John Borthwick, CEO of the venture capital firm Betaworks, tells WIRED that he is skeptical about the feasibility and potential effectiveness of many Mamdani campaign proposals\u2014like free buses, or a city-owned grocery store pilot program\u2014and felt his answers tended to be \u201cvery general and nonspecific.\u201d But Borthwick adds that he found Mamdani \u201cvery compelling and friendly, and a smart, interesting person.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he’s very good at campaigning, and it also illustrates a massive vacuum within the Democratic party that he is very adeptly filling,\u201d Borthwick says. \u201cIt’s a vacuum of lack of new ideas, lack of new people, lack of views. And I think that there’s an idealism that he brings that is refreshing.\u201d<\/p>\n
A handful of questions focused on how a Mamdani mayoralty would affect the tech industry. Borthwick says he asked Mamdani how he would respond to the risk that artificial intelligence poses to jobs\u2014in particular, entry-level white-collar jobs\u2014over the next several years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m kind of amazed that this has not become already a campaign issue,\u201d Borthwick says. He says that Mamdani \u201cadmitted that this hasn’t been a focus of the campaign, but would need to be a focus if he was elected.\u201d But overall, Borthwick didn\u2019t feel Mamdani\u2019s answer was specific enough.<\/p>\n
Ryan says that he asked Mamdani about the \u201cstaggering increase\u201d in the number of tech workers<\/a> and startups<\/a> based in New York City in recent years. He says Mamdani \u201cacknowledged\u201d the prominence of New York\u2019s tech sector and talked about how the public sphere could learn from it. Ryan says Mamdani floated a few ideas, like having the city government use AI to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and introducing a progress-meter for 311 complaints resembling something like the Domino\u2019s pizza tracker<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Most of the conversation with Mamdani, however, focused on things that mattered to attendees as New Yorkers rather than businesspeople. Susan Lyne, cofounder and managing partner of BBG (Built by Girls) Ventures, tells WIRED that she thinks attendees \u201cwere there to understand who this guy is, who might be our next mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe tech industry actually doesn’t need any tax breaks,\u201d Ryan tells WIRED. \u201cWhat we do need is a city where all kinds of super smart people who are between the age of 20 and 40 want to come work.\u201d<\/p>\n In the first years after the pandemic, New York City attracted more<\/a> relocating tech workers than any city in the country, despite having some of the nation\u2019s<\/a> highest rent rates.<\/p>\n Mamdani was also asked about universal child care up to 5 years old, which he supports, and what his priority would be during his first 100 days in office, which he said would be free buses. He was also asked about his stance on charter schools.<\/p>\n What went unremarked upon during this meeting, however, is the online discourse railing against Mamdani, which one person who attended the meeting said has had \u201ca lot of influence\u201d in the tech world.<\/p>\n Much of the online discourse about Mamdani doesn\u2019t focus on specific policies. Frequently mentioned, however, are Mamdani\u2019s public comments about how billionaires would not exist<\/a> in a just society in which workers are paid fairly and moderating forces on wealth inequality exist. Individuals like Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan have responded by wearing shirts<\/a> that say \u201cWe should have more billionaires\u201d in the color scheme and style of Mamdani\u2019s campaign material. (Tan, however, has specifically<\/a> spoken out<\/a> against<\/a> Mamdani\u2019s critical position<\/a> on specialized high schools several times, calling the position \u201canti-Asian<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Borthwick, CEO of the venture capital firm Betaworks, tells WIRED that he is skeptical about the feasibility…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":158433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,90,86317,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,3229,15322,1595,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-158432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-national-affairs","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-regulation","19":"tag-silicon-valley","20":"tag-startups","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115055560353534052","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}