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Mike Bloomberg Is Plowing Millions of Dollars Into a Secretive Tech Firm Called Hawkfish (cnbc.com) 62

Posted by BeauHD from the top-secret dept.
As a way to help his 2020 presidential bid, presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg is pouring tens of millions of dollars into an unknown digital business called Hawkfish -- which Bloomberg himself founded during the spring. CNBC reports: Hawkfish will be the "primary digital agency and technology services provider for the campaign," Julie Wood, a Bloomberg campaign spokeswoman, told CNBC. She added that the firm "is now providing digital ad services, including content creation, ad placement and analytics" for their campaign. It will also help Democratic races across the country in future election cycles, she said. Bloomberg, a billionaire former three-term mayor of New York, started building the company early in 2019, before he decided to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, the campaign aide said. While the campaign declined to say how much Bloomberg has invested in the company, Bloomberg has said he will spend over $100 million on anti-Trump digital ads. His campaign has already spent at least $13 million on Facebook and Google spots.

Bloomberg, who was dedicated to denying President Donald Trump a second term before he entered the Democratic race, built Hawkfish with the intention of overpowering the formidable data operation assembled by the Republican National Committee and Trump's cash-flush campaign. Hawkfish appears to have been assembled in secret. It has no public website. A search of elections databases turned up no financial records connected to work for other Democratic causes. No other candidate in the 2020 race is known to have created a vendor designed to aide their bid. [...] Using research company Accurint, CNBC reporters went to a New York address that was associated with Hawkfish. At the address, 909 Third Avenue, an attendant at the front desk said no business named Hawkfish existed there. The Bloomberg campaign spokeswoman said the address, which is about a five-minute walk from Bloomberg's namesake company, was only used for receiving paperwork. The address is the same as Mike Bloomberg's longtime accountant, Geller & Company. Hawkfish's leadership ranks include longtime Facebook Chief Marketing Officer Gary Briggs, and Jeff Glueck, former CEO of location-tracking firm Foursquare.

Glueck hinted that other former Silicon Valley players were with the company, but didn't name names. "The Bloomberg campaign is posting Hawkfish jobs on its website, including graphic designer, copywriter, video editor and senior software engineer," adds CNBC.
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Mike Bloomberg Is Plowing Millions of Dollars Into a Secretive Tech Firm Called Hawkfish More

Mike Bloomberg Is Plowing Millions of Dollars Into a Secretive Tech Firm Called Hawkfish

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  • It has no public website.

    The Bloomberg campaign is posting Hawkfish jobs on its website, including graphic designer, copywriter, video editor and senior software engineer," adds CNBC.

    • It has no public website.

      The Bloomberg campaign is posting Hawkfish jobs on its website,

      Yes, that sentence says that the Bloomberg campaign is posting Hawkfish jobs on the Bloomberg campaign website, while the article is saying that Hawkfish doesn't have its own public website. HTH, HAND!

    • Well, the Hawkfish jobs don't appear to be posted on the Bloomberg campaign's website. [mikebloomberg.com] Rather, they're posted on the greenhouse website. [greenhouse.io]. That is also the website that Bloomberg's campaign is using to recruit its own staff.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by rossdee ( 243626 )

        [greenhouse.io]

        Bloomberg's servers are on one of Jupiter's moons?
        Ping times must really suck.

        At least Rudi won't be able to go get it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Are the ads truthful. Wanted trolls for troll farm, must have low ethical standards, have no regard for the truth be able to manage hundreds of identities whilst being comfortable with fucking up forums to push their messaging, warning, if your trolls results in worse polls or fail in any way, you will be immediately fired, NDA compulsory. Apply for the job, get all the details and screw the NDA, you could have so much fun with that fool.

  • to get at Sanders & Warren. He just doesn't want his taxes to go up. Also like most billionaires he's got investments in the private insurance industry and makes money off their advertisements (and the adverts from pharma companies who, let's not forget, spend more on advertising than R&D).

    If you know a moderate Democrat leaning to one of these rich bastards (Steyer & Delaney come to mind) or one of the sell outs (Biden/Buttigieg) now's the time to remind them that their interests do not ali

    • Bloomberg doesn't need to rent a Wine Cave for his fundraiser for his donors . . . he will just use his own Wine Cave! This will be cheaper and efficient, because it will cut out those Wine Cave those middlemen leeches who rent out Wine Caves for fundraisers!

