President Obama Courts Silicon Valley’s New Digital Aristocracy

New Geography reports:

Those who will benefit most from Facebook and other IPOs resemble the “one percent” about as much as Wall Street.

In effect, it’s OK to be in the “1 percent”—or even the .0001 percent—if you develop nifty devices and invest in green companies. "We live in a bubble, and I don't mean a tech bubble or a valuation bubble. I mean a bubble as in our own little world," Google chairman Eric Schmidt recently told the San Francisco Chronicle. "And what a world it is: companies can't hire people fast enough. Young people can work hard and make a fortune. Homes hold their value. Occupy Wall Street isn't really something that comes up in daily discussion, because their issues are not our daily reality."

For their part, the “Occupiers” who struggled mightily to shut down the blue-collar Port of Oakland seem to never have considered an action against the pampered techies at Facebook’s lavish campus.

The new plutocrats are unburdened by the obligations that come with existing large institutions; with no union presence, they don’t have to worry about anxious retirees or redundant older workers. Green pet causes that align with their financial interests buy more cover from the left, while conservatives, who rarely see anything wrong with extreme wealth, seem somewhat unconscious about the political orientation of the emerging new elite. Ninety-two percent of Facebook executive donations so far this year went to Democrats. This exceeds even the rock-solid support the Democrats enjoy among more established firms like Google and Apple, where support for Democrats runs to the high 80s. Although its former CEO, Meg Whitman, ran as the Republican candidate for governor in 2010, 96 percent of eBay-associated donations went to Democrats. The Seattle area’s two top digital firms, Amazon and Microsoft make two thirds or more of their donations to Democrats.

Another great one from Joel Kotkin. You'll want to read the whole article, twice.