Prominent Silicon Valley Investors' Pitch for Ed Lee

Michael Arrington and Ron Conway's public support highlights the tech sector's involvement in mayoral race
By: Gerry Shih

For decades, Ron Conway, one of Silicon Valley’s pre-eminent investors, has guided dozens of companies from fledgling status to market-shaking IPOs.

Conway went public with something else on Wednesday: his support for San Francisco's interim mayor, Ed Lee.

Speaking for the first time about his behind-the-scenes work on Lee’s behalf, Conway urged a crowd at the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference in San Francisco to help re-elect the “tech-friendly mayor of San Francisco.”

“He’s done a lot for tech,” Conway said of the mayor. “We are supporting him, and we convened a social media technology committee.”

That committee includes Biz Stone, the Twitter-co-founder; Edward Baker of friend.ly; and Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Conway, a registered Republican, made his comments during a 10-minute interview onstage with Michael Arrington, the influential blogger, investor and founder of TechCrunch, who also pledged his support to Lee. The presentation amounted to two of Silicon Valley’s leading figures making an unvarnished pitch for both the mayor’s candidacy and for Votizen, a startup that allows political organizers to canvass voters using social media -- like a “virtual precinct walk,” said Conway.

“The software is being used for the first time on the Ed Lee campaign,” Conway said. But this software and his newly founded committee was formed with a more general purpose, he added, to “find ways of harnessing technology to enhance the election process.”

The presentation highlighted the involvement of San Francisco's thriving tech industry in the mayoral race. 

Sources tell The Bay Citizen that Conway is trying to raise as much as $1 million for an independent expenditure committee to pay for television ads for Lee, who helped push through the so-called "Twitter tax break" earlier this year, as an incentive to keep tech companies in San Francisco. The legislation exempts growing businesses that agree to remain in or move to certain areas in the city from paying additional payroll taxes on new hires for six years.

Binetti said onstage Wednesday that he expected Lee to announce his registration on Votizen -- and become its first political client. He later clarified in an interview that it would be Conway’s committee -- and not Lee’s official campaign -- that would register. (Federal law prohibits Lee's campaign from coordinating activities with independent expenditure efforts such as Conway’s.)

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Lee’s campaign also swiftly denied any coordination with or knowledge of Conway’s activities. “We have zero communications with them about campaign stuff,” said Lee’s campaign spokesman Tony Winnicker. “It seems like a pretty neat technology, but I have no idea what they are doing.”

Indeed it appeared Lee had already begun to reap the benefits of Votizen.

Shortly before the presentation concluded, Arrington stamped his own seal of approval on Votizen — and Ed Lee.

“I’m going to use this to vote for him early and often,” he told Conway.

Correction: A previous version of this story mistakenly attributed text written by a Politico reporter about the role of technology in the San Francisco mayor's race to Ron Conway.