Trump, Silicon Valley's tech titans share more goals than you think

[Commentary] President-elect Donald Trump may learn that the technology firms, who at first glance have little to do with the industrial economy, will in fact play a central role in transforming and reviving the physical economy in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. For it is information technology that will power the Internet of Things, connected cars, smart infrastructure, additive 3D manufacturing, and revolutions in health care, energy, and education.

Silicon Valley might come to appreciate an administration that doesn’t strangle public financing markets with rules and costs that discourage initial public offerings (IPOs), or for that matter block other innovations in biotech, fintech, transportation, and health. Trump, in turn, might learn about the complexity and necessity of integrated global supply-chains, the importance of cross-border data flows, the positive-sum virtues of free and open trade, and the heroic achievements of immigrant technologists and entrepreneurs, who create far more jobs than they could ever take.

[Bret Swanson is president of the technology research firm Entropy Economics LLC and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy.]