Do you forbid Saudi money being invested in Wall Street, companies, businesses, hospitals, universities?
So what are you suggesting?
US Tech should boycott Saudi money?
Just the Saudis or do you have a longer boycott list Ms. Swisher?
2
It is not only in technology where the Saudis have been attempting to buy influence in the US. While many Americans have been obsessed with the AIPAC influence on American policy, the Saudis have been investing billions in American universities, media and technology for years now. Why have we been asleep at the wheel ?
7
Note the Times article today in which tech companies can't be bothered to follow consistent, effective policies against child pornography, and even are eager to introduce more encryption, which, despite the quite real things that can be said in its favor, is a gift not only to abusers but to criminals of all sorts. If they aren't willing to put in the effort to distinguish between political dissidents and child abusers, why should we expect these companies to have the moral energy to reject working with abusive governments?
6
Saudi Arabia is starving millions in Yemen. These crimes are even worse than the butchering of a journalist.
Here’s how to get even with Salman and his ilk: go green, tax carbon, adopt electric cars powered by solar, wind, and nuclear energy, help other nations do the same. Then watch Saudi Arabia become poor, for all they have is oil and gas.
26
Hypocrisy.
3
b/c Pecunia non olet ("money does not stink"). In America, it seems we have never graduated from 'Greed is good'.
6
Because the current US administration tolerates Saudi demands in many facets...hate to quote Homer Simpson...d’oh
3
For the same reason we tolerate them in the weapons industry.. they are good for business Kara... Same goes for financial industry...Also they pay lobbyist good... very good
which is good for the bottom line
6
Why do we tolerate Suadi money...?Hmm...wait...its comingtome...wait...right there...
Oh yeah. Because we're a greedy lot,and we've abandoned most of our ideals to the Might Buck!
Look, IMO, Zuckerburg and Sandberg, et al, aka; Facebook are traitors. Its that simple. All of the Tech Industry, the monolith that we've given up most of everything we once held sacred - care about nothing but MONEY! And the Only For Profit, New-Age Oligarchs at their leadership don't care from where it originates. Period.
Ask the Techies what and why they went into the Biz, and 9 of 10 say to make lots of money. Oh sure, they do the whole "to make a difference" dance. But that difference is really to make oodles of money for themselves, first and foremost. And that alleged Lone 1 (of 10)...will soon turn once one of the Tech giants offers them a few billion for their App.
They are delusional to a fault, and they have dragged the rest of us into their delusions.
Saudi money, Russian money, Chinese money (or at least their labor, which translates into more money) doesn't matter. If a Pick-a-Place 3rd world despot could afford the cash outflow - the Tech industry would accept it. In fact, if the Tech industry was in force when the Anti-Apartheid movement rose-up in South Africa and around the Western world, and SA was a big tech investor, its a sure thing the Tech industry would be working real hard to stamp out that movement.
6
Why do we tolerate the Saudis at all, in anything, given their history? Oh yeah, O-I-L = MONEY$$$
2
Every penny going to SA is subsidizing fundamental Wahhabism and worldwide radical Islamic terrorist activity. Quite literally, supporting the folks who made 9/11 happen.
12
Why do we tolerate Saudi money in anything?
2
Why do we tolerate Trump in the WH?
3
Why do we tolerate Saudi Arabia at all?
3
China must be breathing a sigh of relief. Now the poor picked upon USA has someone else to blame on for their problems.
3
Saudi is off limits.
Look at even the amount of elite American boarding schools that "teach" the children of their dictatorial plutocracy and gladly accept their $.
Listen, Cuba is no paradise but their women have some rights and some basic needs are met. But, they are a pariah. Saudi Arabia literally still beheads "convicts", gives women minimal rights, genocides in Yemen, and well.....you know....we accept it.
12
You had no concern when the Saudis pumped millions into the Clinton Foundation in 2016. That money would have had longer lasting effects on this country. Why are you concerned now?
1
Just spit-balling here, but its because all tech billionaires care about is money.
2
Why do we allow Russian money? Chinese money? B/c the 1% are greedy and don't care about the country.
18
When young companies look for money they do not care (for most of them) where the investment money comes from. Sometimes it is difficult to really know where the money is coming from, sometimes it is easy and public. I happened to have the former occur with my Internet startup in 1996/7 (yes that early) where I found out much later that 250 million dollar investment was Russian (mob?). I not not very happy, but it was too late.
