The Incredible Number of Obama Cronies in the San Francisco Area

They want to be close to Silicon Valley, but within an urban setting, of course. And they want to be near the Federal Reserve money spigot. Hence, San Francisco.

Politico explains:

Barack Obama was a startup president elected by a tech-obsessed campaign, they say. Silicon Valley is the natural next step.
In part, it’s a reflection of America’s changing economy; New York, D.C., Los Angeles and a president’s hometown used to be the best places to cash out after a post-White House career. But for the people who helped get Obama elected and worked for him once he did, there’s something about San Francisco and its environs that just feels right: the emphasis on youth and trying things that might fail, chasing that feeling of working for the underdog, and even using that word “disrupting” to describe what they do...

[Tommy] Vietor left the White House two years ago, and though he and his business partner, former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, briefly based the communications strategy firm they founded in Washington, they soon headed west. Favreau went to L.A. Vietor picked San Francisco. Now they have a focus on speechwriting for tech and other startups...

t’s more than just David Plouffe, who moved out for a multimillion-dollar job at Uber. The not nearly exhaustive list includes: Obama speechwriter Kyle O’Connor, now at Nest; Michelle Obama’s former deputy communications director Semonti Stephens, now at Square; director of citizen participation Katie Jacobs Stanton, now at Twitter; ’08 regional and field director Mike Masserman, now at Lyft; Brandon Lepow, who did advance for the Obama campaign and communications for the White House, now at Facebook; legislative affairs special assistant Nicole Isaac, now at LinkedIn; director of research Liz Jarvis-Shean, first at Tesla and now at Civis; campaign staff director for technology Jim Green, now at Salesforce, along with Obama’s first chief information officer, Vivek Kundra; ’08 regional field director Alex McPhillips, at Google; ’08 regional Gillian Bergeron, at NextDoor; Organizing for America digital director Natalie Foster, at the Institute for the Future; Tech4Obama program manager Catherine Bracy, now at Code for America; ’08 deputy Wisconsin director Hallie Montoya Tansey, at an education startup called Target Labs. Nick Papas, John Baldo, Courtney O’Donnell and Clark Stevens are all now at Airbnb. Jessica Santillo, the former White House assistant press secretary who handled much of the Healthcare.gov meltdown response, was the most recent to arrive, now to be a spokeswoman at Uber.

Silicon Valley would be booming without newly printed Fed money, but the newly printed Fed money is putting SV into overdrive. And sadly, the federal government has become such a factor in all business that all the SV firms need access to DC operatives to protect their flanks against more regulation. Thus, the hiring of the Obama crowd.

 -RW