In the Age of Trump, Tech CEOs Cast Themselves As the New Statesmen (buzzfeed.com)

An anonymous reader shares an insightful story on Buzzfeed News: Mark Zuckerberg isn't running for president of the United States, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. On Tuesday morning, the Facebook CEO kicked off the company's annual developers conference in San Francisco with a glancing shot at Donald Trump, followed by a reiteration of the company's oft-repeated pledge to bring the world together. Zuck's not alone. Last month Apple CEO Tim Cook led his keynote with a similar stump-speech vibe. He dove right into the company's national security and privacy fight against the FBI. Two weeks ago Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told attendees of the company's annual Build developers conference of plans to "move our society forward," asking "profound questions" of his developers:"Is technology empowering people or is it displacing us? Is technology helping us preserve our enduring values such as privacy, or is it compromising it?" Google CEO Sundar Pichai hasn't delivered his big keynote yet (it's coming up May 18), but late last year he issued an open letter in support of Muslims after Donald Trump suggested he'd blanket-ban the religious group from entering the United States. Welcome to 2016: where tech's biggest leaders are no longer selling themselves as innovators, creative geniuses, or domineering tycoons, but as world leaders -- statesmen shaping the course of human history.According to a report from last month, several tech executives -- including Tim Cook, Elon Musk, Larry Page, and Sean Parker -- met recently to discuss how to "stop Donald Trump." Musk, however, later refuted such reports.

Comments

Nothing New

[ranton]

Companies banding together to exert control on governments is nothing new. This only seems new because it at least appears they aren't doing it for financial reasons, but instead are doing it for a real public good. This appears to be a good shift to me, but the cynical side of me still smells a rat.

Re:Nothing New

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually they ARE doing it for financial reasons -

Zuckerberg heads up a PAC which is trying to open up more immigration and H1Bs - because, y'know, he *cares* about the people and it has nothing at all to do with getting cheaper tech labor into the states. That goes for all the tech CEOs listed here.

Trump is adamantly against that so he must be taken down.

Re:Nothing New

[bangular]

I think the reason so many CEO's attack Trump specifically is because he's not bought and paid for. They don't have him in their pocket, so there's no telling what he'd do as president. He's a wild card. Many people assume he'd "make America great again" but most likely he'd just do whatever got him a lot of news and made him popular.

He already has money. At his age he probably started to think about death and if people will remember him. Win or lose, people are going to remember Trump.

Re:Nothing New

[PetiePooo]

This only seems new because it at least appears they aren't doing it for financial reasons, but instead are doing it for a real public good.

It used to be that companies feared the government over all; that they would do whatever the government asked them to do, never mind how their customers felt about their actions. The old companies, like AT&T and Verizon (formed from other baby Bells) to name a few, still do, as is evident by their complicity in citizen surveillance.

Now, it seems, the customers are finally able to exert some control on a company's actions. They're still doing it for financial reasons, but they finally are recognizing that it's the customers, not the government, that ultimately choose their fate. Plus, without that customer revenue, they can't buy their legislator.. er, I mean promote a favorable business environment through campaign funding.

It's not that they're doing it for a real public good; they're doing it out of self-preservation. It's still for financial reasons..

A sad thought: do we have the millennials and their easily offended, scorched-earth culture to thank for that?

Re:Nothing New

[quantaman]

Actually they ARE doing it for financial reasons -

Zuckerberg heads up a PAC which is trying to open up more immigration and H1Bs - because, y'know, he *cares* about the people and it has nothing at all to do with getting cheaper tech labor into the states. That goes for all the tech CEOs listed here.

Trump is adamantly against that so he must be taken down.

More likely they're just terrified by the prospect of a Trump presidency for the same reason everyone else is, but instead of posting on a message board they're able to reach a far wider audience.

Much for the same reason rich people dabbling in politics is hardly new, if anything tech CEOs have been a bit unusual as they previously tried to stay out of mainstream party politics.

Re:Nothing New

[flopsquad]

I think the reason so many CEO's attack Trump specifically is because he's not bought and paid for. They don't have him in their pocket, so there's no telling what he'd do as president. He's a wild card. Many people assume he'd "make America great again" but most likely he'd just do whatever got him a lot of news and made him popular.

No need to attribute to plutocratic machinations that which can be adequately explained by logic.

You're spot on about Trump being an unpredictable loose cannon. Large, established businesses and financial markets abhor precisely the kind of chaos Donald Trump promises to bring to the White House.

Say you run a business or manage investments. You'd like to have at least some vague idea of how things are going to go over the next week, month, quarter, year, and so on, so you can make somewhat-informed decisions about market conditions, raw materials, domestic and global trade conditions, capital outlays, etc.

