Waltz fired, Lutnick struggles at tech’s DC pageant
Tech’s best couldn’t find what they were looking for amid Trump chaos
I’m down here in DC at The Hill & Valley Forum, which has become a central hub in the reindustrialization conference circuit (Lux is a financial sponsor). The programming, which has a strong emphasis on American politics, leans right, with deeper connections to the Trump administration than almost any other prime tech event. That’s attractive in today’s Washington, so you get a stage filled with everyone from Jensen Huang of Nvidia and Alex Karp of Palantir to Ruth Porat of Google and Vinod Khosla, the venture capitalist. Plus our own Josh Wolfe in conversation with Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Qasar Younis of Applied Intuition.
It was at the bookends though that the narrative of the Forum yesterday — and the future of tech and manufacturing in DC policymaking — met reality.
In the morning, the first Trump national security official to take the stage was Michael Waltz, the national security advisor, speaking on rebuilding American industrial power. It’s a fruitful topic that was held in front of a packed audience with a frisson of tension following a smattering of protests for earlier speaker Karp. Waltz and his panel spoke enthusiastically on America’s potential.
Just 24 hours later though, Waltz was fired by Trump, as was the deputy national security advisor Alex Wong. Such is the tumult of this administration that a linchpin official can be feted for his commitment to American renewal and then be walked out of the White House doors for the last time. We know Signalgate is the immediate cause, but what about Waltz’s focus on shipbuilding and industry, which brought him heavy attention as a congressman? No word on that.
That was the morning bookend. After the Forum, a private reception was held across the street from the Capitol at Union Station, where soaring ornate columns and arches match both the administration’s mood and its chosen neoclassical aesthetic. The energy here was intense. My throat is still hurting from talking above the cacophony, and when it was time for dinner, the poor man with the tinny dinner chime valiantly struggled to move a single person into the ballroom, and from there, into their seats.
As tech’s finest finally began sitting down, Trump’s secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick, walked up to the stage amid a smattering of selfies and camera flashes. Then he reached the podium and just started speaking, struggling to garner any more attention than the chimes man had. Why he plopped on stage without a formal introduction quieting the crowd will have to remain a mystery.
What was not a mystery was his purpose: putting on a valedictory address for the administration’s first one hundred days. This was — with some clear exceptions — a reasonably open crowd of technologists who are bullish on the future of American manufacturing, growth and ultimately global power, and eager to hear the administration’s perspective.
The speech itself was held under Chatham House rules, so I will refrain from quoting. But let me depict the vibe: befuddlement and frustration. A soaring venue, gorgeously appointed tables, everyone well-coiffed. It was the best-looking Silicon Valley crew you will likely ever find, and the energetic din of talking continued across rows of tables.
Lutnick squelched it, quickly. Against the background excitement in the room for the future of America sat a tech CEO who had lost hundreds of billions of dollars of market cap over the administration’s export controls. Venture capitalists were arrayed strategically across the ballroom, still waiting for those public markets to open and usher in the flood of IPOs that we’ve all been expecting. Ryan Petersen of Flexport, one of Silicon Valley’s most successful startups, is staring into the abyss of a collapse of international trade due to tariffs (perhaps why he broke event rules and posted a Lutnick quote on X).
Lutnick certainly tried. He was jovial and garrulous, attempting to deliver laugh lines and amusing vignettes. There were clear moments in which he expected laughter or clapping, and outside of a few very enthusiastic tables, he mostly didn’t get them. After all, from the tech industry’s perspective, what is there to celebrate in the first one hundred days? Lutnick is less likely to befall the same penalty as Waltz’s this morning, but the general sense was that none of these policies are working out.
Timid negativity was certainly an under-current throughout most of the day’s private discussions. There were the exceptional cases: the founder with a rare-earths business awash in new contracts, or the startup that is likely going to make a fortune off of the new reconciliation bill (assuming it stands). In any tumult, there will be winners.
Yet, there were small groups whispering fears of how they could buy the right machines for their new factories given the tariffs on China. Defense tech folks have been thrilled with potential new funding from Congress, but it’s clear that the Pentagon is an absolute organizational wreck right now, and it’s never good for business when your only customer is petulant.
Similar to the Endless Frontiers summit I wrote about a few weeks ago, the general vibe was one of diminished expectations. For the people in this crowd, the great hope of America’s renaissance was a Trump administration ready to dynamite through regulations, fund a plan to capitalize new factories and focus all of its energies on promoting American exports.
Instead, as one senior defense official walking the halls described to me, Trump has wrecked so much state capacity so quickly that, even if he wanted to, he couldn’t deliver that renaissance.
Given how much expectations have deflated among this right-leaning group, one would assume that Democrats would have a plan to turn the wreckage into advantage. They don’t. Talking with two Democratic senators, I was shocked to learn that there is no message. Let me repeat that. It’s not that they don't have a unifying message. They have no message whatsoever. Both emphasized they just want to help their home states weather the storms as best as they can, a bunker mentality more than one ready to reassume the mantle of leadership.
With one of the senators, I talked about military readiness and the fact that roughly only a quarter of Americans even qualify for U.S. military service (which, if you haven’t read it, Dexter Filkins piece on this in The New Yorker is superb). The conversation turned immediately back to the budget deficit, which is hemorrhaging even faster under Trump than Biden, to the tune of an extra $200 billion in outlays compared to the same period last year.
I had maybe two or three dozen conversations across the conference and outside of it, and the only optimistic theme I consistently heard was that people want America to succeed. They know success doesn’t look like this though, whether it’s this budget, or this set of tariffs, or this organizational conflagration of executive departments and America’s best science labs. Maybe it will all synthesize together in the end in some grand plan, although no one seemed to really believe that.
Hill & Valley’s three organizers — Jacob Helberg, Trump’s nominee for Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment; Delian Asparouhov of Founders Fund and Lux portfolio company Varda; and Christian Garrett of 137 Ventures — put on a hell of a show. I had half-expected the bipartisan nature of previous Forums to wane given the polarization in DC these days, but the event still drew a passel of Democrats who are interested in how tech can transform America for the better.
Yet, no forum exists in a vacuum. For all of their amazing organizing efforts and the power list of tech luminaries walking the corridors, we are all still struggling to see how we can reindustrialize amidst such total disorder. Lutnick seemed to get the mission — his American patriotism lines received the heaviest applause. Yet, everyone in this room knows we need so much more, and we need it so much sooner. Only 1,360 more days of winning to go.
Brilliant essay Danny. You should do more reporting-style stuff this was great!
Interesting to read this and compare it to VCs performative Trump praising on twitter. I understand why the incongruity exists, but it’s a good idea for your VC friends to be aware that the incongruity is evident and obvious.