The hollowness of tech politics
a final dispatch from silicon valley
I’ve spent almost 6 years in the heart of Silicon Valley, and now it’s time for me to leave this hellscape. Last week, I successfully defended my Ph.D., and now I am heading to UCLA for my postdoctoral studies.1 But, Silicon Valley will always be the place where I worked through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and became a woman.
When I moved here as an egg, I was very cognizant of being an interloper in the fabled tech region. Immediately, the economic inequality became stark. Mansions dot the hillsides, while RVs line the main thoroughfares. Recently, I witnessed someone get arrested for peacefully panhandling in Palo Alto. Poverty is a crime here simply because of its aesthetics.
At the same time, the business of Silicon Valley is rather pedestrian. I’ve witnessed tech bros make deals with venture capitalists at a coffee shop or in lane for ramen. They sell themselves and their idea with such tenacity and intensity, ruthlessly trying to get to the top of a technological hierarchy by doing whatever their big money funders ask. It’s this precise ethos that makes the whole charade so repulsive.
The tech bros pay no attention to me when they are gunning for a deal. Some might say its an art. Their intense focus reduces everything else surrounding them. I am but a tiny fly on the wall of their universe. Plus it would be unbecoming to let a trans woman distract from work.
However, after hours is a different story. I can’t go anywhere without being bothered by a snotty tech bro. On your dating app of choice, he questions my womanhood. Around downtown Palo Alto, he laughs at the sight of me. At tech trendy establishments like San Jose’s Paper Plane bar, he gawks. But, I’m never looking. It’s my turn to reduce him to a gadfly.
You may have noticed that the incoming Trump administration is stocked with Silicon Valley connections. Elon Musk, as “first buddy,” is the most visible. But Vice President-elect JD Vance worked at a Silicon Valley venture capital firm after graduating from Yale Law School. While repulsive to many, Musk and Vance ooze the competent masculinity of tech bro strivers. This is precisely their appeal.
At the center of this network quietly stands PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel. A mentor to Musk and Vance, Thiel financially supported Trump’s 2016 campaign and spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention were he pronounced “I am proud to be gay.” Indeed, Thiel was forcibly outed by Gawker in 2007 and later got his revenge by paying $10 million in legal expenses for Hulk Hogan amid Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker for publishing his sex tape.
Today, Thiel’s portfolio is sprawling and highly dependent on government contracts. His company Palantir specializes in data mining and domestic intelligence (read: surveillance). In March 2024, Palantir received a $178 million contract from the United States Army to develop an integrated ground station to surveil populations and guide warfighting.
During the 2024 election cycle, Thiel vowed to not donate to political candidates, reportedly because of his displeasure with right-wing culture wars (including proposed bans on transgender people accessing bathrooms aligned with their gender identity). Yet, other Silicon Valley venture capitalists like Marc Andreessen came off the sidelines to fund Trump’s 2024 campaign.
And, Thiel’s cronies continue to get appointed to top positions in the incoming Trump administration. His former Stanford undergrad buddy, Jay Bhattacharya, has been nominated to lead the NIH (despite Bhattacharya’s opposition to COVID-19 lockdowns and other basic public health measures). The former CEO of Thiel’s foundation, Jim O’Neill, has been nominated as the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Service. PayPal COO David Sacks has been appointed as the “AI and Crypto Czar.”
You get the picture. If anyone stands to gain from access to policymakers in a second Trump administration, it’s Peter Thiel.
In late October 2024, JD Vance confidently told Joe Rogan that the Trump-Vance ticket could win the “normal gay guy vote.” As Tony Bravo wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle at the time, Vance undoubtedly was envisioning a “normal gay guy” as a White, cisgender, and wealthy male. In short, someone who looks a lot like Thiel.
Of course, Vance considers Thiel a mentor from his Silicon Valley days. For his part, Thiel provided Vance’s 2022 Senate campaign with $15 million - the largest donation ever to a single Senate candidate. Thiel also introduced Vance to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, setting the stage for Trump’s endorsement in the 2022 race as well as Vance’s selection as a vice presidential candidate two years later.
At the same time, Vance publicly opposed enshrining a right to marriage for same-sex couples during his Senate campaign. Here emerges a conflict between Thiel’s reported values and his megadonor behavior. For Thiel, access to power and even greater wealth is a stronger motivator than any professed identity-based solidarity.
But, issues are not neatly separable - no matter what Thiel and others claim. By the nature of the American two-party political system, voting decisions reflect our individual priorities and value judgements. In this way, tech companies cannot distance themselves from Trump’s hard-line immigration proposals simply because they want a continued influx of tech-trained workers from abroad.
Through their support for Trump, Silicon Valley funders are consciously compromising their stated values in exchange for deregulation. Despite their best efforts, responsibility for the human toll of these policies will fall at their feet. They would prefer to run up profits than take a moral stance. It’s all very Silicon Valley coded.
Yesterday, I had my final electrolysis appointment with my Bay Area providers, and I therefore had a final San Jose self care night afterwards. My ritual includes going to San Pedro Square Marketplace for dinner and a drink. I enjoy the laid back sports bar meets public market atmosphere at San Pedro.
As I settled in with my mug of hard cider and hot chicken sandwich, I glanced at the TV to find the Thursday Night Football broadcast of the San Francisco 49ers hosting the Los Angeles Rams. Going into a commercial break, the camera panned over downtown SF from the Bay Bridge which connects the city to Oakland. The view was lovely.
But then, I paused, remembering that the 49ers home stadium isn’t actually in SF. In 2014, the team opened Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara - in the heart of Silicon Valley suburbia, only 8 miles away from my vantage point in downtown San Jose. The 49ers’ move from the city for which they are named means that the city of San Francisco loses at least $4.1 million in tax revenue each year.2
Since the team’s move to Santa Clara, 49ers owner Jed York has heavily funded Santa Clara County politicians. For example, a political action committee (PAC) controlled by York donated a total of $3 million to the campaigns of three candidates for Santa Clara City Council. Two years later, the PAC donated $2.5 million to Anthony Becker’s campaign for mayor of Santa Clara.
Becker lost the 2022 race and resigned from the city council last week after being found guilty of perjury for lying to a civil grand jury about the council’s relationship with the 49ers. The same civil grand jury found that the council had routinely “put the 49ers’ interests ahead of the city’s interests.”
Oh, and in case you were wondering - the Rams beat the 49ers last night in Santa Clara by a score of 12-6.
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more neuroscience research for me!
In 2019, the Golden State Warriors moved into San Francisco by building a new arena in the city. Among this shuffle, the biggest loser is the city of Oakland which has lost 3 sports franchises in recent years. (In addition to the Warriors move to SF, the Raiders and Athletics moved to Las Vegas.)
this hit so many nails on the head. and congrats !!!