Bernie Sanders vs. Joe Biden: Where They Stand on Tech Issues

(Bloomberg) -- In the U.S., Super Tuesday established two leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. If things continue the way they're going, the Democratic party will be left with a choice between Joe Biden, who has alternately criticized and praised the tech industry, and Bernie Sanders, who incites near-panic within some Silicon Valley circles.

Biden is widely seen as friendly to the tech industry. That's a testament to how heated the criticism of tech has become. In January, Biden said he'd like to revoke legislation that's perhaps the most important piece of technology policy on the books—a 1996 law that shields internet companies from lawsuits related to content posted by their users. He singled out one person in particular during an interview with the New York Times editorial board: “I've never been a big Zuckerberg fan. I think he's a real problem.”

But Biden's criticisms are often couched with a degree of deference. At a fundraiser held by Amazon.com Inc.'s general counsel in November, he acknowledged the economic disruption the company had caused while taking pains not to blame it, according to the Seattle Times. “Seriously, think of the change that is taking place and why people are frightened. Nothing bad—you've done good things,” he said. “But 200,000 salespeople are out of work because people are shopping online now.”

A central part of Biden's pitch has been a promise to continue the policies of the Obama administration, which was markedly friendly to Silicon Valley. Biden has said the government should “take a really hard look” at breaking up technology companies but also said it's premature to take action.

Sanders, by contrast, has said he'd “absolutely” aim to break up companies like Amazon, Facebook Inc. and Google. He also reliably takes the tech-critical side of most policy debates. Sanders wants to cease the use of facial recognition and algorithmic decision-making in criminal justice and has called for new rules about how tech companies collect and sell their users' personal data.

An instructive—and threatening—part of Sanders's approach to tech policy is his philosophy on labor. Sanders has been a strong advocate for California's contested law designed to require Uber Technologies Inc. and other gig-economy companies to classify their workers as full-time employees. (He has said he'd push similar laws to the federal level.) Sanders wants to increase the minimum wage and force companies to give stock to workers who lose their jobs to automation or offshoring. Sanders also wants large companies to allocate a significant amount of the seats on their boards to people voted in by their employees.

In each case, Sanders wants to take power from executives and redistribute it to rank-and-file employees. (“Billionaires shouldn't exist,” he has said.) This is a direct shot at a core aspect of Silicon Valley's ethos, which values the heroic founder as a primary force for progress in the world and one deserving of enormous wealth. Even if few of Sanders's policies have a realistic chance of being implemented as described, the atmosphere that a Sanders administration would create has tech's capitalist class re-examining its hostility toward President Donald Trump.

One faction of the tech industry that finds Sanders's vision more intriguing is the workers he'd like to empower. They're not exactly the proletariat now. While they'd fork over more in taxes if Sanders had his way, his politics jibe with the increasing calls from workers at Google and other big companies for a greater say in decision-making. Sanders has raised far more money from employees of large tech companies than any other candidate—his $727,000 is more than eight times the amount Biden has raised, according to a recent analysis of public data by the Guardian. 

Super Tuesday, the most consequential day of the primary season, left Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg trailing far behind. Warren's positions on technology issues are well-known. Bloomberg's are less so. (Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

For the two leading candidates, the biggest difference may be the depth of feeling they inspire. Sanders has long engendered deep loyalty and fierce hostility. Biden, by contrast, hasn't been a subject of much political discussion in Silicon Valley, even as Warren, Andrew Yang and Pete Buttigieg have all had turns in the spotlight. That might be about to change.

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To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.net, Vlad Savov

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