Silicon Valley Cozies Up to Washington, Outspending Wall Street 2-1
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Fast forward 5 years or so and my delusions of "this time it will be different" were all but shattered. Watching Facebook put up walls around the commons, watching Apple fence off their garden, watching Google get into bed with the government and our military. Watching payroll head-counts become more and more dominated by sales teams. Watching founders head for the exit that is Wall St., which is exactly where Noyce and Crew had fled from back in the day.
My guess is that it's all about the systemic qualities of our economic system. How could Silicon Valley had become anything else. I mean, if we're honest about it, Silicon Valley's first big customer was the military. And where there is money to be made Wall St. and the Ivy League will soon follow, stamping out cookie cutter companies implementinng their tried and true methodology for extracting the maximum value for shareholders.
So sad.
They are the most lucrative careers because of the way our financial system is the progenitor and final repository of money and value in our economy up until very recently, up till the age of Big Data and Big Computation. However, what's just as fungible as money? Data. A "New Ivy League" is emerging. One that does not produce business and financial professionals, but instead produces IT professionals. This new group of school similarly funnels their grads to the most lucrative careers in this new medium of wealth creation.
Ivy League: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University.
Where did virtually all of the dominant politicians go? The Obamas, Bushes, Clintons, Cruz, etc all went through a very limited set of schools.
Where did virtually all of the leaders of the big companies come from (Gates, Zuckerberg)? A very limited set of schools.
Where do the heads of media and Wall Street go? A very limited set of schools.
How connected is tech with politics now?
Schmidt was an informal advisor and major donor to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, and began campaigning the week of October 19, 2008, on behalf of the candidate.[47] He was mentioned as a possible candidate for the Chief Technology Officer position, which Obama created in his administration,[48] and Obama considered him for Commerce Secretary.[49] After Obama won in 2008, Schmidt became a member of President Obama's transition advisory board and has since become a member of the United States President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).[50] Schmidt has served on Google’s government relations team.
How connected is tech with finance now?
Google's current CFO was a Morgan Stanley exec.
And then there are really shady figures who have operated within these institutions for years like Jeffrey Epstein:
He is also a longtime friend of Prince Andrew, Duke of York: they have stayed at each other's homes, and have vacationed together in Thailand. In December 2010, the prince was a guest in Epstein's New York residence for several days, shortly after Epstein completed his Florida sentence for soliciting an underage girl. His dinner with Andrew at the mansion was attended by (among others) Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos, Charlie Rose, and Woody Allen.[9] The 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m2) 9-story mansion is just off Fifth Avenue and overlooks the Frick Collection. It is reported[by whom?] to be the largest private residence in Manhattan, having originally been built as the Birch Wathen School.
You just need to follow the money. There's way too much money at the top controlled by a relatively small group of people.
Gates:
His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way. Gates' maternal grandfather was JW Maxwell, a national bank president.
Zuckerberg:
He transferred to the exclusive private school, Phillips Exeter Academy.
Money and connections. To be fair, Zuckerberg's family doesn't appear to have been overly wealthy.
A high school which school costs 36k/year.
It doesn't have to be a sinister conspiracy. It's explainable simply as "people help their friends" and "people tend to be friend with those in the same social circles" and "there are a small number of people with larger amounts of wealth and power, who all run in the same circles."
[1] https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...
(I understand we're trying to dispel stereotypes and prejudice here, not necessarily debunk the original point.)
(edit: No he didn't. Was remembering the Jobs' fact incorrectly. He went to / dropped out of Reed College. My bad.)
Indeed.
The hope we should all have is that disruption does, in fact, prevail and keep any one tech monopoly in check with a new "up-and-comer" always over the horizon; that the government does not become entirely captured by business, can exert the interests of the public and effect a compromise; and that presently marginalized voices - on any issue, from identity to climate to existential threat - are heard and their concerns addressed through the process.
Asked with some humor, but... not really.
I say it in every "Rage against the system!" thread on these boards: there are many people here who are "the system" as far as the proletariat are concerned. As SV rises in power and its players become engrossed in politics, that becomes more evident. So be careful when you wish for revolution. You might find yourself on the wrong side.
The underlying social tension hasn't gone away.
The irony, of course, is Silicon Valley's holier-than-thou self-righteousness in relation to Wall Street and/or lobbying.
It should be thought of more like 'White House' or 'Brussels', i.e. powercenters, which I think is what the labels may have originally tried to do.
The big companies are very new to this game and the people who think they are big players, aren't. Apple seems to be the only one that has some teeth as they were able to resist being compelled for the signing keys, however the powers that be just went to the Israelis for a crack.
If you want to see what effective lobbying looks like look at Lockheed, Northrop, CACI, Honeywell etc... These guys get massive legislation passed, sponsor candidates, control voting on the floor of Congress. Musk has arguably come the closest to being a real player in the game but has a very mixed records and is not rely seen as as much of a threat to ULA and the auto industry.
Silicon valley is realizing it needs this, but it has been lucky so far that it hasn't had to fight many entrenched players. This will change as ambitions rise.
See there aren't really any "winners" in politics, just temporary inhabitants of certain roles - roles which have vacillating levers for control, and ideologies.
So if Clinton wins, there is still the pesky problem of a possibly republican controlled congress (House more than likely) at some cycle - and then 4 years later doing it all again. This whole checks and balances thing isn't really efficient for getting things done (Madison made sure that was possible) for corporate interests, so if you need, say bi-partisan support for a bill that has a nice clause in in that supports (or doesn't) lets say H1B visa allocations for FY 2018 - then you need more than just the support of the executive branch. If the representative/senator that the tea party, or whatever the trump people are calling themselves, supports feel like [Insert Corporation] isn't on their side, then they can't compel the representative/senator to vote on their side and thus their power is reduced.
You need to work both sides, otherwise you aren't in the game.
If you do care about your privacy, data regulation, and abusive copyright legislation, I'd urge you check out the EFF[2], and consider becoming a member.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_concerns_regarding_Goo...
[2]: https://www.eff.org/