Why Silicon Valley’s big bet on Matt Mahan went bust

SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley’s effort to place Matt Mahan in the governor’s mansion is stalling out amid recriminations, donor frustration and second-guessing.

The San Jose mayor entered California’s wide-open governor’s race as tech’s chosen champion: a centrist Democrat with founder credentials, elite backers and promises of tens of millions of dollars to catapult him through the June primary.

But his underwhelming campaign has become a cautionary tale about an untested candidate and inexperienced donors chasing a vision that has failed to materialize with a week left — a humbling experience for some of Mahan’s backers in tech, many of them relative newcomers to state politics</u>","link":{"target":"NEW","attributes":[],"url":"https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/04/woke-up-the-sleeping-giant-tech-goes-hard-on-california-politics-00765304","_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de4000e","_type":"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de4000f","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>many of them relative newcomers to state politics who are working to build enduring political power in California.

Undergirding the disappointment is a characteristically Silicon Valley attitude about setbacks and millions squandered: They went fast and broke things, and in the process learned something about politics.

“This is our education,” said Garry Tan, a venture capitalist who has been one of Mahan’s most vocal supporters. “This is first grade, second grade for me, personally. We won’t be first and second graders forever.”

The case for Mahan’s viability always rested on an infusion of quick cash. As a first-term mayor who was unknown to most Californians, Mahan would need an enormous windfall to propel him into contention — especially after entering the race late and leaving himself just months to break through. Supporters helped lure him in by assuring him the money would be there.

It was a plausible promise. A former tech entrepreneur with a Harvard connection to Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, Mahan nurtured deep ties to his hometown industry and followed a line of tech-friendly California Democrats like Rep. Sam Liccardo.

Joe Green, a Harvard roommate of Zuckerberg’s who recruited Mahan </u>","link":{"target":"NEW","attributes":[],"url":"https://jointventure.org/read-more-profiles/1724-meet-matt-mahan-brigade","_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de40010","_type":"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de40011","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>recruited Mahan to his startup more than a decade ago, became campaign chair and a conduit to the industry. An outside committee backing Mahan quickly raised millions of dollars. Bay Area venture capitalist Michael Moritz and Los Angeles mall magnate Rick Caruso — who passed on running himself — backed Mahan and worked their connections to raise money. Green, Moritz, and Caruso did not respond to requests for comment.

But the money never matched the ambition. The principal independent expenditure committee’s presentation to donors estimated they would need around $46 million. It managed roughly half of that.

“He raised the worst-of-all-worlds kind of money,” said a campaign supporter who was granted anonymity to describe internal dynamics. “Enough that he ran a real campaign, but not enough to get the … name ID that he needs.”

Mahan spokesperson Tasha Dean said in a statement that Mahan had shown strength despite entering the race “a virtual unknown against well-known repeat candidates,” arguing “the clickbait class and our opponents have spent more time talking about poll numbers than plans to fix our problems.”

“We chose something different: listening to Californians, seeing the daily challenges they face, and talking about how we will hold government accountable for delivering results,” Dean said, adding: “The people in this movement are not part of the political establishment and special interest insiders — and we’re certainly not going to let pollsters decide this election. That decision belongs to the voters.”

Mahan supporters have still poured nearly $50 million into his campaign and allied PACs, one of which trailed only billionaire Tom Steyer in overall spending. But he’s never caught or overtaken the race’s top Democrats.

Frustrations quickly began to mount as the ebullience of the early days gave way to tepid polling, bubbling up in calls with donors who questioned the campaign’s tactics and wondered why their money wasn’t moving the needle.

Some blamed his campaign manager Eric Jaye, a veteran of California politics, pinning Mahan’s anemic numbers in part on Jaye’s strategy of holding onto cash rather than funding an early ad blitz to introduce Mahan, which the outside committee could then amplify. About two months after Mahan launched, Jaye was out.</u>","link":{"target":"NEW","attributes":[],"url":"https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/01/matt-mahan-top-strategist-part-ways-as-gubernatorial-campaign-struggles-to-break-through-00854784","_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de50000","_type":"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de50001","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>was out. Jaye declined to comment for this story.

But others argued the donor class had failed Mahan by making unrealistic demands and not following through on their commitments. Several people lamented that Silicon Valley donors treated Mahan’s campaign like a promising startup, refusing to send more money until they saw a return on their investment in the form of better numbers.

“Every billionaire has an opinion and often a donor adviser,” the supporter said. “It’s the problem of dealing with people who have been unbelievably successful in one space, therefore thinking they have totally figured out another world that is totally different.”

