上个月，硅谷的几位最耀眼的明星宣布支持前总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)，现在硅谷开始大力支持副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯。
尽管硅谷仍然是支持民主党的大本营，但拜登政府对科技的鹰派态度已经疏远了业内许多人，最近几个月，包括埃隆·马斯克在内的一些知名企业家和投资者都支持特朗普。但哈里斯，一个与该行业有联系的湾区本地人，可以与硅谷建立更牢固的关系，并已经得到了一个名为哈里斯风投的新团体的支持承诺，该团体代表数百名杰出的风险投资家。
为哈里斯创建风投的风险投资家莱斯利·费恩扎格(Leslie Feinzaig)说，她最近写了一份承诺书，并买了一个网址来托管其网站，但并没有期望太多。
几天后，亿万富翁企业家、电视名人马克·库班和LinkedIn联合创始人雷德·霍夫曼加入了这个团体。
“从那以后我基本上就没睡过觉，”Feinzaig说。
Feinzaig的努力已经导致700多人承诺支持哈里斯，并可能标志着副总统和硅谷之间的关系比拜登更友好。
“在拜登执政期间，硅谷在华盛顿没有朋友，”乔治敦法律中心教授兼技术监管专家阿努帕姆·钱德尔说。“你们有提起反垄断诉讼的司法部。你有白宫和美国贸易代表，他们一直在努力确保数据在世界各地的自由流动。”
钱德尔说，当然，你还有美国联邦贸易委员会主席莉娜·汗，她领导了一项雄心勃勃的监管亚马逊和Meta等巨头的努力，赢得了一大批粉丝和批评者。
然而，拜登政府确实努力通过了芯片法案，该法案拨款数十亿美元在国内生产用于许多电子产品的半导体——这一成就被领先的科技行业倡导组织庆祝为“一次重大胜利”。
尽管如此，主要风险投资家马克·安德森和本·霍洛维茨，投资基金安德森·霍洛维茨的联合创始人，在一篇播客插曲宣布支持特朗普。
霍洛维茨说:“我们企业的未来、技术的未来、新技术的未来以及美国的未来确实处于危险之中。”
据业内人士称，尽管对拜登政府持续感到失望，但民主党人似乎仍得到硅谷大多数人的支持。
“我们许多人都对拜登政府的反技术、反商业立场感到沮丧，”硅谷投资者和企业家Merci Grace说。
格蕾丝表示，对她和大多数同龄人来说，投票反对特朗普将“相当容易”，她估计其中70%或80%的人最终会支持哈里斯。
Feinzaig表示，该行业中一些出来支持特朗普的高调人物“并不代表整个行业。”
尽管如此，特朗普还是在硅谷的某些角落取得了进展。今年6月，科技亿万富翁大卫·萨克斯(David Sacks)与共和党副总统候选人JD Vance合作举办了一场筹款活动，为这位前总统的竞选筹集了1200万美元。万斯是一位前风险投资家，与另一位著名的保守派科技大亨彼得·泰尔有关系。
特朗普还得到了加密货币领域一些知名企业家的支持，他在2024年的平台上承诺“结束民主党人非法和非美国的加密镇压”。”此外，他在7月下旬的年度比特币大会上发表了讲话。
这位前总统对大型科技公司采取了严厉的立场，称它们“太大”和“太强大”7月份对彭博的采访，而是说“我不想毁掉它们。”
与此同时，一些人预计哈里斯将采取比拜登政府更温和的方式来缓解硅谷的担忧，尽管他们表示，她的科技政策观点仍是一个悬而未决的问题。
加州大学伯克利分校(U.C. Berkeley)的法学教授罗布·梅格斯(Rob Merges)在科技行业工作了几十年，他说，“我希望回到一个更加技术官僚的立场。“传统的克林顿，奥巴马——你知道，对技术的好处很友好，合理的监管，谨慎地不在任何一个方向走得太远。”
钱德尔说，他认为哈里斯“认识到创新的重要性，但也担心随之而来的一些伤害。”
但是，他指出，“因为哈里斯没有经过正规的初选，我们还没有看到她在一些问题上表明立场。”
自拜登宣布他不会在7月21日寻求连任以来，哈里斯没有在公开竞选言论中提到科技行业，她的竞选团队拒绝就她是否会让汗继续担任联邦贸易委员会主席发表评论(包括霍夫曼在内的高调捐助者最近敦促她反过来)。
但是硅谷不需要副总统的介绍。
哈里斯作为加州司法部长处理了科技行业的问题，并领导了拜登政府围绕人工智能的一些努力，与顶级人工智能公司合作，就负责任地使用生成式人工智能的自愿准则达成一致。副总统的妹夫托尼·韦斯特(Tony West)也是总部位于三藩市的优步公司的首席法务官。在11月份关于艾的言论中，她说她和拜登“拒绝暗示我们可以保护公众或推进创新的错误选择。”
格蕾丝说，她觉得哈里斯是“一个非常聪明、通情达理的人，我们可以和她进行讨论。”她补充说，特朗普“只是一个你不能信任的人。”
格雷斯说:“在你已经拥有的数十亿美元的基础上再多赚一点钱，与一个你不信任的人上床，这是不值得的。”。
费恩扎格也分享了她对哈里斯的信任。
“我觉得我们有一个正在倾听的候选人。”
Silicon Valley leaders get behind Kamala Harris
After several of its brightest stars declared support for former President Donald Trump last month, Silicon Valley has now come out in force for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Though Silicon Valley remains a stronghold of support for Democrats, the Biden's administration's hawkish approach to tech has alienated many in the industry, and in recent months a number of high-profile entrepreneurs and investors including Elon Musk have backed Trump. But Harris, a Bay Area native with ties to the industry, could forge a stronger relationship with the Valley and has already received pledges of support from a new group called VCs for Harris -- representing hundreds of prominent venture capitalists.
