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Silicon Valley, the new lobbying monster
- mitchbob 2y agohttps://archive.ph/94cDH https://archive.ph/94cDH
- amelius 2y ago[flagged]
- random3 2y agoWho’s “we”?
- prpl 2y agoWho’s “them”?
- blvitornot 2y ago[dead]
- meiraleal 2y agoThem
- 0_____0 2y agoTools of the master etc. etc.
- mgh2 2y agoDirty brainwashing ad tricks sneak into Congress, no surprise: “If you are pro-crypto, we will help you, and if you are anti we will tear you apart.”
- startupsfail 2y ago[flagged]
- edm0nd 2y agoNo. Crypto = Crypto
- boh 2y agoI wouldn't say "new". This has been a thing for decades. While the companies who are the top spenders may have changed, Silicon Valley tech as a whole has been pretty aggressively represented for some time.
- Eumenes 2y agoMy thoughts exactly. This article calls out crypto but tech lobbying has a much longer history with Amazon, Google, and Meta. I view crypto as an extension of the financial services industry at this point (look at the boards and execs of these companies; they are more finance than tech), which obviously is the king of financing campaigns.
- alephnerd 2y agoAnd the corporation that owns the The New Yorker (Condé Nast) is a notorious lobbyist in both the US and EU around AI Regulations and AdTech. Goes to show that most political op-eds are just entertainment.
- marcosdumay 2y agoA bit more than a decade. A while ago software companies where taking every kind of abuse from the US government, coming from well represented entertainment, finance, and all kinds of other industries. This suddenly stopped when they started to lobby.
- MangoCoffee 2y agoMicrosoft intensified its lobbying efforts when it faced scrutiny for bundling IE with Windows. Similarly, Facebook, Google, Apple, and others have increased their lobbying over the years. As you pointed out, this is nothing new. When companies or entire industries feel threatened, they ramp up lobbying – even Huawei hired Tony Podesta to advocate for them. Hillary Clinton's call to repeal Section 230 for stricter social media regulation will likely prompt tech companies to boost their lobbying efforts. Sooner or later, companies in emerging industries will start lobbying to protect their interests or advance their agendas. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/23/huawei-hires-tony-podesta-500649 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/23/huawei-hires-tony-p...
- bbqfog 2y ago[flagged]
- giraffe_lady 2y agoYou get a much more usable framework if you drop the idea that there is some "pure" tech or innovation that politics are a corruption of and instead realize that technology and innovation are always political. Politics were there from the beginning, but they may have been invisible to you in a previous era. Understanding how that could be and articulating what the politics were before is key to deciding what to do about the changes now.
- bbqfog 2y agoI agree, so much of our tech was built out as part of the global war machine. It was easier to keep your head in the sand with "libertarian-esque" ideas (at least for me), but as those ideas came to fruition and social media exposed the thoughts of the people behind the money, the reality of the situation became easier to see.
- broken_clock 2y ago[flagged]
- bbqfog 2y agoI don't agree at all that Liberalism was the greatest innovation. Neo-liberalism is quite the opposite actually. VCs are part of a rigged system of global capital. They get paid to be part of that system and continue its existence. It has nothing to do with innovation other than occasional random bets that pay off.
- loufe 2y agoI'm not sure why you're getting voted down. The HN guidelines clearly state downvotes are not to be used to express disagreement. Your point was politely and concisely made, and stuck to the topic. Do better, voters.
- zooq_ai 2y ago[flagged]
- game_the0ry 2y agoNo, good policy that benefits a wide group of constitutes instead of a few key donors is how you counter populism. Lobbying makes it worse bc the response (populism) will have credible grievances, which is why you will see populist candidates all over the west.
- whimsicalism 2y agoso-called “deliverism” as a cure to populism has empirically not worked very well. actual material changes do very little to defuse populist cultural moments in modern wealthy societies
- Der_Einzige 2y agoSource? Making your people first world is extremely good at defeating "populist cultural moments" like communism, unless of course you consider may 68 in France of evidence of the contrary. I'll even go further and claim that Occupy Wall-Street died because the US economy boomed from 2012 on (return to embarrassed millionaire)
- whimsicalism 2y agoThe US is already first world. OWS was much smaller than the media might make you think - the US economy really only started booming 2017,2018,2019. https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/ https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliveri...
