Like the rest of the tech community, Washington-area execs long kept politics and government at arm's length, believing that all they needed to do was to make profits and create jobs and the lawmakers would leave them alone. But they have come to understand that they ignore Washington at their peril. The Justice Department's antitrust suit against Microsoft in 1998 scared all tech companies smart, and the firms closest to the seat of power are on their way to becoming the most active advocates of the new economy there. Washington lobbying has changed as a result. But these days lobbyists are more likely to be advertising executives, public relations specialists, telemarketers, academics and, increasingly, real-life business executives.
Lawmakers love to hear directly from CEOs.
With their cachet and cash, tech executives are in high demand on Capitol Hill. Especially those who work and live a 30-minute drive away. Indeed, geography was the genesis of what can be thought of as the New Washington Lobby. In the spring of 1999, Mark Bisnow, an executive at Virginia's MicroStrategy and a former Senate aide, rented a bus and took nine Democratic Senators on a tour of his own company, America Online and PSINet, among other locals. The legislators were surprised to see so much computer wizardry so close by.