A Silicon Valley firm that has backed companies such as Dropbox and Udacity redesigned its website to specifically attack Donald Trump.
The landing page for Charles River Ventures now reads “F*ck Trump.” A hyperlink below the text takes readers to an immigration statement posted Wednesday on Medium.
“Donald Trump’s anti-immigration statements are diametrically opposed to the core values of entrepreneurship,” the statement reads. “And at CRV, we’ve had enough. The CRV partnership — united and unanimous — rejects Donald Trump’s candidacy for President of the United States.”
The firm says its partners hail from countries such as Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Turkey and Venezuela.
“CRV has been around for 46 years and has backed more than 400 companies, 73 of which have gone public,” the statement says. “Our companies have created tens of thousands of jobs in the United States alone. … If you are for building walls and stopping change, stay away. Bigots need not apply.”
CRV’s statement does not mention that most of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric on the issue focuses on illegal immigration, which should have no effect on CRV’s hiring practices or partnerships.
“We need highly-skilled people in this country,” Mr. Trump said during the Republican Party’s primary debate in Detroit on March 3. “If we can’t do it, we will get them in. And we do need in Silicon Valley, we absolutely have to have. So we do need highly-skilled. One of the biggest problems we have [is that] people will go to the best colleges — they’ll go to Harvard, they’ll go to Stanford, to Wharton — as soon as they are finished they get shoved out. They want to stay in this country. They want to stay here desperately. They are not able to stay here. For that purpose, we absolutely have to be able to keep the brain power in this country.”
The candidate’s website does say, however, that H1B visa requirements should be changed to force Silicon Valley companies such as CRV to pay more than the “lowest allowable wage level.”
“Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program,” the candidate’s website says.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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