Narrative: Trump's Tech Collision Course
Each narrative page (like this) has a page describing and evaluating the narrative, followed by all the posts on the site tagged with that narrative. Scroll down beyond the introduction to see the posts.
Thirty Additional Companies Join Tech Amicus Brief on Immigration Ban – USA Today (Feb 7, 2017)
This is really just an addendum to yesterday’s item about the amicus brief filed by (then) 97 tech companies, as some 30 additional companies added their names to the brief yesterday afternoon. Among them were some of the Elon Musk-controlled holdouts from the initial set, Tesla and SpaceX as well as a number of smaller companies which simply don’t seem to have been looped in to the initial effort. The remaining holdouts are increasingly conspicuous by their absence, though it remains more consumer- than enterprise-focused as a group (HP did sign on later in the day, but IBM, Oracle, and other enterprise heavyweights are still missing), and the telecoms carriers and cable companies are all missing as a group too.
via TechCrunch
97 companies file opposition to Trump’s immigration order – TechCrunch (Feb 6, 2017)
Last week, Recode reported that several big tech companies were drafting a letter to the Trump administration on immigration, though I still can’t find confirmation that this letter has actually been sent. However, those tech companies and many others have now filed an official friend of the court brief in the lawsuit being brought against the administration by the states of Minnesota and Washington. This steps things up a notch, formally putting the 97 companies behind the brief on the other side of a court case from the administration. As with the early condemnations of the executive orders just over a week ago, Amazon is notable by its absence, as is Tesla (whose CEO Elon Musk has continued to sit on the advisory council Uber CEO Travis Kalanick vacated last week). Tesla’s absence is consistent with Musk’s overall stated strategy of trying to bring change from within, but Amazon’s absence may simply be due to the fact that it weighed in on the case separately earlier in the process (though Microsoft has participated at both stages).
Update: this tweet explains that Amazon was asked not to sign the amicus brief because it was a witness in the original case.
via TechCrunch (more coverage on Techmeme)
AT&T and Verizon just got a free pass from the FCC to divide up the internet – The Verge (Feb 3, 2017)
The Verge is what I call a strict net neutrality advocate – the only conception of net neutrality it considers acceptable is one under which there is no prioritization and no differential charging of broadband traffic for any reason. As such, it has taken a hard line on programs like T-Mobile’s Music Freedom and BingeOn programs, and especially on programs such as AT&T’s zero-rating of DirecTV traffic and Verizon’s zero-rating of its Go90 video service. The FCC began looking into these approaches towards the end of last year, but hadn’t reached any final conclusions, and new FCC chair Ajit Pai has now closed the investigations without taking any action except to void the preliminary conclusions that were reached. The FCC’s own NN order from 2015 explicitly contemplated but didn’t ban zero-rating and sponsored data, saying only that it would address these as and when they breached other standards such as “no-unreasonable interference/disadvantage”. It was under that broad remit that the FCC was investigating the carriers in late 2016, but Pai always opposed these investigations and has now closed them down. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, how you feel about this depends on how strict you feel the definition of net neutrality should be – if, like the Verge, you’re a strict NNer, then you’re outraged, especially because this might be the beginning of a broader dismantling of net neutrality. If you take a narrower view of what NN should mean, this is not a problem per se.
via The Verge
Uber C.E.O. Leaves Trump Advisory Council After Criticism – The New York Times (Feb 2, 2017)
Uber has been by far the tech company hardest hit by the combination of its overall relationship with Trump and its response to the immigration actions last week, in some cases perhaps unfairly. But it was Travis Kalanick’s position on one of Trump’s advisory councils, and his apparent complete willingness to be close to the administration, which set the context for all that followed. Without his perceived indifference to what many others in the tech industry have seen as a deeply flawed administration, I suspect Uber’s actions over the past week wouldn’t have been seen in the same light, and as such his position on the advisory council was at least as much to blame as specific actions taken since last Friday. His departure from the council comes fairly late in the game, and so it’s not clear what difference it will make now – the narrative is fairly set at this point. But Uber has apparently lost 200,000 customers over this issue, and it’s a no-brainer that Kalanick would step down rather than continue hurting his business over this issue. It’s notable that Elon Musk remains on the council, and Tesla has also lost some Model 3 preorders over this, but he today defended his decision and stated his intention to continue to try to influence the situation from the inside rather than the sidelines. The fault lines in all this are fascinating to watch – we’re going to see lots more movement from tech companies as they seek to strike the right balance between constructive criticism and outright opposition to the administration and its policies.
