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good morning! Data shows that Silicon Valley political donations support many Democrats. But the region’s elite, including Marc Andreessen, Sam Bankman-Fried, and Reid Hoffman, are also pushing technology in politics. This morning we are taking a closer look at where the money is going.
Big money from Big Tech
To understand how Silicon Valley elites are making political contributions in this cycle, Protocol’s Ben Brody teamed up with the Center for Responsive Politics to study the giving patterns of the tech industry’s most influential representatives. showed.
many A major technologist gave the progressives This is a very typical approach.
- Prominent elections like the Democratic National Committee, the liberal PAC, and Senator Rafael Warnock have poured a lot of money into the Democratic Party.
- California politicians, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, also drew big checks.
- Republican groups such as the RNC and candidates such as Peter Thiel Acolyte Blake Masters, who is seeking a seat in the Arizona Senate, also drew in millions.
Much technology funding was also used for technology-specific purposes. Take GMI PAC as an example. The Crypto Alliance, an independent, bipartisan group, raised $6 million from Silicon Valley, making him one of the top 10 recipients of tech dollars.
- GMI received donations from technology investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried and Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital.
- GMI wasn’t the only company that had a lot of money coming in. The Opportunity Matters fund raised him $20 million from Silicon Valley power players, almost all of which came from Trump-ally Oracle chairman Larry Ellison.
- Tim Steyer’s leading environmental advocacy group, NextGen Climate Action, also received over $4.5 million, most of it from Steyer himself.
- And even DigiDems, which raises money to pay the salaries of highly technical staff working in Democratic campaigns, was a popular target for donations, raising over $1 million from 138 donations. Most of the money came from his CEO at Netflix, Reid Hoffman, and his wife, Michelle Yee.
If you want to understand what’s important to the tech elite, follow money. Silicon Valley seems to want to bring more Silicon Valley to the world, at least in the medium term.
read more: Political donations of technology are about to bring us more technology
bottom and right?
After a week of Wall Street brooding over slowing growth in cloud computing services, AWS yesterday gave traders another reason to grab a new bottle of Tam, according to Protocol. Tom Krazit writes.
AWS revenue growth slowed to 27% over the past three months. It’s an enviable pace for those who haven’t been involved in the 15-year cloud infrastructure boom, but it’s well below expectations for the quarter.
- According to CNBC, total revenue for the third quarter was $20.5 billion, about the same amount AWS recorded all through 2018, but below Wall Street’s estimate of $21.1 billion.
Earlier this week, Microsoft lowered its expectations Azure’s growth during the current quarter (a “lackluster” 37% clip) sent the stock plummeting in after-hours trading.
The consumer economy is in a precarious situation Towards the end of the year – it’s not clear at this point.
- But there’s a difference between concerns about the overall health of the enterprise tech sector and concerns that the surge in cloud stocks that accompanied the pandemic-fueled growth rates of the past two and a half years is coming to an end. valid.
In a press release sent after Amazon’s report, John Dinsdale, chief analyst at Synergy Research, said: If you really want to freak out about the health of the tech sector, talk to someone at a social media company.
read more: A version of this story was first published in the Enterprise newsletter. Sign up here.
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Metaverse anywhere at once
Investors may disagree with Meta’s freewheeling metaverse spending, but that hasn’t stopped the public from mass-embracing platforms like the Metaverse. Here’s the gist of a new report from Michael Wolf’s Activate Consulting this week, writes Janko Roettgers of his Protocol.
People aren’t just playing games. Activate interviewed over 3,000 consumers about their online gaming and use of the Metaverse platform and found that 77% of gamers had engaged in non-gaming activities like the Metaverse within a video game in the past 12 months. did.
- These include watching movies, shows, and other videos (48%), socializing (47%), creating and customizing avatars (34%), and creating virtual locations (24%).
This is great news for companies developing Metaverse platforms. However, the monetization path for brands looking to sell their products on the metaverse may not be so clear. Only 18% of respondents say they have purchased a physical item in-game in the last 12 months.
- As usual, there is a huge gap between super users and ordinary people. His 81% of Superusers have spent time on Metaverse-inspired games and platforms like Roblox, Fortnite and VRChat in the last 12 months. According to another Activate survey, it did.
VR itself still contributes a little to these trends, but But headsets can be a bit of a gateway drug. Only 25% of his headset owners bought the device for social interaction, he told Activate, but 43% ended up using it for that purpose.
- 55% of headset owners tell Activate that they use their device at least once a week, while 47% of VR sessions are 15 minutes or less.
read more: A version of this story is entertainment newsletter. SIGN UP HERE.
people are talking
in a tweet addressed to AdvertiserElon Musk said he would buy Twitter because it was important to create a “common digital town square.”
- “In addition to complying with national laws, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, allowing them to choose the experience they want according to their preferences.”
- “I lose sleep over many other things, but not because of it.”
Xbox boss Phil Spencer made it clear on WSJ Live that the deal with Activision isn’t about stealing players from Sony.
- “This opportunity is really about mobile for us…it is vital to our business. Without access to mobile players, there is no way we can be successful as a gaming company.”
make a move
Office Corporate VP Joe Belfiore Leaves Microsoft After 32 years in various roles at the company. He will remain an advisor for several months to help with the transition.
Monetary Authority launches new financial technology department early next year in response to the growth of fintech.
Private Equity Firms Thoma Bravo and Sunstone Partners Acquire UserTesting $7.50 cash per share on the Consumer Insights platform. It values the deal at $1.3 billion.
New Shawn Cardenas Vice President of Sales with triple blinds cyber security company. Cardenas joined TripleBlind from his Incopro, where he led global sales.
Nancy Louisnord is Manta’s new Global Chief Marketing Officer. Data lineage platform. She joined from her EasyVista where she had a similar role.
in other news
Elon Musk’s Twitter deal closed Last night, He immediately fired CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, according to The Washington Post. According to Bloomberg, Musk is taking on his CEO role and plans to undo the platform’s permanent ban. And to summarize what’s different about Twitter going private.
How bad was this week for technology? Well, the total Big Tech market capitalization is down by $800 billion.
Still, Apple sidestepped the fate of many other tech companies Both sales and earnings beat analyst estimates, though they warned they could slow down this quarter.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy accused of violating federal labor law The NLRB complaint points to comments Jassy made earlier this year that workers would do better without unions.
Volkswagen is Intel’s mobile eye Regarding automatic driving after the dissolution of Argo AI.
EU digital services law officially published In Block’s official journal, tech companies need to understand how to comply with policies.
Intel is saving $10 billion by 2028 With hardware sales sluggish, it’s unclear which business units this will affect.
One Biggest point about the climate From the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook: The world needs more clean power.
Who should pay for Internet infrastructure? A European telecoms group says Big Tech services are bandwidth-hungry and should be paid more.
Amazon and Google signed a deal This allows Amazon to work with manufacturers such as TCL, which also makes Android TVs and mobile phones. The company plans to release two of his TV sets running Fire TV software in Europe this fall through his TCL.
keep an eye on your votes
Want to know if your votes were counted? We have a website for that.
Nearly half of the country’s voters can now sign up to receive text messages with information on when the polls are due and whether or not their ballots have been received. It doesn’t vote for you — you still have to fill out and mail in your ballot — but your vote remains anonymous.
A message from Capital One Software
The flexibility of the cloud enables companies like Capital One to unlock access to data with performance that scales instantly. However, this flexibility and scale can also pose unique challenges for organizations and users less adept at cloud optimization.
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Thoughts, Questions, Hints? Send them to sourcecode@protocol.com or tips@protocol.com on the hint line. Enjoy your day and see you on Sunday.
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