After building the world’s leading online social network, taking his company public and cementing his position as one of the wealthiest 20-somethings on the planet, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is increasingly showing signs that he wants to exercise clout on public policy matters.
The 28-year-old billionaire is leading a new effort by prominent Silicon Valley figures to explore forming an ‘issues advocacy’ group that will focus on immigration reform, education and other matters that can affect the U.S. economy and, more specifically, the tech industry.
While he’s far from the first tech leader to dabble in politics or policy issues, Zuckerberg’s effort is noteworthy both because of his deep pockets and personal stature — as a symbol of hip Internet culture — and because he’s among the first of a new generation of Silicon Valley moguls to weigh in on the national stage.
‘If Zuckerberg decides he wants to apply the levers of politics, to make policy change happen, his impact could be extraordinary,’ said Dan Schnur, a veteran political analyst who has advised tech leaders.
To date, it’s unclear how far Zuckerberg wants to go in carving out a public role; he may simply provide financial backing for efforts that capture his interest. It can be risky, after all, for a business leader to become publicly associated with controversial issues that might alienate current or potential customers.
But Zuckerberg already has taken steps to extend his reach outside the tech world. He donated $100 million to help fix New Jersey schools and $500 million to the nonprofit Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
Earlier this year, he hosted a fundraiser at his Palo Alto home for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a potential GOP presidential candidate. Zuckerberg has also met twice with President Barack Obama — during a dinner with other tech luminaries and a ‘town hall’ meeting at Facebook.
Now the Facebook CEO is exploring creation of an advocacy group, reportedly in conjunction with other tech figures such as Reid Hoffman, the venture capitalist and co-founder of LinkedIn, and Joe Green, a former Zuckerberg college roommate and entrepreneur now with the Andreessen Horowitz venture firm.
The group has made no public statements, but a person familiar with their discussions confirmed they’ve sought advice from a bipartisan team of political strategists including Joe Lockhart, a former Clinton White House press secretary who worked for a year at Facebook, and national Republican consultants Jon Lerner and Rob Jesmer.
With its specific nature and tax status still to be determined, it’s unclear if the group would lobby lawmakers, support candidates or campaign to mobilize public opinion — or all three. But with an initial budget reported at $50 million, the group could wield significant clout. The person familiar with the effort said it will focus on issues that affect the U.S. economy over the long term, including immigration, education reform and scientific research.
Immigration is at the top of the list because it’s now under discussion in Washington, the person added. Those issues are also high on the agenda for other tech industry groups, which see better education and broader immigration opportunities as key to ensuring a supply of talented entrepreneurs and engineers. Zuckerberg recently cosigned a letter from more than 100 tech executives, organized by the industry group TechNet, who urged Obama and Congress to provide more permanent visas for ‘highly skilled’ immigrants to this country.
The tech industry already has several trade organizations that lobby in Washington, D.C. But veteran political strategist Bill Whalen, now a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, said a group like Zuckerberg’s could have more impact because it may support specific solutions to complex problems, without having to get broad consensus from the industry.
Zuckerberg is taking a different tack from Microsoft’s Bill Gates, who has focused his personal attention on philanthropy even as his company has lobbied on policy issues, according to Whalen. And to date, Zuckerberg has not shown any sign of following in the footsteps of Carly Fiorina or Meg Whitman — prominent tech executives who made failed attempts at running for public office.
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have also put their names and resources into education, health and environmental issues. But they aren’t as well-known for political activism.
Zuckerberg represents a new wave of activism by valley leaders, said Schnur, a former GOP consultant who now heads the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC.
In the 1970s, Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard founded the Silicon Valley Leadership Group to address regional transportation, education and economic issues. In the 1990s, venture capitalist John Doerr and others formed TechNet to lobby for tech-friendly policy on the national level, after rallying Silicon Valley against a state ballot measure that would have expanded shareholder lawsuits.
‘The people who formed TechNet were very well respected and very much admired, but they were not as well-known to the casual observer’ as Zuckerberg, Schnur said.
Zuckerberg is ‘probably one of the most prominent figures under 30 who is now stepping in’ to the policy arena, Whalen agreed. ‘I’ll be interested in how he uses his platform.’