Vetting tech employees is a sisyphus endeavor. There will always be someone who need money. They will do something criminal to do that. It is just life.
I do think that companies need to make their data / systems much more difficult to access. They can start by not having binary access/no access rather have stratified levels of access on all data so that the more data you can see/manage the more vetting occurs. Also placing markers in data will help in the investigations should data be stolen.
It is silly to penalize a country outright. Money is fungible, they would simply invest via other vehicles, or side-funds, and Swisher should know this.
When it comes to investing we can penalize Saudi Arabia and China, overlook Israel's ongoing brutality towards the Palestinians, and perhaps keep the high-tech investing Russian oligarchs on the sidelines for later exposes. But the real problem is that labeling an investor by country of origin doesn't work. MBS is a murderer, so should all Saudi investors be shut out?
Demonizing people based on affiliation is simply wrong.
1
Maybe we need a ‘public option’ for the Internet. We have PBS stations, the U.S. Postal Service, why not a publicly owned, operated texting system, facebookesque family sharing site, other comment-sharing, messaging systems.
All of the Internet uses our air space for it’s towers, satellite communications systems. If we want security, privacy, better regulation, less investment from other governments, why not offer a public option for some of these Internet uses? Patent holders objecting? Well, we could start taxing the use of our airspace, change the patent laws, add an Amendment to the Constitution that all Internet usage is at the government’s....pleasure. “How Do You Like Me Now”, as the song goes.
2
It's not like we have not engineered back doors in OS/applications, processors and sniffers like Carnivore or what we do with GCHQ.
We pioneered this stuff and it has come back to haunt us because information is gold.
We own a lot of people in KSA too and they feed us the same kind of stuff
The Saudi’s are bullies for as long as there is oil. Our child president* loves to impress and befriend a bully. Removing Trump is the first step to removing their money from power. Buy electric and support legislation that encourages it’s flourishing. Did anyone say Landover plant?
Remove those in the pockets of oil. Everywhere.
1
It’s safe to assume everyone has spies.
You haven't said it yet, but it sounds like soon you'd be advocating a "total, complete" ban against employing in the tech sector anyone with an Arabic sounding name. Alas, Trumpism comes in many forms!
How can we complain about Saudi money and spies impacting US tech when we allow them to run our foreign policy and war machine? The US -Saudi war on Yemen continues with US weapons still being supplied along with US technical targeting and intelligence information, mid air refueling of bombers and no doubt much more on the ground US support that is not being revealed. The US is the key enabler in the Saudi's industrial scale slaughter (tens of thousands) and depredation of millions of human beings in Yemen and it seems quite okay with that. So by all means toss them out of Twitter but how about stopping their US enabled war on Yemen as well.
29
I guess the answer is very similar to the one Edmund Hillary gave when asked why he climbed Mt. Everest - “Because it’s there”.
These tech companies need money and take it from whoever, especially if it’s the highest bidder. I’m not saying it’s right - but you don’t need a more complex reason.
We've been in bed with the Saudis for a long time- well before the Trump Presidency.
We love oil and we love money, and the Saudis have both of those things in abundance.
Money makes the world go round. Money will likely send it down in flames.
1
"American" tech companies? No, they are not. They are transnational corporations, harvesting their users' data, and then selling it to unnamed companies (and countries!) for as much as they can get. This is the "business model".
Doesn't anyone remember Edward Snowden?!? He warned us about our government's data collection, and he was working as a private contractor. These "social media" companies don't care who's working for them, and have NO ALLEGIANCE to this country. Anyone who thinks otherwise is hopelessly naive. Witness glib, arrogant Mark Zuckerberg, sitting on his 4" pillow before Congress, arguing he could do whatever he wanted with any data he "collects".
WAKE UP. Today it's the 9/11 Saudis, and most probably the 2016/2020 russians, and the future NK and Chinese, and whoever wants to steal data. That's the "business model".
2
Why do we tolerate Saudi money anywhere? Thanks to a blind love for money and oil, Americans have been happily bought off for decades by the Saudis. Depriving women of the most basic civil rights? Public beheadings? Intentional bombing of Yemeni civilians? No problem! Send us your cash and oil, and you'll remain our dear friends. We'll even conveniently forget that the most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.