So Donald Trump is POTUS. You wake up in the morning, and legitimately wonder if today President Trump is going to:

- Begin a campaign of mass deportations;
- Decide we shake down Mexico for billions of dollars and divert significant steel and cement production to build a big ass wall;
- Decide to cut an entire federal agency;
- Decide to end a major work visa program;
- Be totally cool with, or maybe start a war over, Putin's latest incursion into Eastern Europe;
- Simultaneously shit on the tourism industry and the Constitution by announcing an entire religion is forbidden from entering the country;
- Say some offhanded ridiculous thing that stirs up outrage/protest here or abroad;
- Say some offhanded ridiculous thing that makes it harder for people in $your_industry to do business here or abroad;
- Say something cute about [minorities/women/Muslims/poor people/some other group he thinks are 'total losers"] that paints America and American businesses in a bad light;
- Embarrass the country; act like running the country is a reality TV show;
- Try to shout over, or interfere with, or shut down a media outlet that's giving him problems;
- Refuse to raise the debt ceiling and/or let us default on some obligations;
- Cause worldwide condemnation and mutiny by ordering our armed forces to kill terrorists' family members;
- Pull troops out of Japan and South Korea and try to hand them nukes to make up for it;
- Start a WWIII-sized trade war;
- Start actual WWIII.

Regardless of what kind of job he's done running his own private sector interests, his unpredictability and volatility (a source of personal pride for him) would cause perpetual fear and chaos in the global economy. So it makes sense than just about any large corporation would look at that and say, "No thanks."

Re:Nothing New

[myowntrueself]

Actually they ARE doing it for financial reasons -

Zuckerberg heads up a PAC which is trying to open up more immigration and H1Bs - because, y'know, he *cares* about the people and it has nothing at all to do with getting cheaper tech labor into the states. That goes for all the tech CEOs listed here.

Trump is adamantly against that so he must be taken down.

More likely they're just terrified by the prospect of a Trump presidency for the same reason everyone else is

You mean except for all the millions who are voting for him, right?

Re:Nothing New

[vovin]

Zuckerberg heads up a PAC which is trying to open up more immigration and H1Bs - because, y'know, he *cares* about the people and it has nothing at all to do with getting cheaper tech labor into the states.

Zuckerberg's desire for H1Bs has nothing to do with the cost of tech labor. Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc., are constantly struggling to find tech labor, not because they aren't willing to shell out the big bucks for qualified talent, but because they struggle to find qualified talent at any price IN MENLO PARK. That labor pool is completely depleted IN MENLO PARK ; there are more positions available than there are people to work them. They're already paying $250K+ (including salary, bonus and stock) for people not much past the new grad stage, and about the same for senior engineers and making it $300K, or $400K, or $1M, won't get them many more new hires once the other companies in the area bump their pay scales to match. cause FB isn't that much better than any other company in SV (Actually, paying *too* much can increase attrition as employees gain sufficient financial independence that they decide to strike out on their own, or simply stop working, so increasing the pay scales could well make their hiring problems even worse.).

The reason the likes of Facebook want H1Bs is because the market for US labor is tapped out, and they want to be able to draw on the rest of the world. It's not about keeping wages down, it's about finding an additional 200 hireable people per week, on top of the 200 they're hiring every week right now. The supply of available American talent IN MENLO PARK isn't keeping up with the demand, and paying more money doesn't appreciably increase the supply.

Just trying to help you clarify your position.
And adding H1B won't help FB/Google et. al. But capping the H1B's given to WiPro/Tata/Infosys/IBM *will*. Or even pushing the H1B minimum wage to FB's 250k (as you say it's their basic wage) the FB/Google et. al will have all the H1B's they want 'cause WiPro/Tata/Infosys/IBM's H1B model will be utterly destroyed and those companies will just pack up and go home.

Re:Nothing New

[phantomfive]

You really think he will build a wall?

Yes, because he wants a monument to himself.

Re:Nothing New

[sjames]

If there was an actual shortage, they would be open to hiring older workers and they would be open to hiring entry level and sending them to school.

They certainly wouldn't be participating in 'no poaching' agreements of questionable legality.

Re:Nothing New

[shawn2772]

And adding H1B won't help FB/Google et. al.

Sure it will. Or reallocating visas from WiPro/Tata/et al. Either one will work.

Or even pushing the H1B minimum wage to FB's 250k (as you say it's their basic wage) the FB/Google et. al will have all the H1B's they want 'cause WiPro/Tata/Infosys/IBM's H1B model will be utterly destroyed and those companies will just pack up and go home.

No need to destroy them to fix the H1B problems, IMO. Heck, I don't think you even need to bump the minimum pay scales up. Just loosen the regulations so that H1B visa holders can easily change employers with very low overhead rather than being locked in. Given the cost and effort involved in sponsoring an H1B, plus language and culture issues, etc., that will give American citizens all the competitive edge they need, while still allowing companies to suck the smart people from the rest of the world (which is good for the US in the long run).

