User:Mobelkin/sandbox/Jacob Helberg

Jacob Samuel Helberg (born November 9, 1989) is an American national security author, former technology policy advisor and a political philanthropist. He currently serves as Co-Chair to the Brookings Institutions China Strategy Working Group, Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Senior Advisor to the Stanford University Center on Geopolitics and Technology. He is the author of a forthcoming book on U.S. foreign policy, technology policy and China for publication in 2021. Helberg led Google’s internal global product policy efforts to combat disinformation and foreign interference from 2016 to 2020. He was a major supporter of the presidential campaigns of Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris during the 2020 cycle.

Early life and family
Of North-African and Eastern European Jewish heritage, Helberg’s paternal grandparents were polish Holocaust survivors and emigrated to Toledo, Ohio, after being liberated from Auschwitz by Allied forces during World War II. His maternal grandfather worked in the French air force and fought in the French Resistance during the war. Helberg’s mother was born in Tunis, Tunisia, a french protectorate at the time, where her and her parents lived until the late 1950s when they emigrated to the southern french city of Marseille. In 2017, Helberg’s father passed away in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His mother currently resides in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Helberg was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, where he spent most of his childhood. He held his Bar Mitzvah at the historic century-old Copernic Synagogue of Paris. A native french speaker, Helberg spent seven years in Belgium, where he attended a french high school, the Lycée Français of Brussels.

Education
Helberg graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in international affairs from the George Washington University. During his time as an undergraduate, he helped launch a development program in Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, which received praise from officials from French Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Department of State. Helberg received his M.S. in cybersecurity risk and strategy from New York University.

Career
Jacob Helberg is a Senior Advisor at the Stanford University Center on Geopolitics and Technology and an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he is authoring a forthcoming book on technology policy, China and U.S. national security. The book is expected to be published in 2021. Helberg is also Co-Chairing the Brookings Institution China Strategy Working Group, where is helping support and lead research efforts focused on China’s intentions, foreign policy and what the right long-term U.S. strategy should be to meet the challenge. Helberg is also a Co-Chair of the Brookings Institution US-France Working on China, focused on reinvigorating the transatlantic alliance and the bilateral US-France relationship vis-a-vis the global advance of autocracy and the rise of China. He is a member of the Manufacturing Leadership Council at the National Association of Manufacturers.

As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, Helberg has been a vocal critic of China's human rights abuses against Uyghurs and a proponent of a more muscular U.S. foreign policy approach to China. Unlike many other scholars, Helberg believes that American deterrence reduces the risk of geopolitical conflict and instability and often stresses that the erosion of deterrence could increase the likelihood in geopolitical miscalculation and conflict. As a dual French-American citizen, Helberg has often defended the importance of the U.S.’s alliance system and underscored the need for the U.S. to deepen its engagement with like-minded democracies to promote shared values and interests, and address common threats and transnational challenges. Helberg has also been a proponent of forging new technology alliances and incentivizing U.S. companies to reshore their supply chain operations out of China.

From 2016 to 2020, Helberg led Google’s internal global product policy efforts to combat disinformation and foreign interference. As a policy advisor, Helberg led the implementation of Google’s most complex global news policy initiatives. These included the company’s global policy and enforcement processes against state-backed foreign interference, misinformation and actors undermining election integrity.

Prior to joining Google, Jacob was a member of the founding team of GeoQuant, a geopolitical-risk- forecasting technology company backed by Swiss Re’s VC arm, one of the world’s largest reinsurers.

Political activities
In 2019, Helberg and his husband, PayPal investor (and noted conservative) Keith Rabois, co-hosted a fundraiser for Pete Buttigieg's presidential primary campaign. Helberg was a major supporter of Pete Buttigieg’s bid for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. presidency. When Buttigieg ended his campaign, Helberg shared a series of photos of himself and the candidate on Twitter, calling Buttigieg's campaign "more joyful, positive [and] inspiring than any I can remember." Throughout 2020, Helberg has contributed over $1.23 million to help elect Joe Biden to the U.S. presidency in the general election.

Personal life
In 2018, Helberg married Keith Rabois, a Silicon Valley technology executive and investor, member of the PayPal Mafia and noted conservative. The ceremony was held in St. Barts and officiated by Sam Altman.