Extract from The Guardian
The roll call of assembled tech moguls ran as follows: Satya Natella and Brad Smith (Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Larry Page and Eric Schmidt (Alphabet, Google’s holding company), Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook), Tim Cook (Apple), Elon Musk (Tesla), Ginni Rometty (IBM), Safra Catz (Oracle), Chuck Robbins (Cisco), Alex Karp (Palantir) and Brian Krzanich (Intel).
Apart from their vast wealth and an aversion to paying tax, what linked these notables? Answer: a deep loathing of Trumplethinskin. Yet when he issued the summons to his preposterous “summit” they all came running. Why?
For the answer, we need to delve into the darker recesses of human nature. First of all, there was naked fear. During the election campaign, Trumplethinskin had made no secret of his contempt for the tech companies. He castigated Apple, for example, for not caving in to the FBI’s demand that it unlock the San Bernardino killer’s iPhone and for manufacturing the phone in China rather than in the US. He accused Amazon of abusing its monopoly power. And so on.
But it wasn’t the abuse that spooked the tech crowd as much as his demonstration of what he could achieve with a single tweet. At 1:26pm on 12 December his tweet “The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th” instantly wiped $4bn off the value of Lockheed Martin, the lead manufacturer of the $100m-a-pop warplane. If he can do that to an aerospace manufacturer, what could he do to the tech companies?
In seeking an explanation for the abject obeisance of the tech moguls on Wednesday, we should also not underestimate the aphrodisiac effect of power. Trumplethinskin may be a repellent demagogue (and we know from off-the-record conversations reported by Swisher – the ultimate tech insider – that that’s how the Silicon Valley crowd see him), but on 20 January he will be president and proximity to power has a funny effect on many people. It causes them to lose their marbles, their judgment and sometimes their principles. So it was in New York on Wednesday when the assembled titans fawned on their host in his blinged-up lair.
Thirdly, there is that old staple – greed. There is money to be made out of President Trumplethinskin. One of the first letters he received upon winning the election came IBM chief executive Rometty. “Dear Mr President-elect,” it gushed, “last Tuesday night you spoke about bringing the country together to build a better future and the opportunity to harness the creative talent of people for the benefit of all. I know that you are committed to help America’s economy grow in ways that are good for all its people. I am writing to offer ideas that I believe will help realise the aspiration you articulated… I do so as the leader of the nation’s largest technology employer. Permit me to offer a few suggestions.” These included “data analytics, data centre consolidation and the use of cloud technologies” to cut government costs.
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This is interesting for two reasons. First, Trumplethinskin isn’t any old chief executive but a president-elect who comes to power after a campaign that was laced with racism and promises of action against a particular ethnic/religious group: Muslims. In order to implement any of his proposed policies towards illegal immigrants, border control, etc, he will need a database. A very large database.Apart from their vast wealth and an aversion to paying tax, what linked these notables? Answer: a deep loathing of Trumplethinskin. Yet when he issued the summons to his preposterous “summit” they all came running. Why?
For the answer, we need to delve into the darker recesses of human nature. First of all, there was naked fear. During the election campaign, Trumplethinskin had made no secret of his contempt for the tech companies. He castigated Apple, for example, for not caving in to the FBI’s demand that it unlock the San Bernardino killer’s iPhone and for manufacturing the phone in China rather than in the US. He accused Amazon of abusing its monopoly power. And so on.
But it wasn’t the abuse that spooked the tech crowd as much as his demonstration of what he could achieve with a single tweet. At 1:26pm on 12 December his tweet “The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th” instantly wiped $4bn off the value of Lockheed Martin, the lead manufacturer of the $100m-a-pop warplane. If he can do that to an aerospace manufacturer, what could he do to the tech companies?
In seeking an explanation for the abject obeisance of the tech moguls on Wednesday, we should also not underestimate the aphrodisiac effect of power. Trumplethinskin may be a repellent demagogue (and we know from off-the-record conversations reported by Swisher – the ultimate tech insider – that that’s how the Silicon Valley crowd see him), but on 20 January he will be president and proximity to power has a funny effect on many people. It causes them to lose their marbles, their judgment and sometimes their principles. So it was in New York on Wednesday when the assembled titans fawned on their host in his blinged-up lair.
Thirdly, there is that old staple – greed. There is money to be made out of President Trumplethinskin. One of the first letters he received upon winning the election came IBM chief executive Rometty. “Dear Mr President-elect,” it gushed, “last Tuesday night you spoke about bringing the country together to build a better future and the opportunity to harness the creative talent of people for the benefit of all. I know that you are committed to help America’s economy grow in ways that are good for all its people. I am writing to offer ideas that I believe will help realise the aspiration you articulated… I do so as the leader of the nation’s largest technology employer. Permit me to offer a few suggestions.” These included “data analytics, data centre consolidation and the use of cloud technologies” to cut government costs.
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So who will build it for him? The federal government? Given his contempt for the civil service, that seems unlikely. So it will be outsourced to tech companies and the question becomes: will they do it? In this respect, the IBM chief’s letter might turn out to be an inspired pitch for business. After all, the company could be said to have a track record in this line of business. Way back in the 1930s, its German subsidiary was the outfit that provided the Hollerith tabulating machines that were a cornerstone of the murder machine that ran the Holocaust.
For the avoidance of doubt, this is not to say that IBM was responsible for the Holocaust or that Trumplethinskin is a genocidal maniac – just that, to update a 1970s feminist phrase, the technological has suddenly become political. Very political. So how will Silicon Valley respond when the next presidential summons comes? Stay tuned.
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