Silicon Valley Is Learning to Love Government Industrial Policy. The Hill and Valley Forum Shows How Far the Shift Has Gone.

Reporting from this year's Hill and Valley Forum shows Silicon Valley's remarkable ideological shift toward government-led industrial policy, onshoring manufacturing, and defense spending. The same tech community that once championed pure free markets is now embracing federal investment in semiconductors, AI, and physical infrastructure as a strategic imperative. AI's growing unpopularity among rank-and-file engineers was also a recurring theme. [Instagram] Silicon Valley used to be allergic to government. Now it can't get enough of industrial policy. Reporting from the Hill and Valley Forum shows a tech industry that has fully embraced government-led manufacturing onshoring, defense contracts, and federal AI investment. The culture has shifted. [LinkedIn] Reporting from this year's Hill and Valley Forum captures Silicon Valley's remarkable ideological shift: the tech industry has moved from free-market libertarianism toward active embrace of government-led industrial policy, manufacturing onshoring, and defense alignment. Recurring themes included AI's growing unpopularity among rank-and-file engineers and the tension between corporate AI ambition and the practitioners building it. The forum signals how completely the political economy of tech has reorganized around Washington.