Tech takes a back seat at convention
Speaking to the Republican National Convention Youth Program, GOP executives from Silicon Valley and beyond said they supported Texas Governor George W. Bush for president because of his position on issues such as education, H1-B visas and what they called a thoughtful approach to Internet taxation.
Talk of moratoriums and invisible hands dominated the Technology Network-sponsored event, which took place in an auditorium on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.
"Don't do anything you don't have to," Floyd Kvamme, a partner in venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins said, when asked what role government should play in the tech world.
Bill Coleman, CEO of BEA Systems Inc., agreed the government should strive for a hands-off technology policy to avoid giving some companies an advantage over others.
"What government ought to do is not choose winners and losers but to facilitate an open environment," Coleman said.
So far, there have been few mentions of technology policy during major events at the convention, with Monday's main speakers, Laura Bush and Colin Powell, who both focused on education instead.
Kathy Behrens, managing partner of Robertson Stephens' venture capital management group, said education had attracted her to Bush in the first place.
The presidential nominee won her over several years ago, when he came to the Silicon Valley to talk about schools, Behrens said. During that conversation, Bush addressed the problems with teachers' unions and the whole-language teaching method, a common target of conservatives.
"He's willing to face the issues," she said, adding that she specifically liked Bush's goals of paying good teachers a premium, setting standards and adding competition to schools.
Clickaction.com president Gregory Slayton agreed that using education to bridge the gap between rich and poor should be a top Bush administration goal. "There is a digital divide, and it's a dangerous thing, and we have to overcome that."
The executives had mixed views on the future of Internet taxation, an issue the students seemed especially interested in in questions they submitted on cards. Bush supports the current moratorium on taxes.
Some, like Salesforce.com Chairman Marc Benoiff said he liked buying tax-free online, but he sympathized with local businesses losing money. He and others urged a complete revamp of the taxation system.
"We're going to have to be able to supplement that income, which is a very substantial amount of income," Benoiff said.
Meanwhile, columnist and venture capitalist Stewart Alsop, who participated in one of the discussions and moderated another, pointed out that the audience was actually much more tech-savvy than those on stage.
When Alsop asked how many people had traded music using Napster, most of the 150 students in the audience raised their hands. When he asked the same question to the onstage panel -- which consisted of Slayton, Behrens, Benoiff and Half.com's Josh Kopelman -- nobody said they had.
It was a good example of why the party should sharpen its tech focus, Alsop said. "The youth of our country know a whole lot more about what's going on in the computer industry than we do."