      In fact . . . Bloomberg won't need neither a Wine Cave Fundraiser nor donors . . . Bloomberg will be his own donor!

      And the billions that he spends on his campaign will "trickle down" from his 1% part of the universe down through his campaign staff, a

      • Bloomberg might actually be a wine cave at this point.

        Today his campaign is apologizing for using prison labor to make campaign calls. Exploiters gonna exploit.

        His existence made more sense when he was a Republican.

        • Re:Bloomberg is efficient! (Score:4, Interesting)

          by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Wednesday December 25, 2019 @01:08AM (#59555460)

          Right, because Democrats never use slave or prison labor. Oh wait -

          • into the party in the 90s as the "New" Democrats (sometimes called the "Third Way" Democrats). He did that so he could get the fat sacks of cash needed to run a campaign without building up 50 years of grassroots support like Bernie Sanders did.

            Buttigieg is now doing the same thing. I don't think it's going to work this time though. The party's base is starting to demand values over platitudes, policy over "Hope & Change". Obama looks to be the last time a corporate Dem will fool the party.
    • It's actually a way to get around contribution limits. He really doesn't care who wins, as long as it's not Trump. If he just donates, he's limited in how much he can donate. But if he runs, he can dump hundreds of millions into "campaign ads" that push what he thinks is important, and attack President Trump. It's really a way around donation limits, rather than a real Presidential run.

    • to get at Sanders & Warren.

      Bloomberg doesn't have much support, but polls show the support he does have comes mostly at the expense of Biden.

      So how does this hurt Sanders & Warren?

      Here are the reasons he won't win:

      1. Stop and frisk - Blacks won't vote for him
      2. #MeToo - His past sexist behavior and crude remarks will hurt him with women
      3. Big Gulp Ban - Lots of people don't like the nanny state
      4. Yet another billionaire - The 0.0000001% aren't popular with progressives
      5. Age - He is as old as Biden and older than Trump
      6. Gun

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by epine ( 68316 )

        He is Jewish — 5% of Americans won't vote for a non-Christian, enough to swing many states.

        Jews accept Jesus. They just think he's overrated. They accept the Father, and they might even be in on the Holy Spirit, too.

        Could The Holy Ghost Be Jewish? [forward.com] — 2013

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Yes, he's spending millions on his own campaign to stop himself from spending millions on taxes, that sneaky bastard. And those millions he spend on anti-smoking and anti-guns, clearly another effort to avoid taxes. And just think, you are the only one in the world to have figured this out.

  • I am sure you want to know. but no. stop asking.

  • Let's see if HAWKFISH runs any better than the ORCA program that Mitt Romney's "IT team" wrote in 2012. It was supposed to coordinate every aspect of his campaign, and run the "Get Out The Vote" volunteers. It failed utterly. With any luck, this one will, too.

  • Looks like the oligarchs are no longer satisfied with buying politicians. They're now trying to buy their way into office directly.

    I wonder how I can make some money off this...

  • And they'll be handed their ass again just like the last time. Clinton spent $1.2B and failed. And Bloomberg is even less likable IMO. He's also a fucking straight white male. Any one of these traits would make life difficult for him on the Dem side. All three combined mean he's utterly and completely unelectable even if he spends every single dollar of his wealth. That would be true even if Trump wasn't running, but Trump is running, thank god.

    • He's also a fucking straight white male.

      Do you know who the frontrunner is in the primary campaign?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by melted ( 227442 )

        Dead man walking that's who. He's not going to recover from the Burisma and quid pro quo fallout. He also sniffs children, can't remember what state he's in, speaks about kids rubbing his hairy legs, and his crowds number in the dozens. Obama knows this, so he (wisely) chose not to endorse.

        • In Iowa, the first three candidates are all white males.

          Seriously though, it's hard to see how he thinks he can win, joining this late. Was his plan to just skip all the debates because he doesn't like debating? Something is weird about Bloomberg.

