WIRED -- So, how do you get your pet initiative approved by voters? These days it’s good marketing to demonize big tech, says Jason McDaniel, a professor at San Francisco State University who studies the city’s politics. “Progressives like to focus these proposals at tech because it provides a populist message. They can easily identify the villain for voters.”
In practice, the proposals aren’t actually all that tech-focused, McDaniel points out. Thanks to the high salaries of tech worker bees, the CEO tax would mostly affect banks. And the IPO tax, which restores a levy on stock-based compensation that was slashed in 2012, would affect anyone who gets paid in stock. That includes employees at places like Wells Fargo, not just the recent IPO holders like Uber and Slack.