[Reid Hoffman in the New York Times]

"As Vice President Harris defines her vision for how best to lead the United States in this moment in time, she has an opportunity to take the torch passed to her by President Biden in an explicitly pro-innovation direction. Instead of governing by tweet, Mr. Biden passed bipartisan legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that authorized hundreds of billions of dollars for new manufacturing construction and investment."

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman explains why Silicon Valley should get behind Harris, counter to the example set by Musk, Andreessen, and a few others. Hoffman is a co-signatory of VCs for Kamala, which makes clear that most Silicon Valley funders are in favor of the Democratic candidate and current Vice President.

Hoffman make the case clearly:

"Under the Biden-Harris administration, U.S. stock market indexes hit all-time highs, with the S&P 500 increasing by 48 percent. Unemployment dropped below 4 percent. The number of U.S. manufacturing jobs hit its highest level since 2008. While Mr. Trump’s great ambition was to build a big beautiful border wall, Mr. Biden actually secured the necessary funding to build large-scale factories for manufacturing semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries, solar cells and more. And we’re now constructing them at stunning rates."

I'm more pro-regulation than Hoffman is. Harris should maintain a strong antitrust stance, too, I believe, as well as providing new protections against the worst excesses of AI and other technologies that might harm vulnerable groups. But it's certainly true that her administration will be better for innovation than her opponent, even if the latter might be better for lining the pockets of a few select billionaires.

This is also true:

"In a speech Ms. Harris gave on the future of A.I. in 2023, she noted that we must “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.”"

It is a false choice. Regulation, principles, and a duty of care to the public are not anti-innovation: in fact, they promote it. And that's the direction we should all be heading in.

#Democracy

[Link]