The result was a familiar Silicon Valley problem transplanted into politics: Backers wanted evidence the bet was paying off before putting in more money, but Mahan needed more money to prove the bet could pay off.

That vicious cycle rippled through the broader business community, where potential supporters held off because they did not see the money or the movement needed for Mahan to break through. Tech companies never united behind him: DoorDash and Instacart gave Mahan money, while Meta, Uber, and Airbnb waited until Xavier Becerra had become the frontrunner and Mahan had begun to fade before spending for Becerra.

“There was some criticism of the donor class — ‘here’s seed funding, let’s see how you do’ — politics doesn’t work like that,” said a person with knowledge of the fundraising push who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “You need to be strong out of the gate. That created hesitation in the business community, which hedged their bets.”

Some of Mahan’s supporters in the tech industry are frustrated that more of their peers did not step up. One executive who donated to Mahan knocked other leaders for missing a rare opening.

“We complain all the time about how the state is poorly run,” said the tech executive, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Then, when we got the guy, we left him out to dry.”

As poll after poll showed Mahan failing to break out of single digits and into the race’s top tier, the money chase continued.

Mahan flew to make a personal appeal to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who has poured $66 million into a committee that is funding efforts to thwart a proposed wealth tax on California billionaires. Brin gave a second pro-Mahan super PAC $1 million and the maximum possible donation to his campaign. His conservative girlfriend asserted</u>","link":{"target":"NEW","attributes":[],"url":"https://x.com/Omggerelyn/status/2048948082545664429?s=20","_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de50002","_type":"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de50003","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>asserted that Mahan apologized to Brin for attending a No Kings rally. A Mahan representative declined to comment on the allegation.

In the race’s closing weeks, supporters tried to rally donors for a last-minute infusion of cash. Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings gave $1 million to the principal committee in mid-May, doubling what he previously pitched in. But when other donors didn’t step up to produce the hoped-for bounty, the committee gave him his money back. Hastings did not respond to a request for comment but said in a weekend X post that “I didn’t ask for any refund and they shouldn’t have done it.”

The second super PAC supporting Mahan shut down</u>","link":{"target":"NEW","attributes":[],"url":"https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/PDFGen/pdfgen.prg?filingid=3122637&amendid=2","_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de50004","_type":"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de50005","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>shut down on May 16.

The feuding over finances masked a deeper problem: Mahan’s appeal to business-friendy moderates was not matched by a resume that obviously prepared him to lead America’s largest state. To skeptics, it looked like the 43-year-old mayor had been prematurely pushed onto a much bigger stage.

“He is being funded by a handful of the glitterati,” said a longtime Silicon Valley donor who does not support Mahan. “They’d really like to have a governor they can call on the phone — please. He’s not ready.”

Mahan’s advocates may have misread the political moment, backing a business-backed centrist at a time of populist ferment. Labor unions, long skeptical of him, have run advertising </u>","link":{"target":"NEW","attributes":[],"url":"https://x.com/CaliforniaLabor/status/2053937323293970930?s=20","_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de50006","_type":"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de50007","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”> run advertising casting him as “(billionaires’) tech bro.” That pushback came even as Steyer spent well over $100 million of his own money to position himself as a progressive willing to challenge entrenched corporate power.

“We are in an anti-billionaire moment, and he aligned himself as the billionaire candidate, whether it was intentional or not,” said Cooper Teboe, a Silicon Valley consultant who works for progressive Rep. Ro Khanna but is not working for any governor candidates. “He ran on Back to Basics — I can’t imagine something that resonates less right now than going back to something that is not working.”

Now, many of Mahan’s supporters are regrouping around a question with implications beyond this race: whether it is showing the limits of Silicon Valley’s new ambitions or merely an early lesson in an ongoing campaign. Some, like Tan, argue the push for Mahan was just the beginning.

“I don’t think any of us are calling it quits,” Tan said. “Our whole movement is new, but we’re growing.”

That’s an open question. Mahan’s campaign has been one prong of a newly engaged tech industry’s multifront effort to reshape California politics in its favor. His struggle to gain traction could discourage some of those supporters from staying in the fight.</u>","link":{"target":"NEW","attributes":[],"url":"https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/27/tech-labor-brace-for-years-long-war-in-california-00846517","_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de50008","_type":"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_id":"0000019e-6491-db80-a9df-75d38de50009","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>staying in the fight.

“We’re so nascent politically,” Teboe said. “I think you’re going to see a lot of people throw their arms up and be like: ‘well, we tried to give California the commonsense candidate, we tried to fix California. It didn’t work.’”

Dustin Gardiner contributed to this story.

المصدر: Politico