- game_the0ry 2y agoThis comment comes of as over-intellectual incoherent internet babble. I do not even know what you are saying.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago[flagged]
- teaearlgraycold 2y agoThe worst are the seed stage founders complaining about the proposed paper gains tax (while not knowing enough about it to answer if it would apply to startup equity) because they’re definitely going to have enough value for the $100MM threshold to apply to them.
- dgs_sgd 2y agoWhen the income tax was first passed it applied to less than 1% of citizens, yet look where we are now. Just because a new law doesn’t apply to you personally doesn’t mean you can’t be concerned about the potential downstream effects.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoSlippery slope arguments with taxes make no sense. A new tax could appear any day on any income level.
- xienze 2y ago> because they’re definitely going to have enough value for the $100MM threshold to apply to them. Tax cutoffs have this habit of drifting downward over time (the whole, "eventually you run out of other people's money" thing). See the original revenue act of 1913 (modern US income tax). At first it was 1% starting at today's equivalent of $93K and didn't go any higher until you made the equivalent of about $500K. And today, well, it's a little different. New taxes are always pitched this way -- "oh it'll never affect you, just those rich people, what's your problem?"
- xhkkffbf 2y agoWhy are you being a Democrat shill? Didn't you see that recent video of Democratic party boss Hillary Clinton saying the quiet part outloud? If the social media isn't censored, "we lose control." And by "we", she didn't mean you and me. I just don't see this as "SO much better."
- AlbertCory 2y ago> Porter, who had initially polled well, lost decisively in the primary, coming in third, with just fifteen per cent of the vote. She was running against Adam Schiff, who had much broader name recognition. It also didn't help that she's overweight and "Porker" became her nasty nickname. This is a shoddy piece of reporting. Tech lobbying didn't start with Chris Lehane, Uber, Lyft, or crypto. Anytime government is capable of helping or hurting an industry, they form a lobbying group. The more money involved, the bigger the lobbying effort.
- JohnMakin 2y agoIt didn't help that the Schiff campaign (backed by the CA democratic party) donated to the Garvey campaign to force her out of the primary. Seems weird to not mention this. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-06/california-senate-primary-schiff-help-garvey-column https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-06/californ...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- draw_down 2y ago[dead]
- whatever1 2y agoI like how they started with different values compared to the old American companies (oil, cigarettes, defense). But they ended up exactly the same. Helping the worst regimes, all-in in military complex, taking advantage of screen addiction and teen insecurities. But hey at least they don’t wear white collars like the old bad guys.
- azinman2 2y agoIn terms of numbers, there aren’t that many SV companies that exploit kids via insecurities and screen addiction. But I don’t doubt their impact.
- drawkward 2y agoI am not sure what your subtext here is. Are you saying it doesnt matter as much because there are fewer SV companies?
- azinman2 2y ago“But they ended up exactly the same. Helping the worst regimes, all-in in military complex, taking advantage of screen addiction and teen insecurities.” This implies all. I then said I don’t doubt their impact. They’re not all like this is my point.
- drawkward 2y agoThank you for clarifying.
- mjlawson 2y agoMy take is that maybe we shouldn't paint all of SV with the same brush. Not every SV company is Philip Morris.
- drawkward 2y agoRight, only the ones that touch all of humanity are Philip Morris!
- beezlebroxxxxxx 2y agoThe Andreessen and Horowitz quotes in this are particularly hilarious and pathetic. The desperate attempts at linking their greed to the fate of the country itself is so nakedly self-serving (as are many of the quotes from these lobbyists and other VCs) that they should make them a laughing stock. The Citizens United decision will be a cancer in American politics and a boon for the ultra-wealthy for generations.
- coredog64 2y agoWhat specifically in Citizens United is bad? Are there any positive outcomes from CU?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- drawkward 2y agoFor one thing, it equates money with speech, which destabilizes our democracy by giving more power to those who have money. Obviously, money does that in many ways outside of the electoral process, but one would imagine that any serious democracy would want to keep its democratic processes maximally equitable.
