Why should Silicon Valley care about the 2016 election? According to Georgetown University’s Larry Downes, it’s going to be an election in which the most disruptive technologies – from the Internet of Things to drones to Bitcoin to Uber – are becoming political issues.
And so while Downes doesn’t think that most people in Washington DC necessarily “gets” these technologies, he nonetheless thinks that entrepreneurs need to maintain a keen interest in the upcoming election.
So is there anyone who gets it? According to Downes, one or two of the 2016 candidates – Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, in particular – are beginning to at least make the effort of staking out technology positions. And the rest? According to Downes,we shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for Donald Trump to make a speech about spectrum or network neutrality.