It’s safe to say that 2016 election cycle has been like no other and, frankly, disturbing for a number of reasons. We are particularly concerned that the high drama has distracted from the important work of a campaign season—the public debate over the important issues of our time. Nowhere has this debate been more absent than in the tech and startup community, which is ironic, given the importance of tech and startups to our economy.
We’ve written before about this depressing lack of debate. But now we decided to do something about it. With our friends at Tusk Ventures, we combed through the candidates’ positions on the most pressing issues facing tech companies: privacy and security; intellectual property and patent reform; education, talent, and the workforce; and broadband access and infrastructure.
The full report is here. In short, some of the candidates did ok, some did not do well at all. Donald Trump pretty much failed across the board.
It’s notable that we were not able to give any of the candidates an A grade. It’s not just the candidates fault, of course. Our community, too, must hold their feet to the fire and ask them the hard questions that might not lead to sound-bite-ready answers on issues like encryption and surveillance, patent reform, and workforce development.
Read the full report card and share it. Let’s make sure the candidates know we’re paying attention.
