Tech Opposition to Trump Propelled by Employees, Not Executives
By DAVID STREITFELDFEB. 6, 2017
A protest outside Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., last month. Google and other Silicon Valley companies said that a ban on visitors from seven largely Muslim countries could hurt the economy. Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times
In late September, a group of tech leaders started a well-publicized effort to raise $100,000 for Hillary Clinton. In flush Silicon Valley, that is spare change. But by the time the election was over, the campaign had pulled in only $76,324.
For all its visceral dislike of Donald J. Trump, the tech community did not worry too much about him being elected or, once in office, carrying through with his program. Lulled by favorable polls, distracted by its own destiny, Silicon Valley was above all else complacent.
No longer.
[...]
“Silicon Valley is stepping up,” said Sam Altman, who runs the valley’s most prominent start-up incubator, Y Combinator. “The companies are working on three fronts: They are vociferously objecting to the Trump policies they think are bad, they are trying to engage with him to influence his behavior, and they are developing new technology to work against policies and political discourse they don’t support.”
[...]
Mr. McClure of 500 Startups said it was ridiculous “for the chief executives of the valley to suggest things like hate speech and bullying speech aren’t solvable problems. Google has been solving the problem of spam for the last 10 years. No reason they can’t fix the monetization of fake news.”
Perhaps the companies just need a little push. On Sunday night, the Super Bowl was in overtime and a dreary winter rain was falling in San Francisco. That was not enough to deter more than 100 tech workers from showing up for a meeting of a new group, Tech Solidarity, that hopes to tackle some of these issues from the bottom up.
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