Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Highlight

To get us there, the B2K deregulation precedents combined with Democrat enthusiasm for businesses that, not for nothing, were making some powerful Democrats very rich. Nancy Pelosi, congresswoman for San Francisco, has led the caucus from 2003 to the time of this writing in 2022, with no plans to step down. Her husband, Paul, is a VC, and the couple has accumulated a nine-figure fortune. California’s senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, and her San Francisco investment banker husband, Richard Blum, built a billion-dollar set of holdings. And while the Obama administration prided itself on attracting high-paid tech workers to public service, Silicon Valley got a nice return. Every serious tech firm recruited a high-level White House staffer. Airbnb, dealing with a host of compliance issues, hired the country’s top law-enforcement official, attorney general Eric Holder. Even President Obama himself got a tech job, signing on to pick out some new movies for Netflix. Nice work if you can get it.