
Silicon Valley Cozies Up to Washington, Outspending Wall Street 2-1 - jazzyk
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-18/outspending-wall-street-2-to-1-silicon-valley-takes-washington
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throwaway98237
Back in 2005-2006 I was working on Wall St., studying for my CFA exam, working
to get a place in our equities group, all while half-diverting my attention to
the other coast, watching in awe as a whole bunch of upstarts were following
in the footsteps of Robert Noyce and crew, building a new future. This new
future didn't seem to look like the old way of doing business, like on Wall
St., where it was where you went to school, who your neighbors were, who's ass
you kissed at work. It was like the wild west, where the fit survived and
prospered, where anyone could go and make a new life, and build something that
would improve everyone's life.

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.

~~~
samfisher83
I am pretty sure stanford is an IVY school and its been at the heart of SV.

~~~
throwaway98237
The Ivy League is an anthletic conferrence, similiar to the Big Ten. The Ivy
League schools excel at producing financial and business professionals, who
then, as the other commentor states, are funneled to the most lucrative
careers.

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.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League)

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ComteDeLaFere
Wow. Considering this, and the fact that tech will undoubtedly get blamed for
designing many jobs out of existence, how long before we see an Occupy Sand
Hill Road?

Asked with some humor, but... not really.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _how long before we see an Occupy Sand Hill Road?_

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.

~~~
liquidise
You make a great point about how the _system_ already exists and in many ways
the SV crowd is it. Looking forward, what is there to be done to prevent SV,
Seattle, Austin and Denver from becoming the Detroit/Rust Belt of the next
economic industrial shift?

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ktamura
Unsurprising at all. All businesses/sectors are at the mercy of policymakers,
and it's natural to invest some of the newfound wealth into influencing public
policies. The size of lobbying budget is more or less a proxy for the size and
the growth of the sector.

The irony, of course, is Silicon Valley's holier-than-thou self-righteousness
in relation to Wall Street and/or lobbying.

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omouse
Keep in mind this is venture capitalists or founders spending, employees don't
most of what SV elitists are lobbying for.

~~~
adrenalinelol
The same is true on Wall St. A run of the mill analyst/associate/vp isn't
going to burn their money by donating it to a political candidate.

~~~
mancerayder
That's a good point. It's funny how 'Silicon Valley' and 'Wall Street' have
connotations such that the poor schmuck at the bottom of the totem pole gets
caught in the net.

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.

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AndrewKemendo
Silicon valley is doing better at politics, and yes spending is up, but is
influence?

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.

~~~
gjolund
Google is working directly with the Clinton campaign. I think they have it
figured out.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
No, that isn't proof of anything. If you aren't working both sides you don't
have a long term position.

~~~
gjolund
They aren't working both sides. That is the point.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
I'm not following you or perhaps you are not familiar with political cycles or
the horsetrading that goes on.

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.

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djyaz1200
Tech enjoyed a long period of minimal regulation as it was changing/moving
fast and government didn't understand it. No longer. Just like auto, finance
and other big industries tech will be heavily regulated. These regulations
will be used to ensure those with money and power are able to keep it. Like it
or not that's how our country works.

~~~
rtkwe
You don't have to bring in a nefarious motive for SV starting to lobby harder
to make sense. When they weren't being heavily regulated congressional
ignorance about tech didn't really matter. Then Washington starts coming out
with some really misguided information and privacy laws like sopa so the big
tech companies had to get involved or wind up dealing with bad regulations.

~~~
confounded
If you believe that Google and Facebook are lobbying to protect your privacy
rights, I'd encourage you to check-out their records in Europe, where their
interests tend to get tested a little more[0][1].

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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_concerns_regarding_Goo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_concerns_regarding_Google#European_Union)

[2]: [https://www.eff.org/](https://www.eff.org/)

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jgalt212
Yes, must keep the trustbusters at bay.

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gabrielgoh
does anyone have details on what these lobbying efforts are directed towards?

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mslkmdf
I'm not sure you know what Occupy Wall Street was about.

~~~
sctb
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12736324](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12736324)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
mslkmdf
You have nothing better to do bud?

