitch. So the U.S. Department of Justice yesterday announced that it will

investigate the market power and practices of top tech platforms. It didn't name any company

specifically, but the agency's brief statement did mention search,

which sounds like Google, social media, which sounds like Facebook, and retail services online,

which sounds a lot like Amazon. And it's possible you could interpret some of that as including

Apple, Walmart, and Microsoft. Why it matters is that every single one of these companies is

justifiably terrified of eventually

being sued for antitrust violations.

Not only because it could cause them to eventually divest some key businesses, like maybe

Facebook being forced to dump Instagram, but also because these sorts of cases are so distracting

and so limiting that they can have other more devastating consequences.

Remember, Microsoft's big loss

during its 1990s antitrust ordeal didn't come from the courts. It came from being too

preoccupied or maybe too scared to put down a little up-and-comer called Google. The bottom line right

now is that we're in the early innings of the DOJ's antitrust process, but this feels like a very

big bipartisan game in which tech has few fans in the DC bleachers. In 15 seconds, we'll go

deeper with Axios Tech Policy reporter David McCabe. But first, this. Have a great idea for a

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