Now, with both men running for mayor, the tech industry is returning the favor.
In late June, more than a dozen executives, including Ali Row-ghani and David Wehner — chief financial officers of Twitter and Zynga, respectively — hosted a $100-a-plate fund-raiser for Mr. Chiu. The event, “Innovate SF,” brought in about $6,000, according to Mr. Chiu’s campaign.
Meanwhile, Ron Conway, a major investor in Twitter, aims to raise as much as $1 million for a political action committee that is expected to run television ads in support of Mr. Lee during the run-up to the Nov. 8 election, according to several San Francisco fund-raisers.
Under federal election laws, Mr. Conway can independently solicit unrestricted amounts of money on Mr. Lee’s behalf. He has raised thousands of dollars over the past few weeks, city records show, including a $1,000 donation from Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce, and a $500 donation from Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the media and real estate mogul based in New York.
“Ron has seen how effective Ed Lee has been in just a few months as mayor,” said Brian Brokaw, a political consultant working for Mr. Conway. “He recognizes that Ed Lee is a public servant, not a career politician, and hasn’t spent years accumulating a campaign war chest, so he’s committed to raising and contributing his own resources to support Ed Lee.”
Silicon Valley has exerted a powerful pull over national and state politics for more than a decade, but the mayoral campaigns for Mr. Lee and Mr. Chiu show how a new wave of booming start-ups in San Francisco has emerged as a major force on the local level as well.
The industry is realizing its political might in a variety of ways.
In March, Twitter negotiated a payroll tax exemption worth more than $30 million by agreeing to move into the blighted Central Market neighborhood, which officials hope to develop. Two months later, Zynga pressured the city into granting a separate tax break for companies that go public within the next two years.
Mr. Conway spent $35,000 to support the controversial sit-lie initiative, which passed last November. Michael Moritz, a partner at Sequoia Capital and one of the world’s pre-eminent venture capitalists, jolted San Francisco politics last year when he spent more than $250,000 to support a pension reform initiative that was bitterly opposed by unions and most of the political establishment. That measure failed, but Mr. Moritz now supports another pension reform effort, as well as the mayoral campaign of Jeff Adachi, the public defender.
“By far and away the biggest issue confronted by people from the tech industry — and it completely dwarfs the sit-lie/payroll/stock options stuff is pension reform,” Mr. Moritz said in an e-mail. “Whichever pension measure passes this fall, San Franciscans can thank Silicon Valley. Without pressure from the tech industry, San Francisco would just be closer to the abyss.”
Other tech veterans are experiencing firsthand success in San Francisco elections, an insular arena traditionally dominated by Democratic Party bosses, union leaders and entrenched political families. Mark Farrell, a venture capitalist, was elected to the Board of Supervisors in November. Another, Joanna Rees, is now one of a dozen leading candidates for mayor.
Mr. Chiu and Mr. Lee acknowledge that the growing industry represents a vast pool of young, wealthy voters. But their support, they say, is rooted in the fact that employment in San Francisco’s tech industry has shot up 60 percent since 2005, to more than 30,000 jobs.
gshih@baycitizen.org
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/us/02bctech.html