via New York Times
Samsung considers building US manufacturing base post-Trump – Reuters (Feb 2, 2017)
Another big tech company starts looking into US manufacturing in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as president. There’s no official statement yet, and Samsung hasn’t been the target of direct attacks from Trump in the same way Apple has, but it’s apparently feeling the heat regardless. It’s interesting to see even non-US tech companies start to respond to Trump’s calls for more US manufacturing – we’ve seen this already in the car industry, but now we’re seeing it with LG and Samsung too. This is a sign of just how unpredictable US government policy has become over the last few weeks compared with the relative stability of prior years.
via Business Insider
Google, Apple, Facebook, Uber plan to draft a joint letter opposing Trump’s travel ban – Recode (Feb 2, 2017)
It’s been interesting to watch the early separate responses of big tech companies to the immigration executive orders begin to coalesce into something more like a joined-up response, with both combined efforts on possible lawsuits in states like Washington, and now this letter from several companies. This letter could have focused merely on the practical aspects of the impact of the EOs on the companies and their employees, but goes further than that (at least in the the current draft) to address refugees and use words like compassion, going beyond mere self interest. The letter is measured and offers assistance in finding better ways to address the intended goals of the recent actions on immigration, which is at once less confrontational and also slightly condescending – I’m curious to see if the text evolves at all from this version. At any rate, it’s clear that we’re going to see ongoing engagement at various levels by the tech industry in this issue, including from a number of companies which participate in Trump’s tech councils.
via Recode
The Battle Between Uber And Lyft Has Become Political – BuzzFeed (Jan 30, 2017)
The tech industry’s response to the Trump administration’s executive orders on immigration has predictably become a competitive dynamic, with Uber customers boycotting the company over a perceived weaker response to the situation than major competitor Lyft. This BuzzFeed piece does a nice job drilling down a bit and separating the rhetorical and practical responses of both companies to the immigration moves, which is more nuanced than the boycott implies. But this raises two other big points. Firstly, to what extent will a failure to stand up for certain causes start to be used as a weapon against companies? We’re already seeing both a backlash against Uber from those who oppose the immigration ban and a backlash against Starbucks from those who dislike its commitment to hire more refugees. No wonder tech companies have been reluctant to take a stand – after such a divisive election, there are large chunks of every company’s customers and potential customers on each side of the issue, and these issues are complex. Secondly, how interchangeable are Uber and Lyft really, to the extent that a temporary boycott might shift meaningful usage from one to the other in a permanent way? I’ve argued in the past that the nastiness that’s characterized competition between the two stems from their fundamental lack of differentiation, which makes them that much more vulnerable to perceived differences and makes them fight that much dirtier to get and keep customers.
via BuzzFeed
Trump’s Next Move on Immigration to Hit Closer to Home for Tech – Bloomberg (Jan 30, 2017)
The executive orders on immigration blew up over the weekend, with most major tech companies finding their voices in opposing some of the policies of the new administration. But this article argues that the next set of changes to immigration policy might actually hit big tech companies even harder, putting the administration back on a collision course with the industry. As noted in my comment from Saturday, the responses from tech companies have ranged from moral condemnations to mere declarations that the policies would be disruptive to their businesses – any change to work visas would sit in that second bucket for many big companies, and they’d be likely to push back.
via Bloomberg
Silicon Valley’s responses to Trump’s immigration executive orders, from strongest to weakest – The Verge (Jan 28, 2017)
This is a good summary of the responses from the tech industry so far to President Trump’s executive orders on immigration from Friday. It also does a nice job sorting the responses by strength – there’s quite a range in the responses, from those focusing narrowly on the practical impacts on employees of each company to those issuing broader moral condemnations of the policy. This certainly won’t be the last we hear on this topic. It’s notable that as of right now Amazon is one of the major holdouts among the big consumer tech companies.
via The Verge
Google, in Post-Obama Era, Aggressively Woos Republicans – The New York Times (Jan 27, 2017)
Two politics stories today, as this one follows the Facebook story from earlier. This one also echoes an earlier story about big tech companies rethinking their political alliances both in the face of a possible shift to the right and now in the wake of an actual take over of both the executive and legislative branches by Republicans. It’s easy to see this as a swing from left to right, but I think it’s better seen as pragmatism about working with whoever is in power. The wrinkle is that Google had particularly strong ties with the Obama administration at multiple levels, and Eric Schmidt in particular was involved with the Clinton campaign, at least indirectly. Google / Alphabet arguably has the most to fear of the major tech companies from a backlash against tech companies based on their support for Democrats, and is clearly doing all it can to make nice now. Having said all that, the degree to which companies have to worry about such a backlash is surely much higher under this administration than any previous one.