The Mayor of San Jose, Matt Man, and good morning, Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. Mayor, Mayheon and your city, San Jose is just so closely and intimately linked to the technology industry as well. You come at this, I guess from the political perspective, but why do you think that the technology industry is an important voice in backing your preferred candidate.
Well, before I was mayor of San Jose, which is the capital of Silicon Valley with nearly one million residents, really the hometown for tech's workforce and home to many leading technology companies like Adobe, Zoom, Cisco, Paipal, and on and on.
I was in the tech sector myself.
In fact, I first met Kamala Harris about a decade ago at Airbnb, which was just down the street from a startup that I was involved in founding and leading.
And I was very impressed with her.
You know, she came in sharing her work on public safety, which continues to be top of mind for all of us, and she has great experience there. But she also engaged with a number of us who were tech entrepreneurs and founders around innovation topics. She understood the importance of having a diverse workforce and supporting immigration, intellectual property and the kinds of infrastructure investments that we need in common sense approach to regulations.
So you know, really excited that she's the top of the ticket.
Man, Men, local issues. You know, our guests in that SoundBite and challenge just now reflect on Kamala Harris being from the Bay and outside of technology there are issues actually statewide. But the clearing of encampments are encampments sweeps for example, following the Scotis Grants past decision. It's an interesting case study. How do you feel that that issue will be addressed by the Harris campaign and how central is an issue do you think it will be in a presidential election at large?
Look, I want a partner in the White House who is not going to use Silicon Valley or California more broadly, merely as a punching bag. I want a partner who is pragmatic, who understands our region, who's going to help us deal with the very real challenges we face. You mentioned homelessness, which is an area where we are getting more pragmatic. San Jose saw fifteen percent reduction last year. We need a partner in Washington who's going to help fund innovative solutions.
Same goes for public safety.
That's an area where I appreciate that Kamala Harris has been a pragmatic centrist and I think the right approaches.
May and man man, I just jump in and ask, you know, from the Trump Vance perspective, the messaging of that campaign is that Kamala Harris has been responsible for what they see as being big issues with Bay Area in California cities. Your city is under the microscope to that extent. Are you worried about that message resonating from the Trump Vans campaign?
No, I'm not, because I think Kama Harris has a record that stands on its own, and she can speak to her policy positions, which it's you know, it's kind of ironic. She gets attacked from both sides for being too tough on crime or being associated with what some perceive as California's crime problem. I think she's right down
the middle, and that's exactly where I am. Somebody who understands or has to be consequences for committing crime, but we also should invest in rehabilitation and support those with addiction and helping them get treatment. So I think She's got the right pragmatic approach, and we need that kind of partner in Washington as we navigate some very real challenges that are state faces.
In San Jose, Mayor Matt Mahn