Addressing an open letter to President-elect Obama, technology pundit Sramana Mitra shows she knows a lot more about tech than she does about politics. Writing recently in Forbes, she says: "You have led a generation of youth in a historical upheaval. ... And what are you telling them? Following your example, you are telling them to engage in politics and community service, and you are reassuring them that the government will be taking care of them. I have a problem with this philosophy. I have a problem with the entitlement epidemic that will be the unintended consequence of your charismatic and intensely compelling rhetoric."
What to make of this bizarre conflation of Obama's call for folks to participate in politics -- a laudable, but hardly original, notion -- and Mitra's vision of an all-nurturing welfare state suckling a nation of wastrels on the federal teat? Even as a straw man, that characterization distorts Obama's domestic agenda. It's also a tad rich, given the "entitlement epidemic" infecting economies across the globe.
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So who, in Mitra's view, should Obama try to entitle? Tech
entrepreneurs, of course! "To create 5 million jobs, you need at least
50,000 entrepreneurs -- leaders -- to step up to the plate," she says.
"What, President Obama, is your message to this group that you so
desperately need help from to deliver your beloved country out of this
economic mess? That you will take the fruits of their toil and hand it
out to those on welfare?"
Using government policy to stimulate entrepreneurship is a fine
idea. And Mitra is correct in suggesting that high tech is, if not
quite the garden of earthly delights she says it is, vital to our
economic prosperity. But there is no reason to think that bumping the
marginal tax rate a few percentage points would despoil all that
entrepreneurial fruit.
Taxes are at the crux of Mitra's creed. Concerns also are mounting
that an Obama administration might change the tax treatment of "carried
interest," which would eat into private investors' profits.
In fact, Obama has offered hints about what he will do to support
entrepreneurs. He's proposed ending capital gains taxes on investments
in small and startup businesses. It's also worth noting that Congress
is likely to pass legislation that would help VC-backed companies
qualify for federal loan guarantees, fee waiver grants and other
benefits available under the U.S. Small Business Administration's
"innovation research" program.
Can Obama help foster another tech boom while making the tax code more progressive?
Yes, he can.
It's wearisome having to repeatedly whack Yahoo! Inc. co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang on the noggin as if he's some recalcitrant teenager. And yet it must be done.
Quoth Yang recently at the annual Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco,
according to the BBC: "To this day the best thing for Microsoft to do
is buy Yahoo. I don't think that is a bad idea at all, at the right
price, whatever that price is. We're willing to sell the company."
Gosh, that doesn't sound like a bad idea, does it? And maybe at the
right price! Whatever that is. "We wanted to negotiate a deal," he went
on to say.
Yang's mishandling of negotiations over Microsoft Corp.'s $47 billion offer and subsequent miscalculation of the antitrust risks around allying with Google Inc.
have severely undermined shareholder confidence in his leadership. And
this sort of cringe-inducing ingenuousness threatens to finish it off.
All chief executives spin the truth into treacly confections, like
so much cotton candy. But the good ones know when to serve it straight.
Yang fought a rear-guard action against Microsoft's offer virtually
from the day it was made in February. When Yahoo! finally did enter
talks, it priced itself out of a transaction. Until Microsoft withdrew
its bid this summer, Yahoo! leaders stuck to the legally prescribed
script in these affairs -- that they are open to any strategic
alternative that would maximize shareholder value -- while sending every
signal that they'd rather dance alone.
Nothing wrong with that. Except the result for Yahoo! shareholders.
After all, if the best thing all along has been for Microsoft to buy
Yahoo!, as Yang says, then why didn't he sell the company when its
stock was at $29 a share eight months ago rather than floating
desperation balloons when its stock is at $11.77? As even he might
concede, that doesn't sound like a good idea at all.
