Jake Kanter

The political donations made by staff at the world's biggest tech firms have been revealed in data seen by Business Insider.

BI worked with GovPredict, the political data firm backed by prestigious Silicon Valley tech incubator Y Combinator, to uncover donations made by employees at the FAANG firms: Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.

The data is drawn from campaign filings and covers a 14-year period. It only measures political contributions made by employees and doesn't reflect company-level donations to candidates. Facebook, for example, donates to candidates at a company level through its own Political Action Committee (PAC.)

GovPredict found that workers at these tech giants have backed the Democrats to the tune of millions of dollars, while donations to the Republicans have been paltry in comparison.

In fact, more than 90% of the $40 million donated by big tech employees to political causes since 2004 has gone to the Democrats.

Staff at Google's parent company Alphabet were collectively the biggest funders of Democratic candidates and causes. Employees donated $16.3 million to the party, which was nearly $10 million more than employees from the next biggest funder, Amazon.

Democrats had a near-monopoly on donations from staff at Netflix, accounting for 98% of worker contributions to political parties.

The findings come at a delicate time for Silicon Valley. US President Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans have criticized what they see as bias at powerful tech firms. Trump is also <a id="e46fe0c6-8bca-30b1-af28-ad17c27ecf04" href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/trump-amazon-facebook-google-looking-at-antitrust-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> looking at anti-trust proceedings against Amazon, Facebook, and Google. </a>

<a id="e3f01811-2106-3a05-af5a-aa653c03d5b0" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1034456273306243076"> The president said in August </a> that Google search results were "RIGGED" against him, while last month, <a id="b5f2ae9e-8398-3c05-a470-28f277e3fb9d" href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1063084073231544320"> he asked his Twitter followers to "check out how biased Facebook, Google and Twitter are in favor of the Democrats." </a>

Google, in particular, has been a lightning rod for anger. Trump has repeatedly targeted the company, as have Republicans, <a id="7d5d7821-60c1-3aa8-ad00-055743236610" href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/406246-mccarthy-google-controlling-the-internet-in-a-way-that-hurts-conservatives"> including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy </a> .

Read more : <a id="9f262d37-391d-3eef-ad8e-3ed4af5732f9" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-staff-love-donating-to-the-democrats-govpredict-2018-9?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> A report on Alphabet employee political donations could light a fire under Trump's war on Google </a>

Google CEO Sundar Pichai will appear before Congress for the first time next week, when he gives evidence to the House Judiciary Committee on December 11. He is expected to face tough questions about search results, potential antitrust issues, and Google's plans to launch a censored search engine in China.

The biggest year of donations from Alphabet staffers to the Democrats came in 2016, when staff spent $6 million trying to keep Trump out of office. In fact, all of the tech firm employee donations hit a high in 2016, except Amazon, GovPredict found. Workers at Jeff Bezos' company donated their peak of $3 million to liberal causes in 2012 when Barack Obama secured a second term.

Ari Ezra Waldman, director of the Innovation Center for Law and Technology at the New York Law School, said there is "zero" evidence to support the theory that Google is fixing search results against the Republicans — and donation patterns do not change that.

"What comes up on search results on Google, for example, is the product of Google's highly complex and proprietary algorithm, which is sensitive to what other people click on, share, and so forth," he said. "So, if critical articles about Donald Trump are coming up first, that just means that critical articles about Donald Trump are being shared more, clicked on more, and searched for more."

Google, Apple, Facebook, and Netflix declined to comment. Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.

GovPredict analyzed Federal Election Commission filings, state and city campaign finance portals, and the Internal Revenue Service. It examined election contributions made by tech staff by tracking thevarious subsidiary names of their companies used in the filings.

GovPredict then categorized, as Democrat or Republican, the unique committees to which employees made donations. Most were labelled by the Federal Election Commission, while on others GovPredict had to make its own call.

Former Harvard graduate Emil Pitkin launched GovPredict at the <a id="ed323b79-d102-3839-aaad-f83db36599d5" href="https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/19/here-are-the-52-startups-that-launched-at-y-combinator-summer-2015-demo-day-2/"> Y Combinator demo day in 2015 </a> . The company is also <a id="abc0c7fc-e2ec-3941-a37f-1d0ad455000d" href="https://www.geektime.com/2017/03/14/venture-capitol-10-washington-d-c-startups-laying-down-the-law/"> said to have $120,000 in seed funding from Y Combinator </a> , which has backed startups such as Airbnb, Reddit, and Stripe.

