San Francisco's mayor is shifting the city's relationship with tech companies from passive tax collection to active partnership. He demands they engage with and support public schools, arts, and transit, framing it as a prerequisite for being "open for business," not an optional act of charity.
Related Insights
OpenAI is proactively distributing funds for AI literacy and economic opportunity to build goodwill. This isn't just philanthropy; it's a calculated public relations effort to gain regulatory approval from states like California and Delaware for its crucial transition to a for-profit entity, countering the narrative of job disruption.
The dynamic between tech and government is not a simple decline but a cycle of alignment (post-WWII), hostility (2000s-2010s), and a recent return to collaboration. This "back to the future" trend is driven by geopolitical needs and cultural shifts, suggesting the current alignment is a return to a historical norm.
The drive for hyper-efficiency, seen in targeted ads or ghost kitchens, eliminates the valuable "slosh" that funds culture and journalism. This friction and inefficiency are essential for creating vibrant cities and healthy economic ecosystems, as they provide the space for creativity and community to flourish.
When trying to influence external partners, start with those most eager to collaborate. This 'coalition of the willing' builds momentum, helps set standards, and creates social pressure for larger, slower-moving players to join the initiative.
The fastest path to generating immense wealth is shifting from pure innovation to achieving regulatory capture via proximity to the president. This strategy is designed to influence policy, secure government contracts, or even acquire state-seized assets like TikTok at a steep discount, representing a new form of crony capitalism.
New technologies perceived as job-destroying, like AI, face significant public and regulatory risk. A powerful defense is to make the general public owners of the technology. When people have a financial stake in a technology's success, they are far more likely to defend it than fight against it.
The most profound innovations in history, like vaccines, PCs, and air travel, distributed value broadly to society rather than being captured by a few corporations. AI could follow this pattern, benefiting the public more than a handful of tech giants, especially with geopolitical pressures forcing commoditization.
In the public sector, the goal is not to outcompete rivals but to improve service delivery. A government CPO's version of competitive research involves talking to counterparts in other states, partnering with civic tech organizations, and learning from innovative vendors to understand best practices.
In siloed government environments, pushing for change fails. The effective strategy is to involve agency leaders directly in the process. By presenting data, establishing a common goal (serving the citizen), and giving them a voice in what gets built, they transition from roadblocks to champions.
Activism isn't binary. A 'covert' approach involves expressing values through business decisions like partnerships, hiring, or amplified voices. This is a valid, often safer, alternative to direct 'overt' public statements, allowing for a spectrum of engagement based on comfort and capacity.
