The Chamber of Commerce Comes to Silicon Valley; Powerful Lobby Group Tries to Win Over Startups, VCs

The Chamber of Commerce Comes to Silicon Valley

Powerful Lobby Group Tries to Win Over Startups, VCs

JONATHAN KRIM

March 31, 2014 7:34 p.m. ET

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among the most powerful business lobbying organizations in Washington, is planning a second outpost in Silicon Valley in an effort to broaden its membership and clout.

The Chamber is expected to announce Tuesday that its second-in-command, David Chavern, 51, will relinquish his role as chief operating officer to lead the initiative. Mr. Chavern has been meeting with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and leaders to both lay out the Chamber’s plans and to hear ideas on how the group can best help technology executives. Their businesses are increasingly confronting thorny public-policy issues, such as immigration, privacy, security and taxation.

The Chamber’s move is recognition that it hasn’t been a factor in representing the fastest-growing sector in the economy, one that is rapidly transforming others. Mr. Chavern said that while some major tech companies belong to the organization, he is especially focused on getting more small and midsize tech firms to join, as well as venture capitalists and other investors. The Chamber, which was founded in 1912, doesn’t disclose specific companies among its more than 300,000 members.

“Too often we get tagged as being about the old economy,” Mr. Chavern said in an interview. “But our core messages are all forward-leaning.” Mr. Chavern said he hopes that the Chamber’s pro-business, low-tax, minimal regulation views will fit the sensibilities of technology companies. “The best representatives of our ideals are here” in Silicon Valley, he said.

Mr. Chavern has tried to establish his own links to the Valley, making a personal investment in a mobile software company called Humin. That company’s co-founder and CEO, Ankur Jain, has in turn connected Mr. Chavern with others in the industry.

“If the regulatory environment doesn’t understand these changes, it will not be able to protect consumers in the long term or allow the future of our nation’s economy to thrive,” said Mr. Jain in an interview.

But the Chamber’s success in Silicon Valley is an open question.

Big tech companies already have active lobbying shops in Washington, and there are myriad technology trade groups. The Chamber has overwhelmingly backed Republican candidates in recent election cycles, and some of its positions aren’t universally popular in Silicon Valley.

Apple Inc. AAPL -0.02% quit the Chamber in 2009 after deciding the group was fighting against measures that would limit greenhouse gas emissions. Yahoo Inc. YHOO 0.00%didn’t renew its membership in 2010, for undisclosed reasons.

To some in the libertarian-leaning Valley, the Chamber also is part of what is wrong with Washington overall: Lobbying for hire, a political system fueled by money and hyper-partisanship.

In 2013, the Chamber and its subsidiaries spent $74.4 million on lobbying. It also sought to help take control of the Senate from the Democratic Party in the 2012 elections, though the effort failed.

This year, the Chamber has angered some Tea Party conservatives by declaring that it will work in primaries to defeat GOP candidates it deems too extreme to be electable in general elections.

“I don’t really think we need them here,” said Carl Bass, president and CEO of software maker Autodesk Inc. ADSK +1.74% He said he doesn’t think the Chamber’s politics and positions will sit well with the broad Valley constituency.

Mr. Chavern said that he seeks to “focus less on party than position… The middle is getting emptier all the time, and that’s a problem.”