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yesEmily BirnbaumNone
November 10, 2020
Joe Biden's transition is absolutely stacked with tech industry players, according to a list of Biden agency review teams released Tuesday.
There's no one on this new list from Facebook, Google or Apple (although there are people from those companies involved in the broader transition), but there's definitive Silicon Valley representation and thought leaders on tech issues involved in shaping the future of the federal government. We went through the list so you don't have to.
From big-name tech companies:
- Tom Sullivan, Amazon's international policy team (State Department)
- Mark Schwartz, Amazon Web Services' enterprise strategist (Office of Management and Budget)
- Divya Kumaraiah, Airbnb's strategy and program lead for cities (Office of Management and Budget)
- Brandon Belford, Lyft's senior director and its public policy team's chief of staff (Office of Management and Budget)
- Nicole Isaac, LinkedIn's senior director of North America policy (Treasury Department)
- Will Fields, Sidewalk Labs' senior development associate (Treasury Department)
- Clare Gallagher, Airbnb's partnerships & events manager (National Security Council)
- Matt Olsen, Uber's trust and security officer (Intelligence Community)
- Arthur Plews, Stripe's strategy and operations lead (Small Business Administration)
- Ted Dean, Dropbox's public policy lead (U.S. Trade Representative)
- Ann Dunkin, Dell's chief technology officer (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Phillip Carter, Tableau Software's senior corporate counsel (Department of Veterans Affairs)
- Nairi Tashjian Hourdajian, VP of comms at Figma (Department of Transportation)
- Nicole Wong, former Google and Twitter, former Obama Deputy Chief Technology Officer (Office of Science and Technology Policy)
From tech philanthropy:
- Martha Gimbel, senior manager of economic research at Schmidt Futures (Council of Economic Advisers)
- Andrew Nacin, director of engineering at CZI (U.S. Digital Service)
- Austin Lin, technical program manager for security and privacy at CZI (Executive Office of the President, management and administration)
- Linda Etim, senior adviser at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (team lead for International Development)
From tech advocacy:
- Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project (Treasury Department)
- Gene Kimmelman, senior adviser for Public Knowledge, former DOJ antitrust official (Department of Justice)
- Laura Moy, director of Georgetown's Communications & Technology Law Clinic (Federal Trade Commission)
- Bill Baer, visiting fellow at Brookings Institution, former FTC and DOJ (Federal Trade Commission)
There's also Victor Garcia and David Holmes from Rebellion Defense, a company backed by Eric Schmidt, and Natalie Kates and Raphael Majma from Reid Hoffman-backed Alloy.
Correction: This story was updated at 12:08 p.m. PT Nov. 11 to correct the title of Amazon's Tom Sullivan.
Emily Birnbaum
andEmily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
Anna Kramer
Anna Kramer is a reporter at Protocol (@ anna_c_kramer), where she helps write and produce Source Code, Protocol's daily newsletter. Prior to joining the team, she covered tech and small business for the San Francisco Chronicle and privacy for Bloomberg Law. She is a recent graduate of Brown University, where she studied International Relations and Arabic and wrote her senior thesis about surveillance tools and technological development in the Middle East.
Politics
Congress has failed to crack down on Silicon Valley. Now, Silicon Valley is cracking down on Congress.
Big Tech's pause on PAC contributions highlights how powerful it's become.
Democrats are particularly frustrated by Facebook, Google and Microsoft's decision to halt PAC contributions altogether, rather than targeting particular Republican lawmakers.
Photo: Tobias Hase/picture alliance via Getty Images
January 12, 2021
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
January 12, 2021
Congress has failed to act on every opportunity it had to seriously wrangle in the power Big Tech over the last several years. Negotiations over a federal privacy bill fell apart last year, antitrust reform hit partisan headwinds, and every debate over content moderation since 2016 has devolved into a theatrical yelling match that left the parties more divided over solutions than ever.
And now, the bigger-than-ever Silicon Valley is flexing its muscles with impunity as companies cut off violent extremists and wield the power of their political donations, acting more like a government than the U.S. government itself. They're leaving Republicans and Democrats more frustrated and powerless than ever in their wake.
<p>"There's a cultural problem in Silicon Valley — they want to be the government," said one House Democratic aide. </p><p>Google, Facebook and Microsoft this week became the latest corporations to announce they are suspending contributions from their political action committees following last week's violent riots on Capitol Hill, which were incited in part by President Trump and a cadre of Republicans who spent weeks falsely claiming the presidential election had been stolen. Meanwhile, tech companies like Amazon, Airbnb and Intel said they are suspending campaign contributions specifically to the Republicans who voted against certifying the results of the U.S. election, making it clear that those lawmakers bear some responsibility for the chaos and violence. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>"Given the unacceptable attempt to undermine a legitimate democratic process, the Amazon PAC has suspended contributions to any Member of Congress who voted to override the results of the U.S. presidential election," an Amazon spokesperson said on Monday. "We intend to discuss our concerns directly with those members we have previously supported and will evaluate their responses as we consider future PAC contributions."</p><p>It's an amazing display of power from an industry that has shied away from politics, and especially the appearance of partisanship, for years. The tech companies' PACs deliberately contribute to <a href="https://www.protocol.com/tech-company-pacs-2019-2020" target="_self">both Republicans and Democrats</a> equally, but the events of this past week have forced corporations to stake out stances that they never would have before, drawing out the limits of how far they will go in the name of neutrality. </p><p>"We've never seen anything like this," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, which advocates for campaign finance reform. "This is unique. It's the reaction to an effort to overturn an election and basically violate the fundamental rules of our democracy." </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>"We will see whether it's real or temporary," Wertheimer said.</p><p>The companies are taking a gamble that could land them in hot water as Democrats assume control of the House, Senate and White House. Facebook, Google and Microsoft's approach in particular has rankled Democrats, who say they're being punished for Republicans' sins as companies temporarily pause all of their PAC spending, rather than contributions to the particular lawmakers.</p><p>"Instead of holding the guilty responsible, their decision to treat the guilty and innocent the same is the type of political calculus that led us here," said Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky in a statement. She saved her most pointed ire for Facebook, who she has sparred with as chair of the House Energy and Commerce consumer protection subcommittee: "Most cowardly and despicable is Facebook, who is unwilling and unable to confront their role in fostering the hatred that led to this action."</p><p>A number of corporations have temporarily suspended PAC contributions altogether, but aides told Protocol that Democrats have been particularly aggrieved by Big Tech's total pullback.</p><p>"It's like 'all lives matter,'" said the Democratic congressional aide. "There are a lot of members who fight to get onto Ways and Means or Energy and Commerce because, for whatever reason, they need PAC money support. Republicans have this vast dark money infrastructure … Limiting hard money is always at a disadvantage to Democrats." </p><p>The companies that paused their donations this week made it clear that it's a temporary decision as they rethink and reconsider their previous political contribution tactics. Margaret O'Mara, a professor at the University of Washington who focuses on the history of Silicon Valley, said it's likely that the companies will begin spending again within a few months — just as Democrats begin baring down in their efforts to regulate the platforms.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>"The large tech companies are among the biggest spenders in D.C. now," O'Mara said. "That's not going to go away. They're going to be working very hard to make sure that regulation is something that's going to work for them and work for their business." </p><p>Republicans and Democrats for years have made noise about the growing power of the tech companies. But now, in the absence of any regulation, they face a situation in which those companies are larger and more powerful than ever, with the ability to make decisions that affect millions of Americans and every member of Congress without any oversight. And it's yet to be seen if Congress will finally do something about it. </p>
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Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
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