Your Job is Political: Tech Money in Politics
summary
Tech wealth buys ballot measures, board seats and contracts; Tim Draper pours about $5M into six Californians, venture investors bankroll Prop 39 and Reed Hastings raises $31.5M for school-related initiatives, while local PACs spend $150–350k on single school board races. Money fuels charter schools growth, big bets on edtech (K‑12 market eyed at ~$800B), companies like Palantir and startups sell predictive policing and surveillance systems, and vendors win no‑bid cloud contracts for police body‑camera data.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Tech money in politics
- 3:53How tech companies make and spend money
- 7:44Draper’s six-state ballot initiative
- 12:14Hastings and education policy
- 16:05Prop 39 and charter schools
- 21:03Tech money in school board races
- 23:09Why tech backs charters and edtech
- 27:23Privatized education critique
- 29:34Conway’s SF political control
- 35:13Palantir and predictive policing
- 37:19Taser’s surveillance profits
- 40:51Call for tech accountability
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