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y agoI hear you , but that doesn't seem to pass the smell test. The vast majority (97% ?) of voters are low-information voters. 1 such vote is equal to 1 high information vote (3% ?), those who research, read bills, etc. So the process is already not maximally equitable - in fact, the system severely punishes high information voters via opportunity cost. At that point dollars positively affect your outcome because with paid mediums , low information voters can now get more information, despite being unwilling to inform themselves via hard work. So that's a benefit. That information flow is subject to competition, so the best ideas (and information) will win out. That's another plus. Money competes for eyeballs, and your dollars are just as good as mine. If you have more $$, i can pool my friends and beat you. There's nothing more equitable than that we have discovered so far. Now, enter someone with a ton of money, Musk. You could argue that he would tilt the game. But we then observe the opposite: Billionaires are also subject to the law of diminishing returns. 'Donations' will only buy so much favor, and then they become a losing proposition. So, do you want a billionaire burning his cash in the political process? The answer is absolutely: it signals a level of credibility and conviction, when business opportunity is already a loser. So in short, you want people to risk all their chips in something they believe, instead of limiting their bets and just get rich off the house, playing the long game . Perhaps we start from the other side of the table. Maybe money is not the problem. Perhaps it is the power concentrated in too few individuals ? How about cutting off power from those that are selling favors to the highest bidders ?
- renewiltord 2y agoMakes sense. Lobbyists for legacy competitors tried to screw them so they picked up the game. In Canada and Australia they tried to screw them on the news / search linking debacle. The problem is that when you come at the king, you best not miss.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- arrobbiato 2y agoThe excellent financial podcaster/youtuber Patrick Boyle has a related entry, "Crypto Has Bought The 2024 Election": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpZvC_5leDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpZvC_5leDY
- nickpinkston 2y ago+1 for Patrick Boyle's channel - very informative and his dry humor is fun too
- mistercheph 2y agoAn unprecedented peek-behind-the-covers at the inside of mainstream media brain. Man with wide eyes and stock photos and nordvpn sponsorship on set with full makeup and steampunk costume rambles through various headlines, not forgetting to show you how to (mis)interpret facts, and how to manifest life as a rabid political fanatic, ready to ruin any dialog you come across with barking and screeching and red eyes. There is nothing in that video that even resembles thought or rationality, it is just classic mainstream media non-sequitur that adorns the regalia of knowledge and batters the viewer with meaningless "facts" and "figures" until they are in a state of ready-to-be-filled aporia.
- arrobbiato 2y agoI guess I fell for it, then - I’m not particularly intelligent nor media-savvy, so perhaps that’s no surprise. In your estimation, what’s an example of a fact that Boyle misinterprets in this video?
- mistercheph 2y agoIt's not about "intelligence" or about any particular factual misinterpretation, I'm sure there's some "source" that more-or-less backs each individual claim made in the video, the problem is, in broad strokes, the standard of evidence for each individual "fact", and the narrative that guides the viewer through the set of curated and disconnected facts to an implied conclusion, which is less like a conclusion and more like a sentiment: "The crypto industry is a bunch of rich scammers like FTX and Sam Bankman Fried that are trying to grease the wheels of power with all of their ill-gotten wealth to protect themselves and continue to rob dopes that are buying into this trash." It's easy to imagine a conjugate set of disconnected and non-sequitur facts that with the right presentation lead to precisely the opposite conclusion. But, neither of those is thinking. I mean that, the problem is not that the ambiguity of the situation provides for two or more interpretations, which it seems to me that it does, but that this mode of investigation, which outwardly accounts for itself like "Each side go to your corner and gather as many facts as you can, then we'll gather in the middle and compare, whoever has the more and heavier facts shall be found truthful!", but is really more like, "Let's all divide ourselves in two, randomly, and amass as many facts as we can that back up our point-of-view, while dismissing any that support the other, and just for fun let's add in hating the other corner too, because it makes all of this more exciting." If you hang your thinking on the results of some surveys, and one account of what happened in some particular historical event, plus some truistic phrase like "All's well that end's well" and a couple of well-timed stock photo gags to pull it all together, you will find yourself 1. impermeable to any ideas that don't fit in the point-of-view or framing of the question you already have and 2. completely and willfully uncurious about the world and questions you aren't already asking about the things you don't already have preconceived notions of.
- drawkward 2y agoDismantle what SV has evolved into under venture capital. When tech was scrappy and didnt have billions at stake, its products seemed to benefit humanity. Now it is (the most powerful?) part of the oppresive regime.
