The Washington Post reports:

Prominent venture capitalists and start-up founders see Donald Trump’s victory as heralding a golden age for innovation — anticipating a major boost to tech businesses from lucrative government contracts and the rollback of regulations they consider onerous.

The tech industry’s potentially unbridled future under the second Trump administration energized some Republican donors at a Las Vegas conference this week hosted by the Rockbridge Network, a conservative political advocacy group co-founded by Trump’s incoming vice president, former venture capitalist JD Vance, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

Those discussions took place behind closed doors but some tech investors, founders and executives are celebrating publicly.

“The regulatory cutbacks are going to be profound,” Cathie Wood, the CEO of the investment firm Ark Invest, a major shareholder in Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla, said in a YouTube video Saturday. She predicted “explosive GDP growth” and said Trump policies favorable to cryptocurrency would unlock a wave of internet innovation.

The Rockbridge meeting in Las Vegas this week was attended by prominent venture investor and Trump supporter Marc Andreessen, as well as Trump’s pick for White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Tech industry insiders were in high spirits, according to the person familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions.

“These people are just so hyped up by the fact that they’re going to be able to do a lot of things and move a lot faster — definitely around AI and energy,” the person said.

Trump is considering pro-crypto figures for key financial agencies and has said he will rescind nascent rules on AI enacted by President Joe Biden. Such changes will leave start-ups and investors an open playing field to “let us nerd out and develop our business,” the person said.

Silicon Valley’s most influential start-up incubator, Y Combinator, encouraged company founders Monday to pitch “notoriously hard” ideas, listing areas of business that mostly depend on cooperation or support from government or regulators. They include selling software to federal agencies and police departments, developing financial tech products for regulated sectors like insurance or investment banking, and bringing manufacturing back to the United States. [Continue reading…]