Of course, to the extent that WiPro et al have built a business on being able to exploit H1B lock-in, they'll take a hit, maybe a very large one. It needn't destroy them, though, because there *is* a place for organizations who know how to hire and manage technical people, because most companies don't know how to do it. They should be able to offer a cost-effective service even without slave labor. Though it'll clearly cost more than it does.

Nothing New

[KermodeBear]

This is nothing new. Highly successful, rich business people have a long history of trying to affect society and government policy.

"an insightful story on Buzzfeed News...."

[Stray1]

You lost me....

In the age of Trump "Liberals" love CEOs

[mi]

In the Age of Trump, Tech CEOs Cast Themselves As the New Statesmen

... and the supposed champions of the people are now happy with the corporate influence.

Because some CEOs are more equal than others... Oh, wait, Koch brothers hate Trump too, so let's suspend this campaign.

The noble aim of #NeverTrump justifies all means, does not it? Principles are for wussies anyway...

the oligarchy

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, kids, the supposed oligarchy is only bad when it's the Koch brothers or other conservatives and libertarians; when it's "the good guys" that promote stuff progressives like, it's A-OK.

I'm disappointed with the political focus, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

On a related note, it looks like the /. editors are caving in to the temptation to post political clickbait articles. It's going to be a long summer.

Things were looking really good for a few weeks after Dice sold the site. We were getting some great submissions on the front page, having to do with relevant subjects like science, math, computing and technology.

But things have started to slide recently. We are seeing more and more submissions about politics, with only very tenuous ties to technology, science, and other relevant topics.

What makes it worse is the anti-Trump slant that nearly every one of these political stories has. I don't even support him, but I don't want to see blatantly biased attacks on him here, either.

Trump clearly represents a lot of Americans, given how much support he has gained across the nation.

His policies aren't even that bad, despite what the media and leftists like to misleadingly claim. Defending the nation's borders and enforcing immigration law are perfectly acceptable and sensible things to be supporting in any nation. Putting an end to flawed and economically-harmful "free" trade is perfectly acceptable and sensible, too.

I come to Slashdot to read news that the mainstream outlets don't do a good job covering. And I don't come to Slashdot to read the irrelevant political claptrap that's all over mainstream sites!

Slashdot is a niche site, like it or not, and its success will come from focusing on that niche and targeting it as well as can be done.

Some fools will come along with the "but $SOME_IRRELEVANT_POLITICAL_ISSUE matters!" nonsense. Well guess what! In the context of Slashdot and its science/math/tech/computing niche, politics and political issues don't matter!

I really wish that Slashdot goes back to objective submissions focusing on relevant math/science/computing/tech, rather than these anti-Trump political attacks we keep seeing.

Re:In the age of Trump?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Unless the Democrats do better than anointing Hillary, his chances are pretty good

Says who? All the polling to date suggests Hillary would wipe the floor with Trump.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

Meh, who gives a rats ass

[Virtucon]

"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." John 10:27

Big Companies can inspire us to move forward

[postmortem]

By paying their fair share of taxes, and not using tax havens.

Ephemeral polling

[Okian Warrior]

>> Unless the Democrats do better than anointing Hillary, his chances are pretty good

Says who? All the polling to date suggests Hillary would wipe the floor with Trump.
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...

The amusing thing about polling data is that they are so ephemeral.

Why, if we had the election in November, we could have elected Carson!

And at that same time, Nate Silver was predicting Rubio would get the nomination, because endorsements are a much better predictor than polling data, dontcha' know.

A couple of months ago polls gave Trump a 70% chance of winning the nomination, now he's a coin flip.

The problem with relying on polling data is that it makes the assumption that the election would be held right now. While that might be useful for future planning, it still has assumptions.

Not the least of which is that Trump hasn't been focusing on the general election at all, so he's been letting Clinton slide (until recently). Or that the media is lumping all polling data together, when it's well known that some polls are biased.

I read an analysis which posited a list of things that would turn the election around for Trump, and virtually *none* of them are in Clinton's direct control. Such as:

1) Another terrorist attack
2) Clinton gets indicted
3) The US *declines* to indict Clinton
4) Clinton collapses due to stress/exhaustion
5) Trump stops being provocative and gets a more presidential attitude
6) Trump makes some common-sense promises, such as to fix airport security and simplify the tax code
7) Trump starts spending money on the campaign, instead of relying on free publicity

I forget what the other three were, but they definitely weren't something Clinton could affect.

If the polling data were that accurate, we wouldn't need to have an election at all

...except for that pesky thing about how the results keep changing.