Like your High Tech or eCommerce Job? Then Here’s Why to Register to Vote
In July, Laurence Rockefeller passed away. Larry was always my favorite Rockefeller, of the five grandsons, because of his core values. He was a key funder of the environmental movement, but more importantly for all of us, he started on Wall Street almost 70 years ago, and became the vanguard of modern venture capitalism. He invested — personally or through a family partnership he established — in hundreds of start-ups: first, in aviation (Eastern Airlines – in it’s profitable glory days) and electronics, then, later branched out to computers (Intel and Apple) and biotechnology.
We all owe our jobs to this man if we work in e-commerce or high-tech. He was a founder of venture capitalism. A Wall Street Journal article from 1959 stated that Mr. Rockefeller has ”no thought of abandoning his 20-year-old policy of using his wealth as ‘venture capital’ on untried new enterprises,” the quotation marks around the words venture capital suggesting that the term was still novel.
It was the mature capitalism and the sprit of innovation in the post war United States that gave birth to VCs, Silicon Valley and the culture that invented and monetized the Internet.
It’s pretty obvious that the social and economic freedoms that our forefathers codified in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights created the framework for the US Economy to develop into the dominant force it is today. There is a reason that venture capitalism was invented in the United States after all.
The key word in the previous paragraph is “freedoms”. It’s the freedom of choices we have that has give rise to American technology and business innovation. I would also argue it’s the open discourse and Socratic Method at the heart of our political system that cultivates American creativity, team work, innovation, as well as provided the linchpin for the development of venture capitalism and the Internet. In fact, the right to vote permeates the finest threads of our social and economic fabric.
The point of this entry is to reminder everyone to register to vote. In most states you need to register two weeks to a month before Election Day. For example, New York’s deadline is Friday, October 8th and California’s deadline is Monday, October 18th, however many states are in the next few days, so make sure to check yours. You can view your state’s deadline here. Also, you can Google to find the voter registration for your town, print it, fill it out, and mail it in. What counts in this case is the postmark of the application.
Even if you don’t care about politics, I suspect you do care about supporting the institutions that gave rise to the industry in which you make your living. Voting is more than choosing a candidate. It’s supporting the very institutions that establish the rules on how we organization our society. This framework has given us the opportunity to become a very rich, powerful and innovative country. Like your nice car, your home, and other material objects in your life? Or the choices that you have to live the life the way you want? These all result from our right to vote. If I have not convinced you to register to vote yet, remember those of us who go to the polls in a month to vote, protect your freedom not to do so.
As a final note, I understand the argument that one vote makes no difference, I have felt that way at times too, but this time around, we all know that is not true. 537 votes won George Bush the election. Former President Clinton said it best a day after the election last time, “If ever there was a doubt about the importance of exercising democracy’s most fundamental right, the right to vote, yesterday put it to rest.”
(By the way, if anyone missed the Presidental debates, they are available for free as digital audio download from Audible.)
