They qualified a new ballot measure for November in near-record time. Last summer, when the White House seemed to be drifting away from high-tech's agenda, TechNet's Doerr and Chambers, with help from McNealy and Barrett, used their influence to help get the president and vice president back in sync. In the months since, the valley has scored a succession of victories in Washington on such key issues as export controls for supercomputers and encryption software. When these tech leaders do focus on local politics, they can force the most vexing issues toward resolution. With a highly publicized threat to move to North Carolina, Chambers has brought the development of San Jose's Coyote Valley to the brink of approval, after it had languished for two decades.
Cisco intends to put a new corporate campus there.
But once the crisis ended, so did the intense focus. Still, the total is below the donation levels of the early 1990s, and comes at a time when contributions to many other valley charities have exploded. Many close observers of Silicon Valley have noted that few of the valley's top executives are community leaders in the manner of HP co-founder Packard. As a natural outgrowth of his long and deep personal ties to the valley, Packard used his fortune to build the Monterey Bay Aquarium and preserve vast swaths of undeveloped land across the West. Yet it is also true that those identified as the valley's most powerful have shown leadership on a broader stage.