It marks the end of a time when leaders of high technology of Silicon Valley, Washington state or the Route 128 corridor around Boston could claim all they wanted was for government to stay out of their way. A number of these entrepreneurs have more money than they can spend in multiple lifetimes. For many years, elected members of Congress have beaten trails to their doors. They needed money for campaign contributions, naturally, but even more importantly, these executives appeared to Congress to be leading a new wave of economic activity where U.S. dominance has come to be taken for granted. Being close to such success brings psychological comfort and its own rewards.
Politicians love cavorting with winners.
Of course, the Silicon Valley executives have already used the levers of political power. They defeated the powerful plaintiffs' securities litigation bar, whose distasteful practices of filing strike suits over stock prices left those lawyers almost as rich as the entrepreneurs who created the companies. The Valley boys also used their political clout to make immigration policies consistent with their industry's needs. So it hasn't been a continuous lovefest. New turf Still, the rawness of the fight over Microsoft represents the final stage of maturity of the IT industry.