In this talk, recorded at BESI on April 9, 2026, MIT political scientist Kathy Thelen explores the origins and implications of the new cloud business model powering the AI boom. She elaborates on how this model differs from the traditional platform model out of which it grew, as well as the technological, political, and distributional impacts of the rise of this new business model. She also shares her preliminary assessment of how the cloud business model is developing along different trajectories in the United States, Europe, and China.
About the speaker
Kathleen Thelen is Ford Professor of Political Science at MIT. Her work focuses on the political economy of the rich democracies, with a current emphasis on the study of American capitalism in comparative perspective. Her most recent book is Attention Shoppers! American Retail Capitalism and the Origins of the Amazon Economy (Princeton University Press, 2025). She is currently completing a book, co-authored with Jingtian Chen and Morgan Gillespie, tentatively entitled The Chamber of Influence: Corporate Power in American Courts, that explores the role of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce National Chamber Litigation Center in using the courts to advance corporate interests and to move the law gradually in a more business-friendly direction.