- startupsfail 2y ago[flagged]
- mrguyorama 2y ago[flagged]
- bee_rider 2y agoIt seems like a bad move though, I mean these are nerdy investor guys, right? They do well in this meritocratic system. If I was a tech billionaire I’d be very worried that a guy who’s only skills were catering and gangster stuff would have had a lot more time to study the latter, than me.
- lovich 2y agoThese tech moguls assume they will be in charge in the event of any sort of revolution or apocalypse. Look at some of what the Reddit founders have said for an example https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-...
- bee_rider 2y agoI don’t have a subscription, but does their plan involve preposterously loyal soldiers who have no motivation to follow their instructions for any reason other than suddenly valueless money?
- 2y ago
- zelias 2y agoSemi on-topic: Why should the federal government even entertain a "strongly" pro-cryptocurrency agenda, when the real goal of cryptocurrencies is to displace/reduce the power of the U.S. dollar, from which the federal government (and the American people) derive many, many benefits?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- snowwrestler 2y agoThat’s not the real goal of cryptocurrencies. It started off that way—remember people buying pizzas and domain names with bitcoin? That is the sort of thing that people do with dollars. But it became quickly apparent that cryptocurrencies suck as currency because they are so strongly deflationary. However, that makes them work great as commodity financial instruments. So viewing crypto as a financial market (not a currency), it benefits the U.S. to have as much of the market transacting within the jurisdiction as possible. Then you get the tax benefits, and ancillary benefits (e.g. rich crypto owners buying things).
- RestlessMind 2y agoBecause blockchains can be a great weapon against dictatorships who cannot allow free expression. US has enough cultural and institutional flexibility to accommodate dissent. First amendment protects almost any speech against the government, including insulting the president. Compare that against China, who simply cannot tolerate citizens having any freedom of expression beyond what the party allows. See "tanks of tiananmen" smart contract[1] or "winnie the pooh" NFTs [2] - the only thing CCP can do at that point is to ban the entire blockchain ecosystem. But if blockchains are a big success in the rest of the world, CCP also has to cater to it just to keep pace with the West's tech progress. [1] https://bscscan.com/token/0xb79c9c73e8c7b4be7244e697e6bdb9f511208e9c https://bscscan.com/token/0xb79c9c73e8c7b4be7244e697e6bdb9f5... [2] https://opensea.io/collection/poohsnft https://opensea.io/collection/poohsnft
- mac-attack 2y agoBecause you need to be/stay elected in order to enforce policy. As an aside, one could easily replace 'crypto-currency' with 'fascism' in your comment to accurately describe why Republicans are following a similar tact in spite of the benefits of a democracy
- ModernMech 2y agoFrom "Don't be evil" to "We're the baddies".
- rlewkov 2y agoWhat a politician wants most is to win reelection. This explains everything
- resters 2y agoIf anyone needs to see what happen, read Marc Andreesen's cringy posts on X. The guy is a MAGA promoter and sounds more and more like an elderly "the country is going to hell in a handbasket" geriatric conservative every second. Too many years in a bubble of undeserved wealth where people suck up to him constantly. YC helped fund/promote Palantir, the dystopian surveillance company. The Iraq war defense contractor boom pumped tons of money into pro-war entities and this is just the result of that capital finding its way into new ventures. Ideology comes along for the ride. It's the very definition of dystopian, government propaganda and big-lie-driven malinvesment and (in hindsight) massive financial fraud on taxpayers. I'm personally shocked that PG touches any of this dirty money. When is enough enough?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- marxisttemp 2y agoPG is good buddies with Peter Thiel. Why do you think he’s not a part of this neo-monarchist SV milieu?
- dang 2y agoAs far as I know, that's not the case. I mean, I don't know who all of PG's friends are, but I assume you don't either.
- marxisttemp 2y agoYeah he just admiringly quotes him on his X timeline. Get real.
- pj_mukh 2y agoYC does fund defense companies, esp tech innovative ones, a posture change they made due to the situation in Taiwan and Ukraine [1] But they didn’t fund Palantir or Anduril or any of the companies that blew up during the Border Panics of 2016-2020. Unless you’re playing guilty by association games in which case ..carry on. [1]: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/ares-industries https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/ares-industries
- lovich 2y ago“New” They’ve been this way for decades. The whole “don’t be evil” facade slipped away once the money started flowing
- farseer 2y agoInnocent question: what other major lobbying monsters are there in the US?
