这位富豪建议把加州一分为三

硅谷的风投资本家抱有一种奇特的观念。他们认为赚了一大笔钱，就可以让自己那些异想天开的想法变得精妙绝伦。他们实在太富有，因此自己那些关于世界应该变成什么样的轻率思想，不仅应该在这个依托现实的世界里得到公平的聆听，还体现了他们超越常人的智慧。

投资者蒂姆·德雷珀就打算用金钱实现这样一个想法：用公民表决把加利福尼亚州一分为三。如果他能成功，加利福尼亚就会变成一个以旧金山为中心的北部州，一个与洛杉矶为中心、区域更小但人口更稠密的中间州和一个包括大部分产粮区中央山谷和圣迭戈的南部州。

德雷珀很聪明。他原本希望把加利福尼亚州分成六个州。但他认为少一半或许可以吸引更多支持者。反对德雷珀这种胡闹的一名政治顾问对《旧金山纪事报》（The San Francisco Chronicle）表示：“这只表明那些异想天开的亿万富翁可以通过公民表决煽动任何事情。”

德雷珀似乎没有意识到强大统一的加利福尼亚州对美国和世界的作用。例如，它能让环保部门让步屈服，对华盛顿特区的美国政府也有巨大的影响力。这个州需要团结起来、齐心协力，而德雷珀的做法会削弱它的实力。

德雷珀上次花费了超过500万美元来分裂加州。想想这笔钱如果用来帮穷人果腹，给无家可归者庇护之所，或是为风投资本家谦逊的投资提供支持，会产生多大的积极意义。（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正

Silicon Valley venture capitalists are plagued with a strange affliction. They believe that having made gobs of money somehow makes their kooky ideas brilliant. They’re stinking rich, so their hair-brained concepts of what the world ought to look like not only deserve a fair hearing in the reality-based world but somehow are examples of their superior thinking.

The investor Tim Draper has such an idea he’s using his money to push: a ballot initiative to split California into three. If Draper has his way, California would be cleaved into a northern state with San Francisco at its core, a smaller but populous center built around Los Angeles, and a southern state encompassing much of the breadbasket Central Valley plus San Diego.

Draper is nothing if not nimble. He originally wanted to split California into six states. Somehow he thinks half that will be more appealing to voters. A political consultant who has opposed Draper’s shenanigans before got it right when he told The San Francisco Chronicle: “This just goes to show that a billionaire with a wacky idea can get about anything on the ballot.”

Draper seems not to have noticed that a big and powerful California holds tremendous clout in the nation and the world. It bends environmental regulators to its will, for example, and has tremendous influence in Washington, D.C. His maneuvering would weaken the state at a time it needs to pull together.

Draper spent more than $5 million on his last effort to split up California. Imagine how much good that money could do feeding the poor, housing the homeless, or funding humility courses for venture capitalists.