‘many Have Tried. Few Have Succeeded’: Tech, Labor Brace For Years-long War In California

SAN FRANCISCO — Tech moguls plotting to shift California’s balance of power are opening their wallets in a high-profile declaration of war on organized labor’s clout.

The response from California’s deep-pocketed unions: let’s see what you’ve got.

“Whether it’s AI, whether it’s the wealth tax, whether it’s some other issue they care about, they’ve decided to play,” said Gale Kaufman, a longtime consultant for groups like the California Teachers Association. “They don’t even know the game.”

In the long history of pro-business groups going to battle with labor, she said, “Many have tried. Few have succeeded.”

Labor is now watching to see if the emerging campaign will be an ephemeral money bomb or if they are settling in for a protracted fight with an industry intent on reshaping the political power structure in the nation’s most populous state — with enormous stakes for Silicon Valley and the unions that represent wide swaths of the Democratic rank-and-file.

Tech investors and executives in recent weeks have spent millions of dollars to elevate San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan in the governor’s race. Ethan Agarwal, a startup founder, is challenging Rep. Ro Khanna in his bid for re-election in the Bay Area. And several tech-funded groups are formulating plans to make inroads in the state Legislature across multiple cycles.

Their efforts were spurred in part by a proposed tax on billionaires that has already prompted some, like Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, to move their assets out of state. But they insist they are planning a multi-year offensive, arguing California’s Democratic leadership, largely in thrall to public employee unions, has pursued policies that burden innovators while driving up budget deficits and the cost of living statewide.

“We come in and out of political cycles, and then are frustrated when the results that we want don't get achieved,” said Agarwal, whose challenge to Khanna has drawn support from tech players outraged by Khanna supporting the wealth tax. “Whatever you want to say about the labor movement, they are consistent, and that's probably a big reason why they've done so well.”

Nascent tech-aligned campaign outfits working to find a foothold in Sacramento are lining up donors and surveying California’s electoral map for targets, including in the state Legislature.

One super PAC has drawn funding from companies that already have a substantial political footprint, like Meta and Google, in addition to politically influential investor Ron Conway. Meta has emulated Uber by committing tens of millions of dollars to elect allies. The effort, called California Leads, has run polling, vetted candidates, and is making decisions on whom to support.

At the same time, emerging groups funded by wealthy individuals, rather than tentpole Silicon Valley companies, are strategizing how to channel the money they earned in tech into lasting political impact.

“For any organization that is only focused on a particular election cycle or on a particular issue, it is very difficult to be impactful in the long term,” said Maria Davidson, a startup founder leading California Renewal, a nascent endowment that’s pursuing a nine-figure, multi-cycle vision. “The way we're thinking about structuring things is really geared around thinking about the long term as a primary focus.”

There’s a strategic reason for that. Political professionals who have fought in the past against unions say the new groups need to demonstrate they will remain in the fight to give lawmakers the confidence they have the political cover to take tough votes.

“If you reject a prison guard contract or do something CTA doesn’t like, they will never forget you,” said David Crane, who has sought to counter labor’s influence with an organization called Govern California that pools money from local chapters. “Legislators need to feel that whoever is protecting them will be there forever.”

Investor Tim Draper and cryptocurrency executive Chris Larsen have seeded a new Legislature-focused committee with $10 million. Their effort, Grow California, conducted polling and an analysis of every legislative race on the ballot and has settled on roughly 10 districts where it may play this cycle while looking at recruiting candidates for the 2028 cycle.

Davidson and her California Renewal co-founder, fellow startup entrepreneur Matt Gamache-Asselin, are in talks with prospective donors and are currently building a team for their idea. Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan — an acerbic critic of San Francisco and California politics — is working on a hybrid advocacy nonprofit that has now decided to also spend on candidates.

Sam Singer, a spokesperson for Tan, said Garry’s List is “in the process of opening a political committee” and will partner with other active organizations to do so. The nonprofit considers Grow California, Larsen and Draper close partners.

Garry’s List is in the early stages of identifying races and candidates for 2026. It will start at the local and state level, with aspirations to expand nationally, according to Singer.

A recurring goal: build on the successes that tech-backed moderates have had in San Francisco. At a launch party for Garry’s List in Mountain View, Tan declared to a crowd of mostly tech and business professionals that they were getting a “machine” of their own.

Davidson’s endowment-style fund may not launch in time for the 2026 election. Their fundraising goal — reported to be $100 million this year and to reach at least $500 million — would include not only campaign contributions but also the development of tools for more effective spending. She and Gamache-Asselin are taking meetings with consultants, elected candidates, candidates who lost, people involved in candidate recruiting efforts, builders of government tech, longtime California political donors, and some trade union groups.

“The main thing that we hear from people is that they are very excited that it is long-term focused. Because when you're doing things in a reactive way, it ends up being very expensive and it ends up being a rushed effort,” she said.

What effect the tech-backed efforts will have is unclear. Mahan is still polling in low single digits in the governor’s race. Down ballot, tech donors have already missed some prime opportunities. There are significantly fewer open seats this year than in the last two election cycles, when term limits drove enormous turnover in the Legislature.

And even business-aligned strategists — some of whom have waged similar fights against labor long before tech got involved — are skeptical of the industry’s ability to compete with organized labor.

“The wealth tax is clearly a wakeup call. A lot of wealthy individuals who otherwise didn’t want to spend much time thinking about Sacramento realize there’s a lot of things that are very consequential that come out of there,” said Marty Wilson, who long oversaw the California Chamber of Commerce’s campaign activity. However, he said, “You can’t just walk in six months before an election and think money is going to solve your problem.”

Labor unions, meanwhile, are practically daring them to spend, arguing that with an electorate predisposed to distrust wealthy elites, tech’s funders will do more to harm themselves than any counter-offensive could. Unions have in recent years pressed Sacramento to curb technologies, like self-driving vehicles and artificial intelligence, that they warn will erase jobs.

“This is what I have that they don't have: we know our message is what resonates with real people,” said California Labor Federation leader Lorena Gonzalez, who has framed A.I. as a litmus test issue for ambitious Democrats like Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Unlike Silicon Valley, which is just now finding its footing in Sacramento, organized labor has spent decades building a sophisticated statewide campaign apparatus with a track record of cultivating candidates, issuing endorsements and turning out voters. Even if they are outspent, unions can marshal a network of relationships and a reservoir of credibility they’ve spent years building.

“Candidate recruitment's always been an ambition that political actors in Sacramento and in California have tried to tap. Labor’s good at that,” said Chris Tapio, a consultant who works to elect moderate Democrats. “Others, not so good. They haven’t figured out how to crack that code and convince folks to run.”

Cooper Teboe, a Palo Alto-based strategist who is working for Khanna as he fends off Agarwal, said in an interview that “some of the smartest people in the world” were making a basic miscalculation.

“These guys are having their political awakening at the same moment the electorate and working people in both parties are moving in a populist direction,” Teboe said. “There were many more clever ways to engage than to make themselves the face of the opposition and therefore the villains.”

But Teboe said he still believes that, even if Grow California started too late to make waves this cycle, the group is poised to “make a significant impact” and flip multiple legislative seats in subsequent campaigns.

Agarwal is also taking the long view.

“What you're seeing is a groundswell of infrastructure being developed right now,” he said. “Probably by the 2030s or presidential ‘32, I think you'll see a lot of infrastructure that does not exist today.”