- karaterobot 2y agoSomething that surprised me recently was learning that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a private organization. I assumed it was some office funded by the government in a town, that worked with local businesses—or something along those lines. But no, they're a lobbying group, and they are the biggest lobbying group in the country. I'm not saying they are a monster (I clearly don't know anything about them) but at that size, how could you not be? https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders
- lovich 2y agoId posit that they are simply from giving themselves that name and not disabusing anyone of the notion. They like to get puff pieces in the news with their analysis on legislation and most people have the same misconception as a result
- js2 2y agoYou can view it sliced various ways here: https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying
- auntienomen 2y agoOil/energy, real estate pros, health insurance, ...
- mlinhares 2y agoCar dealers. Also the biggest financiers of the Republican party.
- AnarchismIsCool 2y agoSee also, MLMs and the supplement industry. They're contributing for the legal right to screw average people out of their money.
- mdgrech23 2y ago[flagged]
- karaterobot 2y agoWhat's a cooler place you could go instead?
- Sytten 2y agoThose articles kept reminding me that I am right to be very cynical. Is lobbying #foundermode? /s
- brodouevencode 2y ago[flagged]
- John_Cena 2y agoI was ostracized at a right-wing small military contractor during covid for being skeptical of the novel medical treatment being offered for free with zero liability for those profiting from it. I almost stopped trying to rationalize the world around me at that point in my life. I assume my experience was simply because the CTO had everyone under his thumb and he decided it was a good idea.
- brodouevencode 2y agoThe authoritarianisms that came from both left and right wing sources during that time continue to baffle me. Very dangerous precedents were set during that time.
- mistercheph 2y agoMoney loves power, silicon valley will continue to vanguard political causes that extend political, economic, psychological, and spiritual control over people, through useful idiots at the IC level that actually love the fart smells and don't care which direction the wind is blowing the farts, an HR machine that marches to the beat of a global borg-impulse, tirelessly filling any structure vacuum they can find with pointless systems in order to restrain any remnant of human spirit, and a psychopathic management class that is unrepentantly self-serving.
- brodouevencode 2y agoI don't know that I agree with this, but it is rather poetically written.
- chollida1 2y agoOne of Microsoft's biggest lessons out of their anit monopoly trial was that they were not political enough. Before the trial Bill Gates though spending money on lobbying was a waste and its a widely held belief that their anti trust trial wouldn't have happened if they had spent on lobbiest like healthcare, finance, and anything military do. Post 2000, silicon valley learned this lesson and became one of the biggest lobbyers of the government. To the point where they eclipsed the oil and farm lobbies.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 2y agoAny time the message is "We should do X because if we don't, the bogeyman will do it," it should be a red flag. Seems to be one of the common themes in the article. It's always admitting that the thing you want to do is bad, but wanting to do it anyways. And more often than not, it relies on a mischaracterization of the supposed bogeyman: "the democrats eat babies and wouldn't hesitate to do X, so that justifies us sinking lower unless we want baby eaters to win." Or maybe it's just inevitable that anything structurally resembling a race to the bottom ends up with everybody on the bottom.
- llamaimperative 2y agoIt should definitely be a red flag and warrant deeper inspection, but that doesn't mean it's always wrong. The dems do eat babies, obviously ;)
- smoovb 2y ago>The Valley’s enthusiasm for Biden, however, was short-lived. The President quickly appointed three prominent tech skeptics—Gary Gensler, Lina Khan, and Jonathan Kanter—to oversee the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, respectively. Soon the government was suing or investigating Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, and dozens of other companies. Gensler, Warren and Khan have been exceptionally anti-tech. Nice of this article to notice there is a growing number of techies putting their money where their mouth is in response.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tptacek 2y agoKatie Porter is a progressive House newcomer who punched above her weight in earned media with a series of populist House floor stunts that got her a lot of attention in Northern Virginia and Boston, but probably didn't do as much as you'd think to raise her profile in the suburban communities in California that turn out in primary races. Schiff is an undefeated 12-term House Democratic mainstay with a reputation as one of the savvier players in the party. Cryptocurrency lobbyists didn't tank Porter's primary campaign. Schiff beat her 2:1, as observers expected. Just compare the endorsements. California has a jungle primary, so you can end up with two Democratic candidates after a primary, but Garvey beat her 2:1 as well, and you don't swing from a Republican MLB first baseman to Katie Porter based on an independent ad campaign.