And please don't blame this just on the Republicans. Sure, the Bushes and Trumps love the Saudis, but so do the Clintons, who accepted $10-25 mil. from the Saudi kingdom for their foundation, according to its website.
And then there is President Obama, who approved over $100 bil. in arm sales to the Saudis, greenlit the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen and continued to support it long after it was clear the Saudis were targeting civilians. As a result, Yemen is now the site of the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
We also can't forget the good old NYTimes, which was a happy co-sponsor of the Saudi kingdom's annual investment conference before MBS killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Sure, it's odious that tech companies continue to take Saudi money. But as long as we're calling them out, let's hold other American institutions to the same standard.
1
Why are we talking about tech as if its architecture was not intended for this very purpose, regardless of who sits behind the one-way mirror. ISIS is a small-fry threat compared to the threat big tech poses for long term human well-being.
1
Michael Moore told us many years ago.
He used public facts.
How did we not listen?
5
“When will we learn?“
Never, or at least not until a learning based on truth, is restored. We’re eye and lung witnesses to a time when truth is under attack. We can’t afford this. Not now. Redefining truth won’t stop climate change.
Fake news Putinessca won’t satisfy our desire or need for truth.
When Orwell was an eye witness to Stalins truth destruction tactics, he did not have a former time to refer to. Even as 1984 sells better than ever, we fall under a spell of top down post truth politics. Wake up, or prepare for the great unpleasantness that eerily knocks on the door. Our future is what we make it.
1
Tech has no ethics, we all know that.
1
Why do we tolerate Saudi money anywhere? The only money dirtier is that from Russia and China.
Same reason we tolerate outsourcing to overseas firms.
Why do we enlist hundreds of thousands of H1B Visa low cost workers when millions of Americans are on the sidelines or in the game but earning 50% of what we earned in tech 20 years ago? Race to the bottom trumps loyalty to America because it was fine to ship so many IT jobs overseas ten years ago (after training your replacement) but now they are here on our shores not only taking the best jobs but shipping a lot of the earnings back to India. But you’re racist if you discuss this topic because giving good jobs away to foreigners is good for business and as ISC2 would say “we have a shortage of three million cyber security professionals.” If this was true IT wages in the middle would go through the roof vs having 60 too many applicants per job. There is a shortage of cheap labor - that has the corporations scared.
Then Governor Murphy travels to India to find investments for NJ tech while providing millions of tax dollars to fund IT programs in grades 1-12. It’s a viscous cycle.
So many smart journalists in tech but none are Wired into what’s happening on the ground to the 99% who are not Uber wealthy. Take a break from endless fascination on billionaires and investigate what is happening to small businesses and gig workers, many without healthcare, who are barely getting by.
1
In America, the vast majority of businesses are amoral. In tech, all businesses are amoral. Making money is king, queen, and the royal family. Nothing else matters.
3
The bad things happen after somebody sells his or her soul to the devil for the money.
Of course, there is no real devil but just a symbolic figure.
Those who sell out their principles for the cash will in the very end have nothing of value in their possession.
Simply put, American business lacks the ethical.and moral turpitude to turn down money, no matter where it.comes from. In American for most business people it is about short term.profitability and access.to capital. Money is blind, and there is a woeful.lack.of business ethics and.morality.
While I usually disagree with Kara Swisher, much of her criticism of Mohammed bin Salman and the Saudi government is appropriate. It makes a lot of money selling fossil fuel, adding to the global heating which is causing over a hundred thousand deaths a year, and some predict that from 2030 to 2050 the increased deaths to approximate a quarter of a million a year. Instead of calling it "dirty money," shouldn't we call its revenue from oil "blood money"?
Some commenters here pointed out the Saudi government's genocide in Yemen and its killing of Jamal Khashoggi; it's long history of coercion and violence is evil.
For the Saudi rulers, the government protects them from getting the death penalty they richly deserve. From the rulers' viewpoint, this is a feature, not a bug.
1
Thanks to an insatiable desire for money and oil, the U.S. has long been a willing victim of Saudi bribery. Why should we expect the tech sector to be any different?
