Six Calis functions for One Percent
Ever heard of Balaji Srinivasan?
He’s a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, a Stanford lecturer and a leading proponent of creating a techno-utopia achieved through seceding from the United States.
He’s not crazy, and he’s obviously highly intelligent with multi-million-dollar bonafides and a proven record of successful digital entrepreneurship.
Yet he is among a very small, wealthy and brilliant class of American businessman who see Silicon Valley as the citadel on the hill, an island of innovation that deserves special privileges in this country for the intellectual successes it cultivates and the glory it brings the nation and the state.
And that island idea? Well, Google CEO Larry Page sees the techno-utopia as a real place that floats and is surrounded by water but not constrained by national laws … and tax codes, I’d guess.
Better still, maybe you’ve heard of Tim Draper. He also believes in the sanctity of Silicon Valley, the holy currency of venture capital and the blood and body of friendly governance, easy tax laws and a strata that celebrates his status as a One-Percenter to be envied and placated.
Draper’s a funny one, too. While his tech chums are very explicit in their call for special privileges for their magical Brigadoon, he seems to be a little more secretive about it.
His techno-utopian plan has been in the news the past few days — it’s called Six Californias, a proposal to split the state into six pieces.
The man who supplied the money behind Hotmail and Skype and who unsuccessfully bankrolled a failed school voucher referendum in California nearly 15 years ago is back grinding the political machinery as he attempts to get Six Californias qualified for the ballot.
Citing the “ungovernable” state of the state, he would like to see voters break Cali apart into more “governable” chunks like Jefferson, made up of the wilderness counties where marijuana and men grow free; North California, which is more of an upper Central Valley/wine region that includes “Yolo”; Central California, where it’s very flat and it’s very dry; West California, the region that includes Los Angeles (‘nuff said); South California, home to the beautiful Imperial Valley, San Diego, the Real Housewives and Coachella Valley; and lastly, Silicon Valley.
Yep. Silicon Valley gets its own state, the smallest in surface area with arguably the largest in personal incomes, investment dollars and budgets for personal chefs and trainers. Comprised of Alameda, Contra Costa, San Benito, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey, Silicon Valley would be the most beautiful of the states and the most technologically advanced. A techno-utopia.
Draper’s plan was approved by the Secretary of State’s Office this week to begin the process of collecting enough signatures to get Six Californias on the ballot, and he has shown the willingness to use his personal fortune to drive the collection.
I have a hard time believing Tim Draper is concerned with California’s ungovernable situation. I have a hard time believing his concerns are about aligning social, cultural, even topographical similarities into what he thinks would be more effective statehoods that could have their own constitutions and adequate representation at the federal level.
I have an even harder time believing that Six Californias is anything other than the mass execution of a plan by the One Percenter plutocrats and tech moguls of Silicon Valley to trick interested voters into creating a digital Camelot, untouched by state regulations.
There really isn’t much difference here between Draper’s state of Silicon Valley, Larry Page’s floating Island of Dr. Moreau and Balaji Srinivasan’s talk of seceding from the U.S.
The one difference is who is selling the idea and how it’s being sold, and to whom.
Six Californias is Tim Draper’s really expensive and really ridiculous plan to create that techno-utopia he and his buddies dream about through subterfuge. Sure, there would be six states, but there are a handful of guys only worried about one of them, it’s just preferable we don’t get that.
This column first appeared in the Imperial Valley Press, Feb. 21, 2014.