Commentary: JD Vance Wants to Make Silicon Valley Great Again

SOLVING PROGRESSIVE VALUES

The last two years have also seen a cultural shift in the tech industry, resulting in a more uncompromising management style.

The region’s reputation for lavish perks and cushy middle-management jobs seems passé after Musk’s sledgehammer tactics at Twitter, where he laid off 80 percent of his staff last year. The move reportedly gave executives at other tech companies cover to make similarly drastic cuts, including some that destroyed their trust and security teams.

Meanwhile, tech companies like Zoom, Google, and Meta have cut back on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs put in place after George Floyd’s murder, reforms that have come amid a startling and troubling decline in the number of women in tech.

For better or worse, Silicon Valley is a place where gut feelings and FOMO are powerful drivers of change. So Vance’s presence in the White House, and the credibility it lends to his rhetoric against issues like immigration and abortion, could fuel a greater disintegration of Silicon Valley’s progressive values.

Technology experts largely ignored Trump’s antagonistic comments on diversity and immigration while he served as president from 2016 to 2020, but the views of Vance, a former deputy prime minister, carry particular weight.

He has made no secret of his disdain for diversity programs, recently tweeting about “industrial DEI” in tech and “left-wing bias” in AI tools like Google’s Gemini. Efforts to make AI safer, he said, were “an obvious effort to empower crazy left-wing businesses.”

Despite the exaggeration, there are many unknowns with Vance. Vice presidents have a history of being sidelined, and there’s a good chance Trump will do the same to his 39-year-old running mate. (Of course, that’s not true of all vice presidents: see Dick Cheney’s influence on foreign policy and national security decisions after 9/11.)