The American government, major charitable foundations and leading cultural and medical institutions have regularly taken money from the Saudis without regard to the troubling aspects of their authoritarian apartheid state.
The Saudis' deprivation of the basic civil rights of women and their public beheadings and inhumane war against Yemeni civilians have all been ignored as long as the cash and oil is flowing. We've even conveniently forgotten that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.
And we have both Republicans and Democrats to blame for this immoral normalization of the U.S. relationship with "our dear friends" in Riyadh. Yes, the Bushes and Trumps are tight with the Saudis, but the Clintons also have accepted $10-25 mil. from the Saudi Kingdom for their foundation, according to the foundation's website.
And Pres. Obama sold more than $100 bil. in arms to the Saudis, greenlit their bombing campaign in Yemen, and continued to support it long after it became clear the Saudis were targeting civilians.
It's reprehensible that tech companies are accepting Saudi money. But as long as we're calling them out, it's only fair to hold our government and leading charitable and cultural institutions to the same standard.
3
Saudi Money in high tech is relatively harmless . Saudia Arabia does not have an industry to which it could transfer what it leans from investing in US policies.
Chinese Money in high tech is much more serious. It has the infra structure, industries, and technologies to transfer whatever it learns to its industry - to pass the US by 2025 (the goal of Mr. Xi)
Investigate what happened to Alta Devices in Silicon Valley, founded in 2007. Acquired in 2013 by a Chinese company In 2018 the company set a record for solar energy conversion efficiency. In 2019 its Chinese owner shut it down, having acquired its technology
6
You know I am very skeptical, which is a nice way to put it, about the Saudis. Writers in this paper even made connections between geopolitical climate denialism and the oil interests. It's crazy that a one-man wrecking crew of a country that did what it did to Khasoggi is allowed to come on the stock exchange.
1
...cause we believe in global integration and free trade as a foundation for peace, prosperity, and progress.
1
Large organizations - corporations or otherwise - tolerate Saudi money for the same reason they would tolerate mob money, drug money, ISIS money or any other money: because there is a lot of it. When it is not a sufficiently large amount, an organization gets more benefit from making a big show of publicly refusing the money, but nothing sanitizes money or salves the conscience quicker than raising the amount of money offered to an enormous sum. People may have ethical standards, but large organizations do not. Whether it is protecting pedophile priests or sharing technology or supporting a politician or any other decision, the uninterrupted flow of large sums of cash is THE determining consideration.
4
Taking money from foreign countries, foreign dictators (and other bad actors) is not necessarily a new phenom. However, the scale is certainly new. This is not different from many other evils we had in the past. Slavery was not invented in USA, but the scale was. Similar to those evils, hopefully this evil will also come to pass, but without fratricidal war.
1
No one is forced to take Saudi money. These are voluntary transactions by private companies. The government should not force private Americans to discriminate based on national origin.
1
Well, it’s a sovereign wealth fund so it not exactly private as we would refer to it?
1
Does tech have any values except bales of money?
If so, what could those values possibly be?
Seriously, I have no idea.
4
Well Kara, I guess it's because we haven't established "People's Counsels" at the big tech companies; groups of woke citizens who can winnow out the bad cash investments from the good cash investments.
While they're at it maybe they can ensure there's no money from evangelical Christians allowed in tech, too. Then let's ban money from anyone who doesn't buy into modern gender theory; think of the damage it will do to our kids?!
Just make sure every investment decision is framed through a woke lens.
Once we do that, the power of the tech oligarchs will be checked, Saudi money will go find some other place to multiply, and we can all go to bed safe and secure in the knowledge that our comrades in the "Peoples Counsels" are keeping us safe from bad people.
4
"Why do we tolerate Saudi money in tech?"
The US economy and our lifestyles are built on taking any and all money from outside the US, whether it be tech or financing of US debt.
Tech and military provide disproportion shares of our economy. Foreign investment keeps our government solvent (forever indebted, but operating) well beyond our means.
The prices on our morality are well established.
4
I am in total agreement with you. When will we learn? Continue to be brave and keep writing. Thank you.
Because there is so much of it.
The USA has the best government and regulations that money can buy.