Leslie Feinzaig, the venture capitalist who started VCs for Harris, said she recently wrote a pledge and bought a URL to host its site without expecting much.
Within days, billionaire entrepreneur and television personality Mark Cuban and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman joined the group.
"I basically haven't slept since," Feinzaig said.
Feinzaig's efforts have resulted in more than 700 pledges of support for Harris, and could signal a friendlier relationship between the vice president and the Valley than Biden has had.
"Silicon Valley had no friends in Washington during the Biden administration," said Georgetown Law Center professor and technology regulation expert Anupam Chander. "You have the Department of Justice, which has filed those antitrust lawsuits. You have the White House and the U.S. Trade Representative, who have been retreating from efforts to ensure free flow of data across the world."
And, of course, Chander said, you have Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who has gained an army of fans -- and detractors -- for leading an ambitious effort to regulate giants such as Amazon and Meta.
The Biden administration did, however, work to pass the CHIPS Act, which allocated billions to onshore the production of semiconductors used in many electronics -- an achievement celebrated by the leading tech industry advocacy group as "a major victory."
Still, leading venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the co-founders of investment fund Andreessen Horowitz, cited concerns about Biden's policies in apodcast episodeannouncing their support for Trump.
"The future of our business, the future of technology, new technology and the future of America is literally at stake," Horowitz said.
Despite continuing frustrations with the Biden administration, according to industry insiders, Democrats appear to retain the support of most in Silicon Valley.
"Many of us are frustrated with Biden administration's sort of anti-technology, anti-business stance," said Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur Merci Grace.
Grace said voting against Trump would be "pretty easy" for her and most of her peers, 70 or 80 percent of whom she estimates will ultimately support Harris.
Feinzaig said some of the high-profile figures in the industry who have come out in support of Trump "weren't speaking for the full industry."
Still, Trump has made inroads in certain corners of Silicon Valley. In June, a fundraiser hosted by tech billionaire David Sacks in coordination with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance -- a former venture capitalist with ties to another prominent conservative tech mogul, Peter Thiel -- raised $12 million for the former president's campaign.
Trump has also received endorsements from a number of prominent entrepreneurs in the cryptocurrency sector, promising in his 2024 platform to "end Democrats' unlawful and unAmerican Crypto crackdown." Also, he spoke at the annual Bitcoin Conference in late July.
The former president has taken a stern stance on big tech companies, calling them "too big" and "too powerful" ina July interview with Bloomberg, but saying "I don't want to destroy them."
Some expect Harris, meanwhile, to assuage concerns in the Valley by taking a more dovish approach than the Biden administration, though they say her policy views on tech remain an open question.
"I would expect to return to a more technocratic stance," said Rob Merges, a law professor at U.C. Berkeley who spent several decades working in the tech industry. "A traditional Clinton, Obama -- you know, friendly to the benefits of technology, reasonable in regulation, and cautious to not go too far in any one direction."
Chander said he thinks Harris is "someone who recognizes the importance of innovation, but also worries about some of the harms that might follow."
But, he noted, "because Harris didn't go through a regular primary, we haven't seen her stake out positions on some issues."
Since Biden announced he would not seek reelection on July 21, Harris has not mentioned the tech industry in public campaign remarks and her campaign declined to comment on whether she would keep Khan at the head of the FTC (high-profile donors including Hoffman have recently urged her to do the reverse).
But the Valley needs no introduction to the vice president.
Harris dealt with the tech industry as California's attorney general and has headed some of the Biden administration's efforts surrounding artificial intelligence, working with top AI companies to agree on voluntary guidelines for the responsible use of generative AI. The vice president's brother-in-law, Tony West, also serves as chief legal officer for Uber, headquartered in San Francisco. In remarks about AI in November, she said she and Biden "reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation."
Grace said she gets the sense that Harris is "a reasonable person who is very intelligent, and we can have a discussion with her." She added that Trump "is just someone who you can't trust."
"It's not worth the temporary alignment to make a little bit more money on top of the billions that you already have -- to get in bed with someone who you can't trust," Grace said.
Feinzaig also shared her trust in Harris.
"I feel like we have a candidate that is listening."