NOW WATCH: <a id="57ad28ad-c90c-3585-a010-e89862c03169" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-breaking-up-regulating-amazon-2018-4?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Jeff Bezos on regulating giant tech companies: 'I expect us to be scrutinized' </a>

<ul><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-tech-scandals-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">The 18 biggest tech scandals of 2018</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/r-top-us-general-urges-google-to-work-with-military-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">Top U.S. general says it’s ‘inexplicable’ that Google would seek business with China but not work with the military</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-delete-your-amazon-history-shopping-prime-video-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">There's an easy way to delete your entire history on Amazon — here's how to do it</a> </li></ul>

SEE ALSO: Bernie Sanders has received donations from more Amazon workers than Barack Obama over the past 14 years

Tech v Trump (Jake Kanter's thumb — please do not use)

This graph shows 90% political donations from big tech workers went to the Democrats, with Googlers leading the charge

If you take one thing away from wading through 250 pages of Facebook documents, it is this: Here is a company that is totally ruthless about growth.

This shouldn't be a surprise, of course. You don't get to 2.3 billion users and revenues of $40 billion by playing nice all the time. But rarely do we see the inner workings of a company out to make money laid bare in such detail.

The documents, seized by British parliamentarians and <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/facebook-documents-six4three-case-published-british-parliament-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest" id="2f33dab6-1d22-3f64-afdd-823edf93cdf6"> published in a redacted form on Wednesday </a> , don't contain a catastrophic bombshell, but they do call to mind a barb slung at Facebook earlier this year.

While being questioned by the same group of lawmakers that published the Facebook papers, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/facebook-cto-mike-schroepfer-brutally-interrogated-by-british-lawmakers-2018-4?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest" id="e024ce28-4aab-3ec9-a557-183c769fffd0"> chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer was told by MP Paul Farrelly that Facebook reminds him of a famous quote about Goldman Sachs </a> .

Turning to American author and journalist Matt Taibbi's 2009 attack on <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_great_american_bubble_machine" id="24b7f78c-d4e6-3048-ab42-29604e17ee70"> Goldman Sachs in Rolling Stone, </a> Farrelly read the article's opening gambit:

"The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money."

The Facebook documents offer a patchy and incomplete picture of internal discussions, sometimes bereft of context. They don't contain a smoking gun about Facebook selling the data of its billions of users. Indeed, Facebook has repeatedly said that it has "never sold people's data."

<h1> All the ways Facebook is ruthless </h1>

But the papers, which date as far back as 2012, provide evidence that Facebook cut deals that fell just short of selling data. Notably, it signed off on preferential "whitelisting agreements" with firms including Netflix and Airbnb, giving these firms great access to data.

And it wasn't just exploiting its own data that Facebook discussed and actioned. It was also ruthless about hoovering up data, the papers show. Emails show Facebook collected Android call and SMS data to improve its algorithms and "People You May Know" feature — despite being aware that it would generate bad press.

Another feature of the documents is Facebook's willingness to stamp on rivals. This manifested itself in two ways: Restricting their access to Facebook information, and obsessively tracking competitors to see if they could make potential acquisition targets.

On the former, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/facebook-documents-mark-zuckerberg-restricted-vine-data-access-2018-12?r=US&amp;IR=T?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest" id="1ad80d81-12dc-38a6-a627-37476f136a26"> Zuckerberg personally approved a decision to cut off Vine's access to data </a> in January 2013 — just as the Twitter video app, which was shuttered in 2016, was starting out. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/facebook-documents-mark-zuckerberg-oversaw-competitor-data-access-2018-12?r=US&amp;IR=T?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest" id="649b539d-f6c2-3f95-a33e-0329703d0e00"> Zuckerberg also presided over a list of rivals </a> and decided whether they could access its platform information or not.

On the evening before the documents were published, Facebook reversed these kinds of restrictions as part of a policy review. The company <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/12/response-to-six4three-documents/" id="9e25c15e-5fde-32bf-a3ff-20dfed588dda"> said it's important its "platform remains as open as possible." </a>

And the $19 billion deal to buy WhatsApp? Well, that came after Facebook carefully tracked the app using Onavo, a VPN and data analytics tool. Onavo's data showed WhatsApp was outpacing Facebook Messenger on engagement and message sends, according to "highly confidential" charts in the papers. So Facebook removed the competition by bringing it in-house.

But perhaps the most telling example of Facebook's laser focus on growth came from Zuckerberg himself when discussing his attitude toward providing third-party apps with access to its platform in 2012. In an email, he made the stark admission: <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-whats-good-for-world-not-necessarily-facebook-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest" id="744c764c-d573-304a-ac72-3a9d3468e43a"> What's good for the world isn't necessarily what's good for Facebook </a> .

It jars somewhat with Facebook's public credo to make the world "more open and connected." It's a timely reminder that Facebook is a ruthless money-making juggernaut, not a philanthropic endeavour.

NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-go-open-3000-automated-stores-2018-9?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest" id="7bab3315-7fd1-3ddc-a973-0d718e027afb"> Amazon wants to open 3,000 cashier-less grocery stores — and they'll have a major advantage over their competitors </a>

<ul><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-considered-selling-access-to-data-because-apple-app-restrictions-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">Facebook considered charging companies for access to user data — now Mark Zuckerberg says it was because of Apple's restrictions on iPhone apps</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-defends-secret-facebook-data-sharing-deals-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">Mark Zuckerberg defends the leaked Facebook documents he never wanted the world to see: The scrutiny is 'healthy,' but don't 'misrepresent our actions or motives'</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-whats-good-for-world-not-necessarily-facebook-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">Internal emails show Mark Zuckerberg saying what's good for the world is not necessarily what's good for Facebook</a> </li></ul>

SEE ALSO: The secret Facebook documents have just been published by British Parliament

The Facebook papers are a timely reminder that Mark Zuckerberg is totally ruthless about making money

A redacted version of the papers was pushed live on the website of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which is investigating Facebook's privacy standards as part of an inquiry into fake news.

<a id="776ce027-0532-3e36-a645-cb89fb7ad57a" href="https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Note-by-Chair-and-selected-documents-ordered-from-Six4Three.pdf"> You can view all 250 pages of the Facebook documents right here </a> .

<ul><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-phd-students-soft-robotics-research-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">Facebook is quietly developing 'soft robotics' — flexible robots that move and act like living organisms</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/people-missed-millions-silicon-valley-startups-2017-5?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">Just missed millions: These 8 people walked away from early jobs at billion-dollar companies</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-george-soros-research-after-facebook-criticism-2018-11?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">Sheryl Sandberg reportedly wanted to know if George Soros, who publicly criticized Facebook, was shorting the company's stock</a> </li></ul>

British parliament has published a cache of secret Facebook documents which it obtained last month from a company suing the social network.

Secret Facebook documents have just been published by British parliament

Uber has done little to downplay speculation that it is about to swoop for one of the fast-growing Silicon Valley electric scooter firms, Bird or Lime.

<a id="0a5426cd-b955-3fda-a601-cc260ec38a94" href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/uber-holds-talks-to-buy-bird-and-lime-2018-12?r=US&amp;IR=T?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> The Information and the Financial Times reported over the weekend </a> that Uber has held talks with both companies, as it looks to expand its fleet of electric scooters.

Uber launched its own scooters in Santa Monica, California, two months ago through Jump, the electric bike company Uber acquired in April for a reported $200 million.

Rachel Holt, Uber's head of new mobility, was asked about a potential Bird or Lime deal by Business Insider's deputy executive editor Cadie Thompson at the IGNITION conference in New York on Monday.

Read more : <a id="6798e01e-d0e6-3cf7-a8df-b97e92634859" href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/uber-holds-talks-to-buy-bird-and-lime-2018-12?r=US&amp;IR=T?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Uber is reportedly holding talks to buy electric scooter firms Bird and Lime </a>

After initially saying that Uber would not comment on the speculation, she added that the ride-hailing firm's interest in the space means that talk of acquisitions will be inevitable.

"Now that Uber is really, really devoted to being a major player in the micro-mobility space, we're getting approached constantly by players on the global scene, wanting to partner with us, looking for acquisitions," Holt said. "My guess is that those kind of rumours will continue and we're still really focused on building our own product right now."

Buying Bird or Lime won't come cheap. <a id="3960d788-a7b9-39f7-a0d1-7c6c638c3c6c" href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/scooter-startup-bird-raises-400-million-in-4-months-rockets-to-2-billion-valuation-2018-6?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Bird is valued at $2 billion </a> , while <a id="8c78c2aa-4f62-3966-a568-ab326ea031fa" href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/scooter-startup-lime-raises-335-million-funding-alphabet-uber-2018-7?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> Lime is thought to be worth around half that </a> . Bird's CEO told the FT in a statement: "Bird is not for sale." Lime did not comment directly on Uber reports.

You can watch the IGNITION interview with Uber's Rachel Holt and Ryan Rzepecki, the founder of Jump Bikes, here:

NOW WATCH: <a id="661aba6f-36a5-3ea4-a1a0-4a2f1273b923" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zero1-morphing-football-helmet-nfl-uses-super-bowl-ncaa-2018-2?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest"> The NFL is using this football helmet that morphs on impact to reduce head injuries </a>

<ul><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-newsguard-use-humans-fight-fake-news-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">How tech companies are fighting fake news with humans</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-case-midwest-tech-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">AOL founder Steve Case is making a bold bet on companies from the Midwest — and he says it's a lot like the early bet he made on the internet</a> </li><li> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-holds-talks-to-buy-bird-and-lime-2018-12?utm_source=intl&amp;utm_medium=ingest">Uber is reportedly holding talks to buy electric scooter firms Bird and Lime</a> </li></ul>

SEE ALSO: Uber is betting that its global empire will be key to winning the bike and scooter wars

Uber did little to downplay reports it wants to buy scooter firms Bird or Lime in a deal potentially worth billions

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Jake Kanter

Articles written by the author

This graph shows 90% political donations from big tech workers went to the Democrats, with Googlers leading the charge

The Facebook papers are a timely reminder that Mark Zuckerberg is totally ruthless about making money

Secret Facebook documents have just been published by British parliament

Uber did little to downplay reports it wants to buy scooter firms Bird or Lime in a deal potentially worth billions