Big Tech’s Big Blinders
The two dozen tech geniuses who endorsed Joe Biden in a recent New York Times letter showed an obliviousness all too typical of the industry. Biden and running mate Kamala Harris “listen to experts before setting public policy,” they claim — which evidently means they’ll favor the tech industry’s preferences when it comes to immigration policy.
The 24 winners of the Turing Award, a k a the Nobel Prize of programming, don’t run the Big Tech companies. But they clearly join in the industry’s upset over H-1B visas, which normally allow for the recruitment of immigrants with specialized skills — until President Trump suspended them in April and later extended that through year’s end.
Millions of Americans are out of work thanks to a virus that’s jumped around the world, and Big Tech is upset that it can’t hire as much cheaper foreign labor.
Unemployment has dropped from the 23 million jobless when Trump stopped the H-1Bs, but it’s still 13.6 million. In all, the administration figures its suspension of various work visas (also including many H-2Bs, J-1s and L-1s) will have freed up an estimated 525,000 jobs for struggling Americans.
Meanwhile, the tech industry has done enormously well by the pandemic and lockdowns, with Amazon in particular booming.
It’s baffling that a group of geniuses can’t see how plainly dumb it is to be complaining about travel restrictions in a global pandemic — especially when their companies have prospered throughout the Trump years. (Then again, as Eric Spitznagel notes nearby, Silicon Valley’s bigwigs often pride themselves on their lack of empathy.)
Along with top execs from Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, Tesla CEO Elon Musk slammed Trump’s H-1B move in June. Meanwhile, Musk’s net worth skyrocketed this summer to make him one of the five richest people in the world.
And most Americans just don’t see the gripe. An NPR poll found 78 percent support, broadly bipartisan, for temporarily closing the border except for essential travel. Over half also support a ban on foreign guest and seasonal workers.
In short, Big Tech’s reasons for supporting Biden look to most people like a point in Trump’s favor. It’s not so much about “listening to experts” as it is recognizing that the experts can be as shortsighted and selfish as anyone.