Inside a Failed Silicon Valley Attempt to Reinvent Politics
Win the Future set out to reinvigorate the Democratic Party. Instead it built a quiz app.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
The comedian Samantha Bee kicked off the new season of her TBS show, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, last week by introducing a smartphone trivia app designed to spark voter registration. Bee copped to being a tech novice, and laid out her insecurities about her first product launch in a media preview. “We don’t have a clue if it’s going to succeed or fail,” she admitted from the stage.
Sure enough, Bee’s app — This is Not a Game: The Game — crashed almost immediately, and was broken for days. It’s back online, and so declaring it a failure for Bee is premature. But it sure didn’t reflect well on Win The Future, the group that developed the game for her.