Op-Ed: Trump Supporters In Tech Should Stop Blaming DEI For Why Their Kids Can’t Get Into ‘Good’ Schools
Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™.
The more mature an industry becomes, the more conservative it becomes. This has happened in white collar functions such as law, finance, and consulting, and has now come for the tech industry as well. An industry that used to pride itself on embracing liberal politics and culture has now become more politically and culturally conservative than any other time in recent history. Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) said, per The Washington Post, that elite universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University will “pay the price” for DEI in a tech group chat moderated by a former employee of A16Z, Sriram Krishnan, who is now a White House senior policy advisor on AI.
Andreessen’s issue with universities may be more personal than anything else, since in the group chat, he said that Stanford forced his wife, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, out of her position as chair of the university’s philanthropy center. He said this will cost the university $5 billion in future donations. Andreessen went on to say that the combination of DEI initiatives and immigrants at universities has systematically cut most of the children of Trump supporters from having any realistic prospect of access to higher education or corporate America. He is not the only member of the team to embrace conservatism. AFROTECH ™ reported that his partner at the firm, Ben Horowitz, caught flak from Black founders for supporting PACs that were backers of Donald Trump during the last presidential election.
While we can see conservatism more prominently in tech now, it started to happen slowly over time as the visible figures in the industry went from being proponents of liberalism to Trump supporters seemingly overnight in response to actions taken by the previous administration.
The Joe Biden administration made choices that people in the industry felt were at odds with the goals of the industry, such as the tightened M&A environment under the previous chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan. Founders, investors, and employees started to become more curious and supportive of Trump because they felt that the right would create a more business-friendly environment for the world of startups. Given the effect of Trump’s tariffs and his “Big Beautiful Bill,” I believe that those who thought that would be the case have been proven wrong.
The startup scene is known for being anti-institution, but that was normally when talking about legacy competitors in their space. It’s now evolved to institutions in general, from education to health and beyond. Technologists themselves have even pursued reinventing education itself. In Austin, TX, a new AI-powered school has been rising in popularity with Texas-based tech professionals.
Fox 7 Austin reported that Alpha School only teaches for two hours a day using AI-enabled teaching practices. The school costs anywhere from $10,000 to $75,000 per academic year, depending on which city K-12-aged children are attending school in. MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha School, claims that students are learning twice as fast as students in a traditional classroom where class time is generally six hours a day. At Alpha, they are doing it with only two hours.
The two hours of focused instruction involve students working through a self-driven learning model via the school-provided app, and adult guides are around to help them through the self-driven model. The rest of the school day is spent building life skills like public speaking, leadership, entrepreneurship, etc. The tech industry is not only looking to reimagine education at the K-12 level, it is also looking to reimagine higher education as well.
The most recent example of this reimagination can be found in a company called Campus. Campus was founded by Tade Oyerinde as a way for adjunct professors at select universities to earn additional income while giving students across the country access to a quality online community college experience. The school aims to increase the graduation rates of those who attend community colleges and set them up to either transfer to a four-year university or enter the workforce with in-demand skills. AFROTECH™ reported that Campus raised $46 million in its most recent Series B funding round, which brings its total raised to over $100 million.
The startup scene has long felt that education should be reimagined, but it has moved from reimagining how education is served to wanting to dictate what is served and who it should serve the most.
What we can clearly see is that when opportunities feel scarce, people look to either hoard the opportunities that are available or start digging in with opposition to anything that is perceived to put them or their own at a disadvantage, and that is what we are seeing in the venture-capital-backed startup ecosystem right now and the world more broadly.
I would recommend that tech industry Trump supporters stop blaming DEI and immigration for their lack of access to opportunities on college campuses and take some personal responsibility for their outcomes like they advise everyone else to do.
