DISQUS

Scobleizer · 1 year ago

I knew geeks were smart! :-)

KathleenLD · 1 year ago

As a point of interest, I believe that microsoft matches employees' charitable donations, and I wouldn't be surprised if that included political donations

Neal Campbell · 1 year ago

It's absolutely astonishing that smart folks in the tech community would so readily embrace socialism. Obama is the first presidential candidate with a chance of winning who openly advocates socialism as a solution. Past candidates have concealed their love of socialism. Obama waves it like a flag. He actually says out loud in public that the government bail out of the credit market is "only the beginning of what government should do."

@Scobleizer, there is nothing smart about supporting socialism because socialism limits liberty. Liberty should be our ultimate goal without exception.

Donna · 1 year ago

I couldn't agree more! How do we get the message out to young, hip people that socialism is not freedom?

Rachel Luxemburg · 1 year ago

Search on "ADOBE SYSTEMS" not just Adobe and you get more donations:
$3,375 from 5 people to Republicans
$42,188 from 49 people to Democrats

Louis Gray · 1 year ago

Good catch on Adobe. I combined AOL and America Online, as well as Sun and Sun Microsystems. I didn't expect this to be a comprehensive list, and hope others can find more companies to review.

andrew_feinberg · 1 year ago

Louis -- I'll forgive you for not knowing the ins and outs of the campaign finance system. To get a better picture, you need to look at the PACs run by the companies and the trade associations that represent the established tech industry and telecoms. Those PACs donate to "leadership PACs" associated with members, in addition to the members' campaigns. For tech, I would suggest looking at contributions to Rep. Dingell (House Energy and Commerce chair), Ed. Markey (telecom subcommttee), Dan Inoyue (Senate Commerce), etc. If you're a chairman, you've got a pretty good chance of raking in the cash. If you're on appropriations...well, there is a reason the chairmen of the House Appropriations subcommittees have been called the "College of Cardinals."

Dig deeper.

Louis Gray · 1 year ago

Andrew, I have no doubts that if you're looking for corporate donations, PACs and the committees would come into play. My goal here was to use the publicly-available resources to highlight donations from individual employees, who are limited to $2,300 apiece, as you know.

Charles · 1 year ago

Great post, Louis.

An interesting aspect is that there is a correlation with size of company.

The smaller companies (the startups, the agile brainy entrepreneurial ventures) are 90% to 100% Obama.

The larger companies (HP, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe) are still overwhelmingly for Obama, but more like 75% to 90%

Mona N. · 1 year ago

Reason No. 8927394378 I love Silicon Valley and tech. :)
Thanks for this, LG!

Guillaume Lebleu · 1 year ago

I run some queries with non-tech companies such as Wachovia, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Lehman Brothers and also found an overwhelming bias towards Democrats.

I think to conclude that geeks are more Democrats than other sectors would require a similar analysis for other sectors.

From my initial query with finance/banking names, what it looks to me is that people with enough education to work for corporate america lean towards democrats, not just geeks.

joe · 1 year ago

And in other news - the sky is blue

Amulek · 1 year ago

And now behold, I say unto you, that the foundation of the destruction of this people is beginning to be laid by the unrighteousness of your lawyers and your judges.