Beckerman is No. 87 on the Recode 100

When Silicon Valley gets itself into political trouble, it tends to turn to the Internet Association — a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group that represents the likes of Airbnb, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter and more.

So it’s been a busy year for Michael Beckerman, the president of IA, who’s had to hold the industry’s line at a time when federal regulators are as skeptical of tech as ever.

IA and Beckerman have warred with the FCC over net neutrality, sought to shape White House work on immigration and procurement reform and angled to battle back efforts by Congress to regulate online political ads, even amid mounting evidence that Russian forces bought them in order to spread election disinformation.

To be sure, the industry has taken its lumps — even weathering a nasty hearing where Facebook, Google and Twitter had to answer for the Kremlin’s election interference. Even so, they’ve avoided serious, business-busting regulation. The test for Beckerman in 2018 is whether he and his Silicon Valley lot can continue warding off Washington, D.C.