Washington DC is being overrun by tech lobbyists but that shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
The Hustle
Wed, Oct 19
In DC, Silicon Valley is the new Wall Street
Last year, the 5 biggest US tech companies — Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft — spent a combined $49m on Washington lobbyists, while the 5 biggest US banks spent just $19.7m.
This illustrates the dramatic shift that’s taken place under the Obama administration, as “the revolving door with [tech] companies is spinning ever faster — as it once did with Wall Street.”
See, following the 2008 bailout, politicians were careful to downplay their connections to big banks aka. “the bad guys.” But these days, there’s no such stigma attached to the tech world.
Meaning the Valley’s lobbying efforts — which include immigration laws and driverless car regulations — are, let’s just say, being heard.
Is this a problem?
Well, yeah. Too much influence in Washington is never a good thing, regardless of the industry.
As the Center for Economic Policy and Research’s Jeff Hauser puts it, “If you’re trying to influence government policy on behalf of a corporate sector, it’s not better that you do it for the tech industry than for Goldman.”
However, since tech nerds and their massive empires are still “considered cool,” the outcry isn’t too deafening.
Put it this way: Tell me that what’s best for Merrill Lynch is also what’s best for America, and I’ll laugh in your face. But if you replace Merrill Lynch with Facebook, I just might believe it… or at least not laugh so hard.
That said, this relationship is getting a bit too cozy…
During Barack Obama’s time in The White House, 183 people that worked under him were hired by Google, while 58 Google employees left for Obamaland.
That’s a lot of overlap! And it’s not just the Goog, either.
Former Attorney General, Eric Holder, works at Airbnb now, Obama’s former campaign manager took a job at Uber, and apparently Tim Cook and Bill Gates were both on the list for potential Hillary Clinton VPs.
Plus, just today it came out that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have their own room at The White House, fully furnished with bunk beds, a telescope pointed at Mars for Elon, and a whole closet of gray t-shirts for Mark.
Just kidding about that last part, but you get the point.
I call top bunk!
A tale of two Twitters
At the end of Monday trading, Weibo, the “Chinese Twitter,” had a market cap of $11.32B. Meanwhile, Twitter slipped to $11.23B.
To put it another way, Jack Dorsey’s beleaguered company is now worth less than its Chinese clone that launched 3 years after the original. Yikes.
That gap will likely widen, too…
While Twitter dies a slow, painful, “someone please buy us” death, Weibo continues to grow, adding 70m active users in the past year (Twitter lost 5m during that same time period).
Plus, Weibo is crushing it with ad revenue (up 45% from last year) and capitalizing on live streaming in ways Twitter isn’t.
We’re no experts, but Weibo sounds like a well-oiled machine. Perhaps that’s because their founder and CEO isn’t simultaneously running another public company…
Right on cue!
Literally seconds before we were getting ready to wind this post down with a joke about Dorsey’s facial hair or his ridiculous daily schedule, more bad news for Twitter popped up.
According to reports, the main reason Disney ditched its potential Twitter acquisition was because of the hate speech and abuse regularly found on the platform. Can’t be having the family-friendly Disney brand associated with Islamophobes, anti-semites, and racists, ya know?
This is brutal news for Twitter because it proves that they have some serious housekeeping to take care of if they want to sell this thing. Disney didn’t back out simply because of timing or money concerns… Disney backed out because of Twitter’s inherent flaws.
Flaws they must address, now more than ever.
#Pray4Twitter
FB and IG both hit home runs yesterday
Tuesday was a big day for our social media overlords. Well, technically just one overlord since it owns both.
Let’s go in alphabetical order and start with Facebook, shall we?
Facebook Live upgrades
Up until now, announcing an upcoming live broadcast on the ‘Book was impossible. No link to share, no way to let your loyal fans know about the impending “Watermelon Explosion.”
But thanks to new live video scheduling, broadcasters can create links up to a week in advance. These “scheduled broadcasts” will appear as News Feed posts, and potential viewers can click “Get Reminder” to receive a notification when it’s about to go down.
Facebook also announced “pre-broadcast lobbies” where viewers can hang out for a few minutes while they wait to be entertained.
This means creators will know how many people are watching when they go live… and don’t have to spend the first 5 minutes “waiting for more people to tune in.”
Can you top that Instagram?
Yesterday, everyone’s favorite filter feeder announced that Stories will now be featured in the explore tab.
Pretty easy to write this off as “meh, not a big deal,” but it’s actually pretty significant. Why? Because it further demonstrates Instagram’s biggest advantage over rival Snapchat — the ability to actually find (and add) new accounts to follow.
Yes, we know Snapchat intentionally makes it hard to do this because they want you mostly communicating with close friends and family. But isn’t that whole shtick kind of outdated?
The yellow ghost isn’t some mysterious, disappearing photo app anymore. It’s a massive platform home to giant media brands and “the kind of young social media stars who used to get famous on Vine.”
Our take: Instagram’s going to eat Snapchat alive if they don’t start highlighting talent. The fact that I have zero idea how to go about following Bieber or Missy Elliott on Snapchat used to be awesome… now it’s just annoying.
Get ur freak on, Chatsnap
Bill Belichick has spoken…
And he does not like the Microsoft Surface one bit. In fact, he is officially “done with the tablets” and is converting back to good ol’ fashioned paper pictures.
“They’re just too undependable for me. There just isn’t enough consistency in the performance of the tablets. I just can’t take it anymore.”
Why the heck did he have a Surface to begin with?
Look, no offense to Microsoft, but when you hear the word “tablet,” you think of an iPad. Not a Surface.
However, thanks to a $400m deal Microsoft struck with the NFL back in 2014, the darned things are everywhere on Sundays. Coaches use them, announcers use them, heck even the virtual humans in Madden use them!
Not gonna lie — unreal marketing strategy by Microsoft to get their devices on some of the most watched TV shows in the country.
If only there weren’t constant hiccups and controversies…
First, announcers forgot what the Surface was called (they went with “iPad-like tool”). Then, the tablets stopped working during the Broncos-Patriots playoff game last year.
And now, you’ve got the league’s best coach ranting for a full “5 minutes and 25 seconds” about how much he hates the product. P.S. This is a guy who literally refuses to talk half the time.
Poor, Microsoft. No choice but to take the “L” when Billy B’s your opponent.
[Insert sports reference here]
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