Louise Matsakis: I think there is just a lot of panic about what Mamdani represents, which I think is sort of this democratic upswell, this sort of backlash to the Trump administration. And I think also, particularly in New York City, it’s just a place where the politics have been toxic for so long, but because Mamdani is young, because he’s Muslim, because he’s identified as a democratic socialist, I think he’s just the perfect foil for all of these guys in Silicon Valley to be triggered, sort of projecting a lot onto him. It’s kind of like a Rorschach test. Totally.
Zoë Schiffer: I mean, White House, AI, and Crypto czar, David Sachs has been among the voices warning that Mamdani could pose a real threat to the entire country. He posted on X, “Wake up Silicon Valley. You basically have two choices now, get on board with MAGA or prepare to be on Mamdani’s dinner menu.” And he’s not the only one who’s posted like this—the Gemini cofounders, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong—they’ve all been posting about this potential election. You and I both have a brain disease where we listen to the All In podcast obsessively, so I’m sure you have heard them talk about this. But I mean, I’m not surprised in some ways, aside from what you’re talking about with New York politics in particular, these men and so far, most of them are men. Their entire platform at this point is weighing in on issues that are pretty far outside the zone of what they do professionally a lot of the time.
Louise Matsakis: Yeah, I think they’re kind of professional posters to some degree. No offense to the venture capitalists listening to this, but I don’t think that being a VC is necessarily a full-time job.
Zoë Schiffer: How dare you?
Louise Matsakis: So a lot of investors have a lot of free time on their hands, but I also think it strikes me that why do they have a guilty conscience here? Why do you think that this candidate who is talking about making sure their government works, making housing more affordable, trying to work with businesses, trying to cut red tape and trying to create a more equitable society, you have to sort of wonder why does that trigger you if you are a crypto mogul, if you are a VC? That is kind of the question I want to ask is why is this so threatening to you? When from the rhetoric I’ve heard, I’ve listened to Mamdani, interviewed on a number of podcasts. I’ve heard his stump speeches. He doesn’t really talk about wanting to squash the tech industry, which brings us back to Caroline’s reporting.
Zoë Schiffer: Right, exactly. So this is the interesting thing. It’s that Caroline talked to a number of people who went to about a 200 person private event that was held in July with Mamdani and a bunch of tech leaders, and the people who were there basically said that they felt like he had thoughtful answers to their questions. He was charismatic. The gist of the article is essentially that while the leading voices in tech are very, very anti this person, actually the people who live in New York City and are in the tech industry, they have a more nuanced take one more story, which is about ant smuggling a topic you would think would be very foreign, but actually to me specifically, has enormous personal relevance.