Tech companies should build for the long game in Washington

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 9:54

   Lovable.dev. Now, on to the episode. How has the results from last night maybe changed that and added impact here? Is that for me? Yeah. Look, the morning we launched LuxCap, I went to a conference in New York City. that was hosted by The Economist magazine. And I was asked to opine on what midterms might bring. And I said two things that I think have largely been borne out. And they were that if Democratic come in in any kind of wave, they have only two choices with the election results.

2. 10:45

   the first is to recognize and meet the demands of people who put them in office right people who are upset about gas prices people who are upset about health care people who are upset about a widening and a quality gap or they can ignore them and my bet is that they are more likely to meet those demands than not. And so the last 20 months or so, all of this activity around golden shares and picking winners and losers in markets and, again, subverting regulatory environments to favor some and punish others, all of that is going to have to be contended with.

3. 11:34

   But it's not going to look like the last generation because the administrative state has been gutted, which has been a long-term project of some. And you're going to have Congress needing to make big decisions about the minutia of how products and services are delivered and made available for others, whether it's how many. Parts per million and like adulteration is acceptable and food or how to deal with algorithms and software that are, you know, breaking into the most tightly regulated high trust environments like our bank accounts, like our health care information.

4. 12:19

   Yeah. Anything you want to add? So, yeah, I mean, it's a sea change, right? What happened last night is very significant. The balance of power has shifted and the Trump administration is now on the back end and its power is only going to decline. It'll try to exercise that power. But, you know, one of the things that people in Washington talk about are how folks out here kind of come in and kneel at the altar of the White House.

5. 12:46

   And I think there is going to be a reckoning for that. And I think, you know, folks in this community should be thoughtful about playing the long game when it comes to Washington. Because if you optimize for just the moment, you'll end up pissing off a lot of people and finding yourselves having, you know, less staying power and less influence and frankly being a less trusted voice for the long term.

6. 13:11

   And I think hopefully that's a lesson that people will learn in a healthy way in the, you know, foreseeable future.