How Political Should an Entrepreneur Be?

European Straits #80

Dear all,

A mounting conversation within tech circles surrounds the extent to which entrepreneurs and venture capitalists should dabble in politics. London-based VC Fred Destin recently wrote that his Twitter followers were angry at him tweeting about politics. Azeem Azhar, who curates Exponential View, also mentioned his readers being surprised by him “discussing so many issues about the political economy, rather than pure-play technology”.

Conventional business wisdom holds that one shouldn't mix politics with business. Yet that refusal to engage can at times directly threaten business itself. It's fair to say that if the likes of Travis Kalanick, Mark Zuckerberg and Brian Chesky had been more willing to engage in politics, their respective companies could have avoided some of their recent regulatory and political problems.

For us at The Family, politics has been a core business function from Day One. That’s because in contrast to the typical Silicon Valley attitude, we in Europe don’t…