I really want a lot of venture capital investors to work on their self-esteem.
After a few decades of supporting and mentoring New York City’s tech community, I hope I’m credible when I say I care a lot about how it thrives. So one of the most disappointing—and frankly surprising—things I’ve seen lately is how many investors in the greatest city in the world have been lowering themselves, sucking up for approval from a cohort of Silicon Valley tycoons who hate our city, hate our values, and want us to fail.
I’m furious because there are so many good people and good ideas here that deserve to thrive, and aren’t getting the chance. Why would anyone sit by while outsiders put our community down, only to let those same outsiders profit off us when we succeed anyway?
In fairness, I’m not talking about all of our city’s investors. Some are content to keep their heads down and hope the worst of the West Coast doesn’t notice them. But imagine if our other civic institutions worked this way: the Knicks timidly stepping onto the court and standing back while opponents charge the rim, or the Liberty letting the other team fire off shots unchallenged. This is not the New York City I know. What real New Yorker, when faced with a taxi cab headed toward them in a crosswalk, would say, “Oh, sorry, I was going to be walking here, but you go right ahead and run me over, good sir!”
It’s pathetic, and it’s bad for business. Our city is watching, and our kids are too.
HQ Zero
I’ve been lucky enough to watch brilliant friends build innovative businesses here, having each other’s backs and catalyzing a community that lifted up the city we all love.
And then, over and over, we watched our lawmakers line up to give billions in handouts to West Coast tycoons who’d already won the game. Even when the community stopped those giveaways, the companies still hired just as many people here as they’d promised—because people want to work in New York City. Our tech community's own data shows that, while the Bay Area lost tech jobs over the last 5 years, we've grown by 23%. We never needed to bribe these guys in the first place. (Unsurprisingly, many of the same people who once demanded access to New York taxpayers’ pockets started trashing our city and its most vulnerable residents the moment the freebies dried up.)
The lesson is simple, for the public sector and private investors alike: we don’t need to buy the love of people who hate New York, or act as if we’re inferior and desperate to import an economy from elsewhere. We don’t do that shit here. We don’t need to be thirsty. We can invest in the people who already love this city enough to build the future here. We are, you may learn, second to none.
Fortunately, we’ve replaced the timid, backwards-looking leadership of the past with people who believe in our ability to lead, build, and invent a better future. It’s no surprise that New Yorkers are more optimistic than they’ve been in decades, or that we have the lowest crime in recorded history—nor that the people who hate our city are lying about all of it. The very same tycoons who felt entitled to taxpayer handouts now feel entitled to treat our investors as feeder funds for their own goals. There is no future in funneling deals to firms trying to undermine our entire civic ecosystem.
Building value, having values
I’m still committed to the radical social ethos that you should be able to build tech companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars, that founders and employees can get fabulously wealthy while workers are paid fairly, that investors earn a solid return, and that everybody pays an appropriate tax rate to the city that made it all possible. I don’t care if it makes me a radical to think those opportunities shouldn’t be hoarded by the same three or four predatory jerks who can’t stop trashing New York.
It’s no secret that the rise of authoritarianism and bald-faced bigotry among Silicon Valley investors has led them to demonize our city. What’s almost too much to bear is watching people I’ve respected in New York look the other way while those leaders embrace rank misogyny, blatant antisemitism, unapologetic Islamophobia, and profound racism—so virulent that the most powerful venture capital firm in the world hired a partner on the basis that he strangled an unarmed Black man to death. I’m grateful that many of you tell me privately that you object and still hold onto your moral compass, which makes it all the more heartbreaking to watch so many go silent publicly.
Where is your self-respect? Because I’ll be honest: they are laughing at you for debasing yourselves in front of them, and they enjoy shitting on the city you call home. You should do work you’re proud of, that you feel good telling your family about, and that you’re excited to share with your community.
You should also do the math. A tiny handful of firms control the vast majority of late-stage funds, and you are not going to differentiate yourself by being a mindless feeder fund for the same 10 cancer capital firms as everyone else. If your only edge is competing on who can kiss Andreessen’s ass the most, you’re already fucked, kids. Look at how they already have to tap-dance—calling things “super intelligence” instead of “artificial intelligence” just to prove their fealty. How long until you’re asked to publicly rename your work, or tell a big lie about your city, just to stay in the room?
I’ve heard too many people in this town claim they don’t have any power, that their only job is returning capital to LPs. All you have to do is the simplest thing in the world: refuse to play along.
By contrast, if you bet on this wonderful community, connect to the next generation of innovators, and fight for the future instead of against it, there is limitless opportunity here. If you have to put it in a way your LPs can understand, explain that there is huge alpha in going the way that a16z is not. Call it “Anti-authoritarian Dynamism”. Explain that you’re going to strangle their deal flow, since founders of color and next-gen innovators don’t want to talk to the firms who hate New York City and hire killers. Tell them you’re choking off the supply chain of capital to the office where Daniel Penny works.
Side with the founders, not the funders
Just in case you don’t already know: Zohran Mamdani is your best friend. He wants the city to win, and our businesses to thrive. And those West Coast VCs who act deranged when you mention his name? They want your city destroyed, and when it's not, they lie and say that it already has been destroyed. Pick the side of your neighbors and your community, and speak up for the founders and entrepreneurs building the opportunities you want to be part of.
Just as importantly, speak up for yourself. It’s not viable in the long term for every outcome—and the small number of possible exits for your portfolio—to be controlled by the same handful of gatekeepers. I used to love helping friends turn cool new products into companies that provided good jobs; now that’s virtually impossible because the scale has gotten so absurd, and so few players decide who gets to participate. When I talk to people who are still early in their tech careers, the only names they know in the investor world are the usual suspects — not yours. They’ve never heard of your firms, of many of New York's most thoughtful and interesting and supportive investors, and they’re downright skeptical when I tell them to work with NYC-based investors instead of making a trip to Sand Hill Road. That all changes the moment New York’s tech leaders put their power behind an alternative narrative.
Simply saying “we are here, we exist, and we are not a satellite of the same tired agenda you’ve been hearing from Silicon Valley for years” would be hugely valuable for the entire New York City tech ecosystem. It's going to be especially resonant after the entire country just picked a political path that looks a lot like New York City's values — and is based on rejecting Big Tech's values. It would also, I expect, do wonders for your soul after years of enduring the quiet indignities of watching some horrid people chip away at your self-esteem.
Now, I know most of you aren’t inclined to go to war. That’s fine — you can still be nice. Jalen Brunson is really nice! Karl-Anthony Towns is really nice! Sabrina Ionescu is nice! But they really like to win, and they don’t take shit from anyone. You have to decide if you want to win, or if you want to get bullied on the playground by the people who actually have their heads in the game.
As a repeat founder who spends my time with makers — both the next generation of creators, and the people who’ve built great companies before them — I know where my loyalty lies. Those of us who build things know who we are. Those of us who love New York City are having one of the great moments of the modern era.
Do you know who you are? Are you going to join us?
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