For the last two years, I’ve been pretty vocal about politics on social media, in my weekly tech community newsletter and on this blog.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more progressive—which is a big shift for me because I grew up conservative. More and more, I’ve felt the need to speak out—but the question was asked of me recently whether or not it does more harm than good for me professionally.
It’s an entirely fair question—and the risk is that limited partners, founders, or other VCs might not want to work with me because I’m vocal about my political views.
Most people don’t think about it, but VCs need to raise money from high net worth individuals and institutions to have the money to put to work. These groups are much more likely to be more conservative than your average NYC or SF tech entrepreneur. (I mean, just about anyone is more conservative than the average tech entrepreneur, so it’s not exactly a high bar.) I suspect, though, there are even some founders out there who could be put off by the things I write and probably how I write them.
As a solo General Partner, my firm is me—and there isn’t a difference between investor Charlie and personal Charlie. When you get an investment from Brooklyn Bridge Ventures—you get me. When you ask me what I think about something—I’m not juggling two hats. My investment thesis is shaped by the sum of my personal experience and so are my values. My goal is to make Brooklyn Bridge Ventures the most accessible VC firm not just because I think it’s good business, but because I think it’s a based on good values. I don’t believe that your gender, school, socioeconomic background, race, identity etc. has predictive value for whether or not you can be a successful founder—and I think the next great 50 companies are going to be majority founded by people not in anyone’s “inner circle” today.
I also believe in treating people with respect and being helpful when I can—treating the world like a community where we all benefit from generosity and things aren’t always zero sum. These are both my business principals and my personal values.
The struggle I have with politics these days is that it doesn’t quite feel like a discussion of principals anymore. If you want to sit down and debate what the size of the government should be those are arguments I’m happy to have and can stay pretty respectful around.
But I don’t think that’s where we are today. It’s hard to ignore that some policies aren’t just disagreeable or not optimal, but they just seem, well, wrong. They feel wrong because they violate some basic values I think our country should be built around. They’re wrong because they seem more like power plays than positions—inauthentic political theater. They’re wrong because they’re clearly not working, or they’re only benefitting the privileged at the disproportionate expense of everyone else.
I understand that when you draw a right/wrong line, it makes people feel alienated and unwilling to engage—no want wants to have their values questioned.
I used to think that—that you could concede and negotiate in the search for common ground around values. For example, I used to debate the best tactical way to get to marriage equality—because I didn’t think that people in Arkansas or wherever were “ready” for it, and so I would say we should go state by state first, showing people that it wasn’t the end of families as we know it, and eventually have it spread everywhere
That was before I thought about what it would be like to be gay in Arkansas—and how sometimes tolerance of things we see as wrong can be just as bad as the wrong in itself, empowering those who would discriminate. Today, I’ve come to realize that calling out where you see injustice and wrong is the better thing to do, even if it offends some people.
Can I prove that I’m right about my opinions? I can’t prove that I’m right about any of this stuff any more than I can single-handedly prove climate change as a non-scientist—but I’m pretty sure we’re fucking up the environment and I’m definitely going to judge you for support of any policy that makes it easier to pollute, because you think climate change is debatable or that somehow economics justifies the destruction of our planet.
But what does that judgement even mean?
Perhaps I’m judging you, but so what? What right does anyone have to live their life free of the judgement of others? We get judged all the time. Limited partners judge my investment acumen. Founders judge whether or not they think I can add value. I judge founder ability and the level of homework they’ve done on a plan.
A co-op board is going to judge me at my next apartment.
Opinions are a dime a dozen, and if you’re not happy with someone’s opinions or their opinion of you—there’s really only three options. You can either take them to task—because maybe you think they’re wrong and you want to call them out and have a debate. You can just put on your thick skin and ignore them. Lastly, you can usually choose not to have that person in your life.
I’d hate for the third to be an option that gets taken too many times. I wouldn’t want to lose my relationship with my parents just because they’re conservative—no matter how many times we argue. I wouldn’t want to lose an investor because they disagree with my politics—because I strongly believe I can make great returns for them by investing in impactful companies. I wouldn’t want to lose a deal because I know how hard I bust my butt for founders.
But does that mean we can’t talk about it? Is it better to avoid the subject or to have those difficult conversations?
It’s probably going to happen that I’ll lose a few opportunities along the way—but I also think it’s going to happen that someone reaches out to me because of what they heard and wants to work with me because of it. In fact, I know it has. I know I get deal flow because founders want an investor who is going to be direct and tell them what they think—about anything. They want an investor who works from a set of shared values and not purely on a set of economic algorithms—because this is a people business highly short on data to make anyone’s algorithm work that well anyway.
Plus—the values of today’s innovators are getting more and more progressive everyday. They’re looking for better ways to share, to run cleaner businesses, and building more accessibility into power structures. They’re questioning capitalist models as the best solutions to every problem and examining where and how they feel comfortable profiting.
As investors, we’re in positions of power—and as we know from Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility. We have to be conscious of our privilege and try to use our stature in the community to improve the world around us. Quietly sticking to investing means wasting the opportunity to do good. You should always feel comfortable talking to an investor about their values and their politics—and you have every right to work with people on the same page as you, no matter which side you support.