Jonathan Kanter and Doha Mekki, the former Justice Department officials who spent the Biden administration warning of the existential threat posed by unchecked artificial intelligence, announced Tuesday that they have decided to simply get in on the action.
The pair, who recently led the DOJ’s antitrust division in a sweeping crusade against corporate consolidation, have co-founded a new legal technology company. The startup will build AI tools for litigators, a pivot the founders framed as a natural evolution from trying to dismantle the tech industry to realizing the sector's valuation multiples were too lucrative to ignore.
According to early investor materials, Kanter and Mekki plan to leverage the proprietary understanding of algorithmic market dominance they acquired while explicitly threatening to sue companies for algorithmic market dominance.
When you spend your entire government tenure looking under the hood of Big Tech’s revenue models, you eventually realize that issuing subpoenas only pays a federal GS-15 salary," said Julian Croft, Head of Regulatory Arbitrage at Andreessen Horowitz. "Jonathan and Doha saw the massive, completely unchecked cash grab happening in Silicon Valley and did exactly what any dedicated public servant would do: they raised a seed round.
The co-founders have reportedly assured their venture backers that the new software will take full advantage of the distinct lack of federal oversight they personally left intact upon returning to the private sector.
While the company is currently operating in stealth mode, sources familiar with the pitch deck indicate their first major strategic move will be to aggressively acquire a smaller rival and dare the current Justice Department to stop them.