Silicon Insider: Bush and Technology

B U R L I N G A M E, Calif., Jan. 9, 2000 -- Mr. President-elect, when it comes to high-tech, you are missing the point. Already.

One might imagine — given that the electronics industry is America’s largest manufacturing employer, the key dynamo of all the country’s economic expansions of the last decades and about the only positive force in itsinternational trade balance — that presidents may actually take thetime to learn something about the subject.

I doubt that presidents Reagan or Bush ever knew the difference between gate arraysand Gatorade. Bill Clinton, in his usual manner, made a few empty gesturesin the right direction (the White House Web site), but he never did seem to getit himself — indeed, a few well-chosen URLs might have saved him fromimpeachment.

Of Clinton’s two memorable gestures toward tech, NAFTA and Web-enabling the schools, the former was a GOP initiative and the latter showed he knew nothing about the digital economy.

Cluelessness Not, in Itself, a Bad Thing

Of the two candidates in the most recent, endless, election, Al Goreobviously understood tech far better than George W.

In fact, to my mind,the single most surprising image of the whole campaign (besides Al’s drunkendancing on loser night) was the cocktail napkin doodling Gore did oninformation technology for Red Herring magazine. Unfortunately, the doodle,like the campaign, showed that Gore got technology, but he didn’t get tech.His was the statist world of business book gurus, not the entrepreneurialreality of high tech’s mean streets.

In the end, he would have been adisaster for U.S. electronics, smothering it to death in a well-meaningregulatory embrace.

That brings us to our new president. On the campaign trail, and in thedebates, George W. proved, in regards to tech, to be … well, clueless.That, in itself, is not a bad thing. After all, many veteran SiliconValleyites would argue that the worst thing that ever happened to this townwas that we got noticed by Washington. Up until then — say, 1985 — we had apretty free run.

And that Wild West era put in place most of the structuresthat keep the Valley thriving to this day — in spite of Washington’sendless and usually misguided meddling.

Invited to Austin for All the Wrong Reasons

So the real question is: will Dubya listen to the right people?

And there, so far, the news isn’t good.

It’s one thing to bring in experienced veterans to fill your Cabinet. In asnake pit like D.C. the more experienced jungle fighters you have on yourteam the greater the likelihood of your survival.

Fortunately, it doesn’twork that way in high-tech. There, extra stripes on your sleeve are usuallya liability. For proof of that, look at a list of the most important techcompanies of each of the last five decades. The one thing leaps out at youis that almost no company ever makes the list twice.

In other words, if you are on top of the pile today, chances are you’ll bean also-ran tomorrow. Remember how Microsoft was going to rule the world? HowApple was going to come back and reclaim the field? How Intel wasunstoppable? How Amazon was the Next Big Thing?

If you want to know where high-tech is going, never ask the current winners.They can only tell you where it’s been. Instead, seek out the hot insiders,the fast-moving newcomers, and the mavericks. And the only way to find themis to know the industry intimately.

The Way Things Were

That brings us to last week in Austin, where George W. Bush held his firsthigh-tech summit. I only had to read the invite list, and see theirsatisfied faces on TV, to get a sinking feeling in my stomach. It was thestandard line-up of starchy past-their-primes, bouillabaissee with a fewobvious campaign contributors and just enough of the right folks (CarolBartz, Jim Morgan, Gregory Slayton) to make you assume they were invited forall the wrong reasons.

Consider the list. Michael Dell of Dell Computer, premier player in theworld’s most spectacularly dying high tech industry. Craig Barrett ofIntel, a smart boss dangerously lacking in the blood lust needed to win in chips — Athlon anybody? Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard, who used the occasion toargue for more women in technology — when she should have been back in PaloAlto proving that a woman won’t run the world’s greatest company into theground. Neo-V.C. Jim Barksdale, who tarnished the jewel in the Valley’scrown, Netscape. Steve Case of AOL, a late arrival who managed to musclehis way in — proving once again that it never hurts to be a motorcade away fromCapitol Hill. Lou Gerstner, who managed, after 15 years, to get IBMback in personal computer just as the industry is going out.

John Chambers of Cisco, perhaps the country’s best businessman, was alsothere. He told reporters that the crucial issue of our time was “theavailability of a skilled workforce,” i.e., let more immigrants in, ratherthan force us to train aging locals. Chambers might take a look at all theskilled workers working at those army of new competitors that have Cisco intheir gunsights.

Close Your Eyes and Point

The individual who got the most attention, though, was Floyd Kvamme, whosename rings in ears of Valleyites out of some antediluvian past. Thehandsome, polyglot Kvamme was one of the bright young things at Fairchild40 years ago. He jumped to National Semiconductor, where he ran itsill-fated mainframe computer operation; then on to Apple, where he wasrumored to be in line for the CEO slot until he got squeezed out during theJobs-Sculley contretemps (actually, not a bad recommendation). After thathe became a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins — one so successful that noone’s heard much of him in a dozen years.

But Kvamme has always been politically astute. And easily the smartestthing he’s done in years was to buck Democratic Silicon Valley (and arch-Dempartner John Doerr) and back the Bush team early. His reward, it isrumored, will be the job of Technology Czar in the new administration.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve liked and respected Floyd for 20 years. Butis he the future of Silicon Valley and high-tech? Or merely a shining exampleof tech’s past getting a trophy for exhibiting that loyalty the Bushes solove? At least he’ll be able to explain to Dubya how chips work.As for the impact of these summit attendees on the new president, one canonly have dark thoughts. Bush reportedly came out of the meeting and toldAmericans to hold on to their tech stocks. Swell, and to think I wasstarting to get optimistic about the economy.

Some wise man once said that he’d rather be governed by people randomlyselected from the Boston phone book than by the faculty of HarvardUniversity. I feel the same way about technology policy. Mr. President,the next time you have a tech summit, for your invitation list please just closeyour eyes and point at pages in the American Electronics Associationdirectory. You, and we, will be much better off.

Michael S. Malone, once called “the Boswell of Silicon Valley,” is editor of Forbes ASAP magazine. His work as the nation’s first daily high-tech reporter at the San Jose Mercury-News sparked the writing of his critically acclaimed The Big Score: The Billion Dollar Story of Silicon Valley, which went on to become a public TV series. He has written several other highly praised business books and a novel about Silicon Valley, where he was raised. For more, go to Forbes.com. And you can talk back to Silicon Insider via e-mail or through an ongoing bulletin board.