It amazes me at how far to the political left is Silicon Valley. The startup ecosystem depends on the recycling of the profits from successful ventures into new angel investment, venture capital funds, and bootstrapped ventures. An extreme example is Elon Musk, who famously netted $180 million from the Paypal sale and put every last dollar into founding Space X, Tesla, and Solar City. I'm assuming that money was taxed at the long term capital gains rate. If the cap gains loophole were closed, either Space X or Tesla would have been stillborn.
Yet Silicon Valley regularly supports candidates and policies that would place large burdens on the entrepreneurial ecosystem. We have plenty of examples of high-tax, high-regulation economies around the world with no startup scene. You can't grow one by punishing success and preventing innovation.
The deal that happened today means the top California cap gains tax is going up ~11% this year (PPACA, cliff deal, prop 30). That's 11% of new capital for startups being diverted from Palo Alto to Washington.
(And yeah, I'm flagging this article because I don't like seeing pure politics on hacker news. But I'll participate while we're having the discussion)
Yet Silicon Valley regularly supports candidates and policies that would place large burdens on the entrepreneurial ecosystem. We have plenty of examples of high-tax, high-regulation economies around the world with no startup scene. You can't grow one by punishing success and preventing innovation.
The deal that happened today means the top California cap gains tax is going up ~11% this year (PPACA, cliff deal, prop 30). That's 11% of new capital for startups being diverted from Palo Alto to Washington.
(And yeah, I'm flagging this article because I don't like seeing pure politics on hacker news. But I'll participate while we're having the discussion)