The US President-elect and high tech

If you believe the popular media, you’ll probably see US President-elect Mr. Donald Trump as somebody who doesn’t really know much about anything; he has dictatorial tendencies; he is vindictive, he is politically incorrect most of the time; and he talks big and might not have shown much respect to women. Moreover, Trump has gone […]

If you believe the popular media, you’ll probably see US President-elect Mr. Donald Trump as somebody who doesn’t really know much about anything; he has dictatorial tendencies; he is vindictive, he is politically incorrect most of the time; and he talks big and might not have shown much respect to women. Moreover, Trump has gone through four bankruptcies to save his business and has avoided paying taxes – and might not have to pay any taxes for the next 18 years. As far as technology is concerned, Trump is not a high tech buff – certainly not the way Obama loved technology. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump doesn’t know how to use the computer! What about his tweets? Well, the rumor is that he dictates them to some lady in the background to send them out for him.
Do these negative qualities of Trump matter in his ability to lead the US? Here, I distinguish between a manager and a leader. Trump seems to know where he wants to take things and he probably has the wherewithal to get the right people to get the job done for him.
The US high tech world doesn’t think much of Trump. In fact, in July, just before the Republican Party’s convention, a group of over 100 tech leaders in the US published a letter saying that Trump “would be a disaster for innovation.” They attacked his proposed immigration policies, his racist remarks, and his repeated insults against women. They also said that Trump had a “reckless disregard for our legal and political institutions” and has “poor judgment and ignorance about how technology works.”
The letter reads: “We stand against Donald Trump’s divisive candidacy and want a candidate who embraces the ideals that built America’s technology industry: freedom of expression, openness to newcomers, equality of opportunity, public investments in research and infrastructure, and respect for the rule of law.” The group also stated that Trump’s policies would threaten to upend what attracts companies to start and scale in America; and distort markets, reduce exports, and slow job creation. The group also takes issues Trump’s views on “shutting down parts of the Internet.”
On the campaign trail, Trump felt that the US was obsolete in cybersecurity, with a promise to “crush” cyber adversaries and ensure the U.S. government’s unquestioned dominance of the web. He is also quoted as saying he would enforce stronger protections against Chinese hackers, and that “responses to Chinese theft will be swift, robust and unequivocal.”
The Defense One publication reported a few days ago that the stocks for defense contractors have skyrocketed following Trump’s election success. Republicans tend to favor traditional defense contractors over those based in places like Silicon Valley. That disposition may change the Defense Department’s recent efforts to tap nontraditional tech talent. During the campaign, Trump promised that his administration would fund NASA to lead the way into the stars.
Encryption would become a major issue for Trump. He sided with the court order that called for Apple to provide the US Federal Bureau of Investigation a “backdoor” into an encrypted iPhone used by a gun man, calling, in February, for a boycott of Apple products until the company unlocked the device.
Concerning the Internet, Trump’s proposal is that, being the developer of the Internet, the US should shut down Internet access to any country that is at war with the US. He does not support Net Neutrality wherein all Internet users get the same Internet access speed, independent of how much they pay to the Internet service providers (ISPs). He feels ISPs should be allowed to give faster speeds to people who pay more.
During the campaign, Trump’s rival Hilary Clinton, proposed that the US should leave the coordination of the domain name system to the Los Angeles-based company ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. She saw this as “a critical step towards safeguarding the Internet’s openness for future generations.” (ICANN is in charge of the Domain Name System (DNS) and of assigning IP addresses to top-level domains like .com, .net, and .org.) Trump, on the other hand, felt the US should control the Internet – period – and he objected to passing control to ICANN.
For high tech companies in the US, the H-1B visa is God-sent. It allows companies to bring in smart people from all over the world to help create technologies that are the mainstay of companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and so on. Trump wants high tech companies to make do with what is available within the US. His policy is that “Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the US, instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas.”