          • Re:And they'll be handed their ass again (Score:4, Insightful)

            by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Wednesday December 25, 2019 @01:30AM (#59555484) Journal
            It's simply a way to get around campaign donation limits. If he gave as an individual, he can only provide a few thousand. For a 501(c)3, they are limited in what they can say. If he runs as a candidate, though, he can spend as much as he wants pushing his own agenda and attacking President Trump. This isn't about running for President, this is about getting around campaign donation limits.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Tailhook ( 98486 )

            Seriously though, it's hard to see how he thinks he can win, joining this late

            His mind is easy to grasp; he's another establishment group-thinker that has inculcated all of the conventional establishment thought on campaign finance and sincerely believes — as doesn't every other establishment bubble dweller — that election outcomes are primarily determined by which candidates spend the most money. And since he is equipped with the biggest war chest of them all it is understood in the establishment mind that he need only fund the biggest campaign with the largest budget a

      • The Man Who Vanquished Corn Pop. Hairy Legs Biden.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tailhook ( 98486 )

        Do you know who the frontrunner is in the primary campaign?

        No, I don't. Also, you don't either. Go on, cite some polls like a lemming.

        • Wow, you're a real genius, bet you got hit in the head with a rock growing up to gain that kind of intelligence.

  • If Bloomberg wins, it’s because he basically scaled up what Trump did in 2016 in going directly to the dumb voter and using Facebook/Google trickery as campaign promoters against the established gatekeepers of democracy. If he does not win, by logical deduction, that means Trump won 2016 not because of Facebook trickery (because by that logic, Bloomberg wins) and that voters are not dumb and do not believe everything on their Facebooks (because by that logic, Bloomberg will be polling past Biden prett

  • Millions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Tuesday December 24, 2019 @10:42PM (#59555318)

    >"Mike Bloomberg Is Plowing Millions of Dollars Into a Secretive Tech Firm Called Hawkfish"

    Is this before or after he has been plowing millions of dollars in turning Virginia's legislature blue? Or the millions of dollars trying to strip people of their 2nd Amendment rights?

  • Bloomberg Exploited Prison Labor... (Score:5, Informative)

    by dbreeze ( 228599 ) on Tuesday December 24, 2019 @11:00PM (#59555344)

    https://theintercept.com/2019/... [theintercept.com]

    "Former New York City mayor and multibillionaire Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg used prison labor to make campaign calls. Through a third-party vendor, the Mike Bloomberg 2020 campaign contracted New Jersey-based call center company ProCom, which runs calls centers in New Jersey and Oklahoma. Two of the call centers in Oklahoma are operated out of state prisons. In at least one of the two prisons, incarcerated people were contracted to make calls on behalf of the Bloomberg campaign."

  • 'Bloomberg, who was dedicated to denying President Donald Trump a second term'...

    Unless he figures out how to tank the market, thereby losing billions personally, seems unlikely.

    Regardless of how invested voters care about how he presents himself, their primary concern all comes down to financial productivity. He's not come close to being less than an excellent performer in that manner.

    There's no one that comes even close to consideration for those that count beans, and we all count beans.

    • Regardless of how invested voters care about how he presents himself, their primary concern all comes down to financial productivity. He's not come close to being less than an excellent performer in that manner.

      There's no one that comes even close to consideration for those that count beans, and we all count beans.

      If they count beans as poorly as you, we truly are fucked. [bbc.com]
      He hasn't done a bad job. But it's not like he pulled some kind of miracle out of his ass. The ship, remarkably, is still on the course it was on long before he announced his candidacy.

  • Well, since he's a Democrat (this year), we don't have to know anything about it to know that it will be bad for personal freedom and prosperity.

    • I love reading on public websites about 'secret' organizations - if I'm reading about it on Slashdot, it isn't secret.

  • Remember Obama For America 2008 (Score:3)

    by kenh ( 9056 ) on Wednesday December 25, 2019 @10:40AM (#59556062) Homepage Journal

    Remember back in 2008 when the press cheered on the digital tools and innovations OFA (Obama For America) employed time help Obama win in 2008? It was an amazing achievement, revolutionizing the way Presidential campaigns interacting with voters. Now that Republicans are employing similar technologies it's viewed as a bad thing.

    Bloomberg ... built Hawkfish with the intention of overpowering the formidable data operation assembled by the Republican National Committee and Trump's cash-flush campaign.

    • Formidable. It means strong, powerful. It doesn't have a negative connotation. This is a competition and the opposition is not a pushover.

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