Silicon Valley is right to be worried about a Trump presidency, but it helped get him elected
“I’D LIKE to wake up now please,” tweeted Sam Altman, who heads Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s foremost startup school. The sentence neatly encapsulates the mood in the high-tech hub. To many in the technology industry, America under Donald Trump means dystopia. Perhaps no other sector regards his victory with less enthusiasm.
The main reason is that his stated views are antithetical to the beliefs that most entrepreneurs and tech types hold on a range of topics from trade to offshoring to policy on immigration. By one estimate the tech industry gave nearly $8m to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Silicon Valley also worries that it will lose its direct lines to the administration in Washington. According to the Campaign for Accountability, a transparency group, no fewer than 22 former White House officials have gone to work for Google since Barack Obama moved in. Under Mrs Clinton the door would have kept revolving.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “System crash”
From the November 12th 2016 edition
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