Tech’s political reality: Big money, little payoff

A poor showing in the midterm elections taught the well-heeled tech moguls at Google, Facebook and Yahoo a lesson about 2016: There’s a limit to what their endless cash can buy.

These companies’ high-profile executives finished the 2014 cycle with a markedly mixed record after throwing their weight behind a high-profile candidate who ultimately lost and funding a super PAC with grandiose, contradictory and unsuccessful ambitions to attack money in politics. The heightened tech engagement this year offers the latest affirmation that Silicon Valley no longer is apathetic about Washington. But it also serves as a reminder that politics is as much about strategy as it is dollar signs -- a crucial lesson for the industry with the next presidential election already looming.