Here’s one more way that technology companies are becoming more like conventional corporations: When they talk about jobs, it’s often a political message.
Google last week detailed its expansion of offices, computer data centers and staff around the United States. The company didn’t say so, but it needs more people, buildings and infrastructure to keep growing and making money. It’s smarter politics and public relations to rebrand it as “investing in America.”
Google is not alone. Amazon has turned its mammoth work force into its loudest political message that the company is helping Americans and the economy. The iPhone manufacturer Foxconn keeps promising high-tech jobs at its Wisconsin factory, even though it hasn’t delivered on three years of hiring promises. Facebook and Apple regularly talk about how they support small businesses and help generate jobs at app companies.
Growing corporations are engines of economic growth, and it’s nothing new for them to brag about what they’re doing for political reasons. Defense contractors might suggest to members of Congress that cutting the Pentagon’s budget could lead to fewer jobs in a lawmaker’s district or state. Walmart tallies how much it buys from American suppliers.
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But it’s still odd to see tech companies playing this same game of corporate soft power. This was an industry that for a long time said it didn’t need to do the usual corporate muck of lobbying and courting political power. This was never really true, but it’s gotten even less so.
As more people and politicians worry about the influence of technology companies in the economy and our lives, digital corporations have been forced to try harder to keep people feeling warm and fuzzy about them. One way to do that is to copy what boring old companies have always done: Get attention for their hiring and growth.
Amazon is the epitome of a company that uses its hiring and economic growth as a tool to influence how others perceive it. My colleague Karen Weise has written about Amazon’s using its growing staff of 1.3 million people as a force of political persuasion.
Workers at Amazon warehouses go to Washington to meet with members of Congress and give lawmakers safety vests with the names of the company’s warehouses in their districts. Amazon regularly talks up its job openings and new warehouses and offices, and it has a website that tallies how much the company spends in the United States.
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It’s a compelling message. Few companies in the history of the United States have hired people at the rate Amazon has recently. And many towns and states want Amazon facilities in their backyards — and politicians want credit for bringing those jobs to their area.
It’s also undeniable that all that spending is for Amazon, not for America. The company’s sales are growing fast, and its commitment to get more packages to Prime members’ doorsteps in one day has required it to add workers, open more depots near major population centers and spend more on planes and trucks.
The desire to paint corporate necessity in the best possible light sometimes creates strange spectacles. Apple in 2018 basically patted itself on the back for paying taxes and buying equipment to make iPhones.
Tech companies are becoming just like every other for-profit corporation. They want to be seen as contributing to society, not just making money.
The New York Times