Lobbying in Silicon Valley doesn't look like lobbying anywhere else. That's one of the things Roberta Reiff Katz likes about it. In 1998, Katz -- then the general counsel of Netscape Communications -- hosted a now-legendary meeting between a middle-aged congressman and a young Netscape engineer. An odder pair would be hard to imagine. Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from a rural district in Virginia, lives in a suit. The engineer -- an expert in the field of strong encryption -- had half of his head shaved and wore the remaining hair in a blue ponytail. But he had something important to say, and the congressman listened.
The engineer was frustrated that U.S. companies weren't allowed to export strong encryption -- the system by which, for instance, credit card numbers are scrambled on the Internet. Companies in other countries were unhampered by such restrictions. These antiquated regulations were potentially crippling to American firms trying to operate in a global marketplace, the engineer said.
Goodlatte explained the government's concern that encryption could be used for criminal purposes. But he agreed the policy made no sense and said he would see what he could do to change it. "At the end of the meeting the two stood and shook hands, and each said to the other, 'Thank you, I learned a lot,'" Katz later recalled.
And it wasn't just talk -- the meeting had concrete results. For one, it inspired Goodlatte to start his drive to loosen restrictions on the export of encryption -- and the White House changed the rules.
That meeting, Katz says, crystallized for her the critical role a lobbyist could play in the future of the high-tech industry. In June 1999, Katz became ceo of Technology Network, a 3-year-old association of executives from high tech and biotech firms and their partners that has become Silicon Valley's preeminent lobbying organization.
Nicknamed the "human hummingbird" for her nonstop energy, Katz, '69, is trying to build good working relations between the engineers and entrepreneurs who are creating the tools of the future and the legislators who will be regulating them. The two groups have not historically had much to say to each other, but that is changing quickly. Politicians see the enormous wealth technology companies create. And the once-aloof Silicon Valley entrepreneurs recognize that there are crucial things only Washington can do for them. Katz's job is to help the two cultures communicate. Surprisingly, it has a lot in common with her first calling -- anthropology.
A native of Denver, Katz majored in math at Stanford but fell in love with anthropology while studying in Italy during her junior year. She went on to get a PhD in cultural anthropology from Columbia University. But she had doubts about a life in academia and enrolled at the University of Washington Law School in 1977.
It was clearly a good move. After two years working as a tax lawyer with a Seattle firm, Katz was hired as general counsel at McCaw Cellular Communications, the wireless phone company. She helped negotiate the sale of McCaw to AT&T in 1994 and the next year followed McCaw's chief operating officer, Jim Barksdale, to a Palo Alto start-up called Netscape that was marketing an Internet browser. Although it meant three years of living apart from her husband, Charles, '69, whose law career kept him in Seattle, Katz found the job irresistible. "I had thought a lot about the future of the Internet, and I had to be a part of it," she says. "It was my destiny."
Katz helped take the firm public in 1995. Then, in 1999, she negotiated the sale of Netscape to America Online. She was contemplating a new career, perhaps outside the legal arena, when she was approached for Silicon Valley's chief lobbying job.
TechNet was the brainchild of Barksdale and venture capitalist John Doerr, who launched the group with funds left over from fighting a California ballot measure to make it easier for shareholders to sue companies. The measure, a potential disaster for high-tech firms, was defeated, but Silicon Valley leaders were spooked by how unprepared they had been to jump into a messy political fight. TechNet's mission: keep track of policies that might affect companies in the new economy, and keep elected officials aware of where technology firms might stand on them.
There were 100 candidates for the top job at TechNet. At an interview, Barksdale, a Republican, and Doerr, an Al Gore supporter, asked Katz her political affiliation. "None," she said. That was the right answer: TechNet is staunchly bipartisan, making contributions to tech-friendly candidates of both parties.
Of course, there are plenty of people without strong political leanings, but few have Katz's mix of skills. "As a lawyer with a PhD in anthropology, she looks at the world differently," says Barksdale. "She's a leader and a consensus builder, as well as extremely bright and hard-working."
Since she started her new job last year, Katz has signed up 60 executives to the group, for a total of 200. Members -- who include representatives of giants like Intel and Sun Microsystems, as well as scores of start-ups -- pay fees calculated as a percentage of their company's revenues.
This year, TechNet is focusing on four lobbying goals. They include revamping accounting regulations and normalizing trade relations with China. Katz argues that technology is a tool for democratization: the Internet, for example, allows Chinese citizens freer communication with people outside their country. She would like the federal government to boost the high-tech workforce by issuing more visas to skilled immigrants and improving American schools. She also wants to increase R&D funding. Basic research fuels innovation, Katz says. The Internet itself is the product of long-term, federally funded basic research.
Katz travels regularly to Washington, testifying at hearings or meeting with congressional leaders. But an even bigger part of her job is playing host to the policymakers now stampeding to Silicon Valley. "TechNet is a portal through which 25 percent of the U.S. Senate has passed in the last three months," says Katz. In fact, tours of the Valley became so popular last year that TechNet could no longer handle them all and Katz had to turn people away. "Everybody wants to learn about technology," Katz says. A lobbyist could have worse problems.
