I like the citizenship angle. It parallels the “I took an oath to uphold the constitution”.
But one step short—Government _is-not_ a “company”. Full stop. The president works for the public. He’s our employee. All his Presidential records are our records. The only exception is national security, and only for as long as necessary.
I was thinking earlier that a big part of why musk’s team at doge is all kids who would be interns at any real company is that anyone with any real experience would say hell no to the kind of stuff they’re trying to do to production systems in the government. The US government isn’t Twitter and if Twitter goes down for an hour or a year, it’s not a big deal, but one late interest payment on treasury bonds cost the government tens of millions in 1979 and would likely be more like billions if not sparking a major market crash in 2025.
Just want to observe I read here only the other day that Silicon Valley isn't really the Silicon Valley it used to be. The Oligopolists occupied the space garage innovation occupied. They may have shifted roles, and Silicon Valley now refers to an entirely different vibe, than its roots.
In any case, national government and public governance is nothing like Silicon Valley old or modern, or VC/JV business. The point of this piece stands.
> That's why Musk and Trump are having so much trouble coming to grips with how this place works
I like to point out that--even within the standards of people who think government should be run like a company--all of Trump's experience is still at entirely the wrong kind of company.
If the US were analogous to a major publicly-traded company, one with distributed shareholders, a CEO that must avoid being fired by the board, etc... Then what Trump inherited is North Korea: The dictator can't be removed for incompetence, they can "fire" anyone on a whim, there are no audits, and the only real competition is infighting between the family for whoever can ingratiate themselves or steal control when the leader strokes out.
The brand of Silicon Valley itself is in the tank. A lot of talent is going to go elsewhere. And this isn't Musk or Trump's doing alone. All the VC folks and other CEOs who are explicitly or tacitly endorsing all this performative cruelty and corruption are killing the culture that made their wealth. They'll be fine, if bitter, but more of that talent is going to stay in Europe or Japan or India or Australia or wherever it might be. There will still be a draw, but the relative advantage of all the places that haven't taken the dystopian turn into authoritarianism has increased. And if the people who do come to SV are the ones indifferent to authoritarianism, it will poison the culture further. Frankly, authoritarianism is the province of angry mediocrities. These aren't the people who build a beautiful future.
It's probably a good thing if the people who built the culture and technology -- not the CEOs and investors but their employees -- learn their overlords are not kind and benevolent and start taking measures to protect themselves.
But one step short—Government _is-not_ a “company”. Full stop. The president works for the public. He’s our employee. All his Presidential records are our records. The only exception is national security, and only for as long as necessary.