8
Saudi, China, Russia, Israel and who knows how many countries have infiltrated plenty of companies - it’s funny that when it suits our purposes as in Stuxnet, no one seems to have a problem, in fact we feel like geniuses.
So this is a simplistic piece which in my opinion misses the geo strategical interests that all countries have in those systems - Saudi is our ally last time I checked and ganging up exclusively on them has a whiff of racism
It would be better for us to focus on the countries who are really trying to harm us
2
Saudi Arabia is not our friend. We may happen to travel along the same path from time to time, but the long term interests of the Royal Family do not match those of the American public.
11
Because money's greatest power is to allow bad people to do bad things at the expense of those who don't have it.
15
Excellent opinion to which i entirely agree upon, though i believe the answer has more to do with a long-awaited law enforcement on big techs rather than arabia's (or russia's) distorted attitudes. Pecunia-non-olet strategy mixed to a new uncharted era of political relations between US and arabia do the rest. A new administration could make things change?
1
Why Do We Tolerate Saudi Money in Tech?
Because it's money.
Tech frequenty cloaks itself in libertarian / free market ideals which also conveniently works to support ill-considered and amoral motivations and funding.
You can't compete and "change the world" if you're going to get all twisted up in notions right and wrong and there's a "free market" to right all wrongs anyway.
12
Look at the bright side.
If they continue to invest in the likes of WeWork and Uber all that money in the Saudi coffers, from the Aramco IPO will be gone.
7
@MJG There a key flaw in this statement: 'where will the money be gone to'? Into the banks of the other investors of Wework, Uber etc. The Saudis are not the only 'bad guys'. Even US investors dont care where the technology is used as long as it leads to good return on investment.
1
The Saudis can buy as much of any Tech company’s publicly traded securities on the open market as they want. Even if direct investment from their sovereign wealth fund into both private or public companies was made illegal they could still invest in a fund (like they did with SoftBank’s Vision Fund) that has a mandate to invest in U.S. tech.
Just a really naive opinion piece.
4
@Pono The subject was foreign nationals working inside tech companies (for foreign interests), NOT foreign investment.
6
It’s not just tech but why do we tolerate them at all. Women don’t have equal rights. They do not support democracy. They do not support a free press . They torture and murder defenseless journalists. It is more likely tied to underground payments to our politicians , businesses that get military orders , and the fear of having our oil supply cut to our connection that correlated to a cover up It would be better in the long term not to have them at all they can sell all their bonds and real estate. They need us more then we need them . We don’t need the Saudis or Iranians in their current form to be part of our future. Go electric buy Tesla and send dictators home once and for all.
21
So many folks with absolutely no skin in the game want to nationalize our privately built and publicly owned software crown jewels.
You don't want to invest these companies then you don't get to nationalize their decisions.
This is one of those interesting times when we can quote the ever-wise Obama: "You didn't build that" - so leave it alone
2
You kept repeating the word: “private” over and over but it is a sovereign wealth fund.
We tolerate it because we have become a country , and we elect "leaders" , that place money above all else. I recall an article in The NY Times from 2012 "Software Meant to Fight Crime Is Used to Spy on Dissidents" - detailing how dictatorships use our software to jail and kill the opposition. That was 7 years ago. China is the economic powerhouse it is today because greedy US companies moved so much of their manufacturing there - despite them being a dictatorship and a communist one at that. Why don't we support Hong Kong? Why did the Clinton Foundation accept millions of dollars from countries with horrible human rights abuses? We do we turn a blind eye to Saudi Arabia when they condemn LGBTQ people to death? The answer? money, money, money. Our moral compass is broken and I am not sure what it will take to fix it.
35
@Questioning Everything
Well put QE. I completely agree with you.
How do we fix our broken moral compass?
Better education, across the country.
It will take time, but we will get there.
7
How about exposing Chinse funding of U.S. companies that end up serving the interests of the Chinese Communist Party?
16
@Albela Shaitan
They own alot of apartments but don’t want to give their names. They hide behind LLC a corporation buying an apartment. Thousands of apartments the Communist dictators and families have bought hiding behind a Corp name in NYC and every major city
4
The best way to get what you want is to buy the company. Some clichés just fit like a knife. Uh, a glove.
