00:27:37 · Jasmine Sun
[00:27:37] S2: I mean, I think it really depends. I think there are races where there's... They're close enough and, rural voters in particular. You can get a lot of normal rural Republicans or low turnout voters to maybe turn out if there's a data center in their backyard. I think the races that people are really concerned about, Sherrod Brown in Ohio might stage a comeback in particular because of data centers, or a big motivation for Greg Abbott to restrict approvals and connections to the electricity grid even though he's been very, very pro... Built. He's been welcoming the data centers for years, but because of a potential threat from both his Democratic opponent plus all of these rural Texan farmers who are like, what's up with these power lines and data centers? He actually did a pseudo moratorium, which because he was worried about the midterm. So, you know, I think there are a few elections in purplish states where data centers could swing things. But the other thing I'm tracking is like data centers are very concrete, whereas AI generally is still feels so abstract to people that I'm not really sure if, like, data centers are barely swinging some elections. I'm not sure that, like, AI in general is gonna be a voting issue yet even though some people suspect it.
00:28:46 · Max Read, Mike Isaac
[00:28:46] S1: Yeah. I mean, it's a very funny, you know, as you say, if you're on Twitter or if you're if you're, like, reading too much about this, it does feel like a life or death issue. Certainly, is for some people some people writing, you know, introductory letters to s ones. But it hasn't... As you say, it hasn't really trickled down except in a sort of indirect way through the the effect on the economy of AI. Yeah. Mike, what about you? Are you tracking anything on the election next week? [00:29:09] S4: You talked about this in last week's episode a little bit with the head of policy at Meta leaving and sort of imagining which new regime of, like, you know, democratic operatives they might replace them with. But I just wanna see if there's a wipe away. No. Of course. I am a loyal Hard Fork listener. [00:29:26] S1: That's right. [00:29:27] S4: That's [00:29:27] S1: why [00:29:27] S4: we're in. We've got [00:29:28] S1: one. You've got one. Get to two by the end of [00:29:31] S4: next week. Two. I'll I'll get my wife to listen. I do... I do... I really, really wanna see the theater of all the tech companies that have been trying to cater to Republicans suddenly be like, actually, we love the new democratic... Potentially democratic regime in all of these states. And because they have a hold on... Again, potentially have a hold on congress, this is what we really believe in. You know? [00:29:56] S1: And I
00:29:56 · Max Read, Mike Isaac
[00:29:56] S1: And I [00:29:56] S4: I think these swings are valuable because it sort of shows, know, these are corporations that don't necessarily believe in anything except self preservation a lot of the time. [00:30:04] S1: Yeah. I mean, what do you... Are are you seeing any indications besides say... So we're talking about Joel Kaplan, who is the head of policy at Facebook for fifteen years. He's been a sort of conservative whisperer. He he announced his departure last week. Are you seeing any other kind of movements that suggest a little bit of, I don't know what... I don't know how to put it, team switching or sort of, you know, trying to trying to make inroads among, you know, among Democrats? [00:30:25] S4: I think all of the companies are looking hard at their their DC teams and saying, who do we need to sort of elevate and put out front? They're never gonna, like, cut all of their conservative sort of, you know, relations people or whatever. But it's sort of like, actually, look at this guy. The the the guy who wears a blue pin instead of a red one or whatever. You know? That's like... That is... That's all the companies. And, like, that's just the game. I guess I shouldn't be so cynical, but it is worth looking at and seeing [00:30:54] S1: Why wouldn't you be cynical? This seems like exactly the right [00:30:57] S4: thing to be cynical about. Yeah.
00:30:57 · Mike Isaac, Max Read, Erin Griffith
[00:30:57] S4: thing to be cynical about. Yeah. [00:30:58] S1: I know. Yeah. And do you feel like there's a there's a shift? I mean, I I think we all are aware of what felt like, I'm sorry to use such immaterial language here, a vibe shift in Silicon Valley a few years ago. Buddy. Is there a vibe shift swinging back? I'm interested in... If any of you feel like that might happen, or is it... Is this... Was that... Was the first vibe shift an illusion? [00:31:19] S3: I mean, I've seen headlines to that effect. But I think, like Mike said, it's gonna be a little bit more on the DC side of things because, I mean, just from my perspective, a lot of the VCs were really excited to be able to not care about stuff like that Democrats care about, like DEI. Culturally, it seems like we're kind of gonna be still in that, in in that vibe. [00:31:43] S1: Yeah. It doesn't seem like that's changed. Jasmine, we were talking before we were taping about, like, a sense that there's there's a question about how Republicans are gonna react to to this. They're likely to lose the house of representatives. There's gonna have to be a shift in how they approach AI regulation in Silicon Valley.
00:31:58 · Jasmine Sun, Max Read
[00:31:58] S2: Totally. Yeah. I mean, this is one of the big open questions I have about the twenty twenty eight primary too. I mean, primary season's gonna start basically two weeks from now. And are JD Vance and Marco Rubio going to break from Donald Trump's extremely, extremely unpopular positions on AI regulation in data centers? Right? Like, spite of the vast... Like, the majority of Republican voters do want to regulate AI. They would prefer slower with more safeguards versus some kind of abstract, immaterial beat China narrative. And yet, basically, every Republican in Congress or every Republican leader has been unable to say any of that because the president sort of sets sets what the party line is. And if the Republicans think of beating in the midterms, I could imagine some more folks deciding to break off and say, like, actually, like, our constituents are angry at data centers. They're worried about kids' safety if they're social conservatives. But I am starting to see a bit of a split in the Republican Party between the more traditional libertarian, free market, letter up types who are still very excited about deregulation versus some of the more New Right folks. I was... I spent the weekend with some folks from American Compass, the New Right think tank, and they're all thinking, actually, maybe after the midterms, this is the time for the Republican Party to get serious about AI regulation on kids, jobs, safety, things like that. [00:33:22] S1: Were they saying AI or were they saying SI?
00:33:22 · Max Read, Jasmine Sun, Erin Griffith
[00:33:22] S1: Were they saying AI or were they saying SI? [00:33:25] S2: It was actually really funny. It was it was a chat in the house workshop, but there's a split in the room, and then you could tell there's a bit of internal tension between folks from the admin and other places who were saying s I and the folks who were a little bit too staunchly, like, we're not caving to that. So it was really funny. [00:33:42] S3: I've never seen a better, like, metaphor for, like, people talking over each other and, like, not being able to communicate than, like, not even being able to agree on what we're calling this thing. [00:33:52] S2: It was kind of amazing. [00:33:54] S1: Yeah. So one of the issues on the ballot next Tuesday is this tax in California on billionaires. Erin, can you explain what the what the what the proposition is, what the measure is? And what... I mean, I think we can all guess, but why are... Why are Silicon Valley so interested in this tax on billionaires?