Google Strives for a Comeback in D.C.’s High-Stakes Popularity Contest

In recent months members of the Washington policy group at Google have been given a new assignment to study the team at Microsoft and figure out what works. It was a strange mandate on paper. In the 1990s, Microsoft was targeted by a government antimonopoly lawsuit, and in the early 2000s, Google spent its first decades trying to be a different company.

There is a serious case of Microsoft envy going around Silicon Valley. Microsoft has not been dragged through the political mud that Apple, Amazon, and Facebook have been dragged through. The hearings on the industry's ills were not held. Even though Microsoft is the U.S.'s second most valuable company, new bills designed to curb tech's market power don't touch much of its business. Microsoft still operates in China and makes mega-acquisitions, like the two deals it made last year worth a combined $88 billion.