5
"Money speaks". Nothing new but it doesn't mean we ought to close our eyes to it's corrupted ways, buying consciences and souls,wholesale or not. But being entirely transactional 'a la Trump', doing business with the Saudis, especially with assassin prince Salman, is outrageously irresponsible. And dangerous. What is Dorsey thinking? (the same goes for the other Silicon Valley Tech Companies, ready and willing to sell their souls 'a la Faust'. Avarice is relentless, ethics notwithstanding. And crime seems to pay, right? What a spectacle, stink and skunk.
5
Not that it matters, but I think that Ms Swisher is among the smartest & most insightful columnists - on a strong team overall.
HOWEVER, half the time, I think she gives these columns one "precious" hour and has as goal #1 (with no obvious #2) "Get the readers riled up," i.e., be simplistic!
Just as the Times did a major public service in pointing out that a "wealth tax" probably would get shot down by today's Supreme Court, ... SURELY Ms. Swisher recognizes that we really don't have a constitutional mechanism in place or that could be put in place to "vet investors."
Not to mention that Bill Gates would drop his liberal "veneer" and scream bloody murder if he couldn't profit from "new money," however tainted.
Seriously, BDS would just LOVE to go after any company where there are Israeli investors. I'm not dragging that in - I share Ms. Swisher's revulsion with all things Saudi (at its upper echelons), but this is just insane.
Remember when having attended a single meeting when one was 18 could ruin one's career?! This is uncannily similar. Yes, MBS came on the stage with at least PR-penned hints that he DID want to move S.A. from the 12th century to at least the 19th.
And maybe he did.... But think about. Who's gonna say, "Your money is no good here!" ?
You like Trump or anyone venal enough to work for him in that role? I surely don't?
You want to poll Facebook account-owners? ... There is NO even remotely plausible way to "redline" "bad actors" in this connection.
As long as you have cash, you can do anything. Even if you don’t pay your bills.
16
Are we speaking about the country that was directly responsible for 9/11, a crime for which they have never been held accountable?
44
@Freestyler
Exactly.
9/11 family member here. Thank you for this. Thank you for remembering.
A large group of 9/11 families continue to sue SA on this very basis, and continue to get stone-walled by US officials: three administrations, 18 years and counting, still won't give up the intel.
Saudi attorneys in US court for every motion, and you know they are going to make sure they do everything in their power to make sure nothing comes to light.
But they -- SA -- and even US officials -- are sorely mistaken if they think the families are going away. This suit is filed, it has siblings and children attached to it, so even as parents and spouses get old and die, the next generation will continue to fight for the truth. The whole truth.
For our Andrea (age 25) and all the others ... there will be justice ... one day.
14
@jazz one your way more than welcome. I was in New York that day, and I will never forget. Nor will I forget those who were responsible for that day.
Their money is in our k-12 school system as well. Check out Newton, Mass.
6
Clarify the premise.
Why do we tolerate Saudi Money.
4
One who pays the piper calls the tune!
All they have is money.... and oil, and they make US arms dealers rich, and they pal around with Kushners and Trumps and Bushes.
28
So the reason that the tech industry has all of these unbelievable valuations is that the Saudis, having nothing better to do with their money or having no clue what is going on, are pumping their money into them? Wow, who knew?
11
For the same reason we tolerate Israeli involvement, Chinese involvement, Malaysian involvement, Indonesian involvement and involvement by many other countries in a wide variety of sensitive "American" technical, financial or scientific fields. Money talks.
9
“The love of money is the root of all evil.” Hello? This is not a new thing, but it seems to take some people by surprise in every generation — including the ones who are supposed to be familiar with the Bible.
13
It's difficult to critique the morals of tech industry's relationship with Saudi Arabia when the US Government has a long history of collecting hundreds of billion dollars in arms deals from Saudi Arabia.
Why do we tolerate it? Because the officials we elect tolerate it.
47
compared to the Chinese nationals giving our defense electronics or high tech secrets to the Chinese government and Chinese competitors, this is far down in terms of concern.
Yes, spying on dissidents is bad.
Yet, China is detaining and disappearing literally millions of their citizens. And, stealing our secrets. Scary.
That is way more disturbing.
7
The U.S. tolerates all kinds of bad money. Those South Americans putting their money into Miami are mostly those fleeing paying their fair share of taxes in their home countries. Delaware's secrecy laws are a magnet for dirty money. The Chinese who invested in NYC and West Coast real estate weren't saints. And the list runs on.
