A year later, many are silent exactly when they should be speaking out
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
— Martin Niemoller
Yesterday, many Americans stopped what they were doing to commemorate the deadly anniversary of the January 6th attack on Congress. President Biden gave a powerful speech, calling out former President Trump directly for creating and spreading “a web of lies about the 2020 election.” Biden spoke early yesterday morning, allowing plenty of time for his words to circulate and ultimately dominate news coverage for the day. For once, Democrats chose to actively make the political weather instead of constantly responding to the storms whipped up by the right.
How did tech respond? Sadly, many of the leading lights of the tech sector were silent yesterday.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla who occasionally mixes it up with politicians on Twitter (especially if it comes to topics like tax policy), paid January 6th no attention.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, who has 119 million followers on Facebook, said not a word.
Susan Wojcicki, the longtime CEO of YouTube, who bears a large share of responsibility for the radicalizing effects of its recommendation engine, was silent.
Jack Dorsey, the former head of Twitter, who was once spotted at the Ferguson protests, was silent.
A year ago, Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, was moved to speak out against “a sad and shameful chapter in our nation’s history,” but yesterday he was AWOL.
Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft , was also silent. He could have retweeted his colleague Brad Smith, the way he did a year ago, but no. (More on Smith below.)
Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, remembered the 25th anniversary of demo-ing his first Amazon website on January 5th, but couldn’t be bothered about January 6th.
Venture capitalists who are big influencers in Silicon Valley also showed their true colors yesterday.
Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who is a prolific tweeter with three-quarters of a million followers, tweeted throughout the day about his obsessions with crypto, Web3 and Tesla. Not a word about January 6th.
Balaji Srinivasan, another cryptocurrency booster who is considered a genius by many tech VCs, tweeted multiple times about every boy’s fantasy of jet packs (the UK Marines and Gravity Industries just released an eye-dropping video showing one in action), but nothing about democracy.
Marc Andreessen, one of the two name partners at AH, only saw fit to retweet something Srinivasan posted yesterday about how people were oblivious to prior game-changers in digital; not a word about protecting a system that has allowed him to become incredibly rich. Ben Horowitz, his partner, retweeted a plug for one of his companies, which just signed up a famous rapper as a user.
Jason Calacanis, a start-up investor and voluble podcaster who has joked about running for mayor of San Francisco, tweeted about his obsession with crime in that city, but not a word about the assault on the Capitol.
These are just a few examples, and I picked these VCs because of the visible roles they have claimed as boosters of crypto as the Next Big Thing for tech, which many argue will weaken the power of states and strengthen decentralized systems that empower individuals. You would think such a goal would make these people more attuned to the virtues of democracy, the rule of law and facts, but no.
As best as I can tell, only two leading voices in the tech industry spoke up yesterday. One was Microsoft President Brad Smith, who has quietly played an important role trying to help the government fight disinformation and foreign cyberattacks. He tweeted, “Today is a solemn reminder of the fragility of democracy and the role we all play in nurturing and defending it every single day.” Microsoft has reaffirmed its pledge to not donate to any of the 147 Republicans in Congress who objected to certifying Biden’s election, or to party committees that are supporting them. It is the only major tech company to do so. (Judd Legum’s Popular Information has been tracking these pledges in detail.)
The other was Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn and a longtime major donor to Democratic causes. I’m not surprised to see him alert to the threat represented by Trumpism; back in October 2016, at Code for America’s annual summit, which took place just days before the election, Hoffman spoke out bravely while the rest of the conference’s main speakers studiously avoided the topic.
https://twitter.com/reidhoffman/status/1479126289034272768
This is not to ignore moves made by some tech leaders to put up or reinforce some guardrails around our democracy. For example, Trump’s suspension a year ago from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Shopify and Twitch hasn’t been lifted.
It wouldn’t have been hard for all those other tech leaders to take a moment to show where they stand on the threats facing American democracy. But by not speaking up, they send a message too.