silicon valley believes in the future. it invents it, it invests in it. just not so much when the future is a few weeks away. as david streitfeld writes , that is starting to change. most of the world capital of technology has in the last few weeks started paying some lip service to the presidential election. donations have been picking up, but, relative to the vast wealth in the valley, remain modest. much of what action there has been has favored hillary clinton <u+2014> or at least, been against donald trump . not universally, however: as mr. streitfeld wrote, peter thiel, a co-founder of both paypal and palantir and early investor in facebook, is giving mr. trump<u+2019>s campaign $1.25 million. mr. thiel, a gay, self-made billionaire immigrant libertarian, also spoke at the republican convention in july. while much of this would seem at odds with mr. trump<u+2019>s usual supporters, mr. thiel has also said his secret to success is believing something very few people believe is true. in this case, he would be doubly at odds with the valley, where some are backing mrs. clinton and most are markedly silent. it is notable that the vocal minority are, like mr. thiel, wealthy investors and venture capitalists. tech corporations seem remarkably wary of offending somebody by having a political opinion, even compared with other american companies. part of that may be a general alienation of tech from government. tech ignores the reality that silicon valley was largely built on military contracts, and favors a future where government plays an ever-smaller role. the difficulty may be one of orientation. tech is aimed largely at people and companies of means, who are interested in gaining more power and autonomy. many of government<u+2019>s obligations are to the poor, the elderly and children. in other words, people with little power. president obama, speaking thursday at a white house technology conference in pittsburgh, identified the problem. one part of his speech, starting at the 1:09:20 mark in the video, is worth quoting at length. <u+201c>government will never run the way silicon valley runs because, by definition, democracy is messy,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>part of government<u+2019>s job, by the way, is dealing with problems that nobody else wants to deal with. <u+201c>so sometimes i talk to c.e.o.s, they come in and start telling me about leadership, and here<u+2019>s how we do things. and i say, well, if all i was doing was making a widget or producing an app, and i didn<u+2019>t have to worry about whether poor people could afford the widget, or i didn<u+2019>t have to worry about whether the app had some unintended consequences <u+2014> setting aside my syria and yemen portfolio <u+2014> then i think those suggestions are terrific.<u+201d> that<u+2019>s not the way people think about things in silicon valley, where an investment is supposed to remake the world, returning the money ten- or a hundredfold. it<u+2019>s not about maybe getting a few more votes, with an uncertain return.
daily report: reluctantly, tech notices the election
quentin hardy