Why does the U.S. tolerate this? Because the U.S. is only too happy to take other people's money.
Tech, in particular, is like the movie business. If you're not an insider, you lose your shirt investing in it.
17
The point is even if they get the latest technology, they don’t have the ability to use it. A good example: they have bought more than 100 billion dollars of advanced weapons from the West, but could not use them in detecting Iranian missiles and now US servicemen are manning their radar and defense stations. I am not much worried about their technological spying.
4
I am waiting patiently for Quantum computing to be announced as capable of solving problems whose solutions elude us. As nasty as Saudi is I am more concerned about the world's dearth of means to accomplish elementary advances. The idea that a Cloud Kitchen with hip stupid dishes excites critical admiration is, well, not exactly soulful. I worked in various UN agencies for a spell and all I can say is that with the US currently ill-disposed a vast vacuum exists and I thought technology might be helpful. Back to the drawing board.
6
Operative word: money. The end.
6
Why do we tolerate the Saudis at all? Oil have to think about that.
24
Why do we tolerate the Koch brothers buying of elections? Fix that and you have a shot at doing something about this. Until you keep big money out of government you won't make a dent in the investing world.
74
@Steve Agreed, but we must also raise issues in order to some day resolve them.
8
Simple. They are Don's friends.
27
They are and have long been very close to the Bushes.
22
@Theodore R Yes, the ONLY people in the United States able to fly (OUT of this country!) on 9/12, per order of g.w.bush.
8
@Roland Berger Only five comments in, and you beat me too it, haha! Cheers, Roland!
I think the same question applies to Chinese involvement in pretty much every tech company in Silicon Valley. Chinese (students) are flooding the tech campuses like there is no tomorrow and are being hired in droves.
The Chinese government, wields tremendous influence from the inside and outside in what goes around in tech and can even put more pressure on Apple then the FBI can for some reason. "Take that app down, or loose our money".
And then there is the excessive buying by the Chinese gov, who buys influence in one social network startup after the other (9gag, tiktok) and influence the minds of a new generation in the West with lousy moderation unless it is within their own tightly controlled borders or about Hong Kong and whatnot.
The only network where the Chinese have no control yet is Facebook (or do they), but since Mark does his own eroding of democracies around the world, it must please the Chinese, the Saudis and the Russians.
33
Why do we tolerate Saudi money in tech? "We" don't. Tech founders do because, for all of their talk about just wanting to build benign platforms and "connect the world", they are in this for the cash and influence, not the greater good. And while sane people might despise grotesque Saudi despots for everything from their violent oppression to their gold-leaf gaucheness, leaders in government and tech see customers with deep pockets.
58
Saudi money is in all likelihood naive money. Chasing the ghost kitchen idea is an illustration. Ghost kitchens aren't tech. They are just kitchens with an optimization app.
It baffles me that non-tech businesses like WeWork slap on the tech label and immediately get high valuations. It's as if investors forget about competitive pressures that will compete away any surplus quickly. Just because Facebook and Google had first-mover advantages doesn't mean that any company has it as long as they use technology.
23
@Staffan Canback Saudi money is buying access and influence, just as another response noted that CHINA money is all over the place in Silicon Valley as well. China is buying access and influence. Neither of them are for profit VC/PE funds chasing high risk/high return investments. They're are advancing their political goals and undermining US policy. China is outright stealing US technology. The US has been a naive fool in the way we gave China access to our economy. But then again Economists often ignore reality, and prefer to live in their hypothesis and theories. Business elites don't really care about patriotism, they care about $$$.
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It's all about greed and it's out of control. Time to investigate, create new privacy laws ( like the EU's GDPR), prosecute, and not sell out what's left of our democracy to the evil self-interests who care only for themselves. We are sitting on a time bomb in Silicon Valley.
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@Gary And it’s not just the Saudis. How about the Chinese?
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@Gary But who would do it? Our federal government is corrupt and, when it comes to regulating the internet or "social media" companies, incompetent, as well. I look to CA AG Becerra as a hopeful "power source" for demanding rule-of-law compliance, and ethical standards in dealing with "tech" companies.
"We'll see what happens."
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