Money, fame, goofball venture status games — last week, the industry watched in titillated horror, with little gasps and pearls clutched, as famed investors Paul Graham and David Sacks went to total, scorched earth war. In a lengthy back-and-forth on X, Paul told David he was “the most evil person in Silicon Valley,” and David stiffly rebutted: “in the wake of the Gaza debate, you tried to get some Jewish VCs fired from prominent firms,” he wrote, “which at a minimum makes you a bully and maybe something much worse.” With the stench of antisemitism now in play, there was no possible retreat. Prominent figures throughout venture chose a banner, and leapt into battle. Officially, this was all a matter of “ethics in venture capitalism.” But even the casual observer could see that sides had quickly broken along conventional political lines, with MAGA Force on one side, and Dark Brandon Team Coconut on the other. House affiliation was a second, notable factor, with many of David’s founders rising to his defense, and many of Paul’s colleagues from Y Combinator joining his attack. But the most important schism here, entirely ignored, was and remains the Valley’s growing division between men who’ve successfully built or purchased their own influential media entities over the last few years, filling a vacuum left by the industry’s retreating press, and men who have not.

Was politics the catalyst for the battle of the billionaires, or was it more a conflict over status? As our media landscape shifts in favor of tech’s new in-house press (podcasts, newsletters, a sprawling social media landscape), popularity is increasingly minted beyond the hallowed grounds of the New York Times. Sure, venture politics are looking different now, at least in terms of what we’re allowed to say online. But that’s only possible because the industry now learns about itself, in significant part, from itself. Every Silicon Valley billionaire on the internet is an influencer now, and they’re all fighting for attention. Of course, nobody will ever admit they care about such petty things — perhaps not even to themselves.

So we talk about politics.

Paul’s attack did not come out of nowhere. Valley tensions have been building for at least a month, with no shortage of pokes, provocations, and outright feuding: Vinod Khosla’s television sneak attack against the All-In boys, Reid Hoffman vs. Peter Thiel at the Really Really Rich Guy Summit (Peter bodied him, fyi), Paul Graham’s “no dangerous questions” stance, and his public chastising of Balaji, Vinod attacking… little old me?, Katherine Boyle firing back at Vinod, and Parker Conrad attacking David Sacks.

This final skirmish, between Conrad and Sacks, was unique in that it was the only one rooted in something deep, old, and actually related to the work of building companies. As building companies is sacred in Silicon Valley, and — Paul’s charge against David — harming young successful founders sacrilegious, it naturally became the story through which everyone attempted to score a point. Thus, entirely divorced from the broader trend that’s shaping this entire discourse, we should unpack the charge.

First, I really didn’t think Parker’s post was all that brutal:

It was an insider-y sort of joke, which most people probably didn’t even understand (how many gave it a like under the professionally benign delusion it was related to David’s routine Russia posting, I wonder?). That having been said, I’ve certainly never been capable of ignoring a quote tweet, so I do understand David’s more forceful strike back. But his rebuttal only guaranteed the fight would become the only thing anyone could talk about last week.

The conflict between Parker and David is eight years old, and at its simplest concerns Parker losing control of his company Zenefits. David, who Parker hired as COO, became the company’s new CEO following Parker’s exit. Parker’s story, which he shared in a great documentary produced by John Coogan, is roughly this: his company was killing it, he made a few big mistakes, the press villainized him for it, and at the height of a damaging media firestorm Parker agreed to leave his company. Then, after he left — which, again, he didn’t have to do — David betrayed him by switching out an amicable press release both men agreed to with a new press release that was incredibly, and needlessly damaging to Parker’s reputation. David’s story, which he shared over the weekend on All-In, is roughly: Parker broke the law, only Parker broke the law, and the takeover and restructuring of Zenefits was necessary to address regulatory issues and save the company.

Here, I don't know. The fines were relatively small, totally dwarfed by fines levied against more famous examples like Enron and Theranos, which also concluded in permanent bans of executives from working in their respective industries. Then, consider the SEC’s punishment of Parker was also dwarfed by what they did to Tesla following a single tweet of Elon Musk’s, which resulted in a fine many times greater than anything personally targeting Parker, and forced Elon to temporarily step down as chairman of Tesla’s board. Nobody mentions that anymore, because nobody cares, and, comparatively, Parker received a slap on the wrist. No, I’m not a lawyer, but then it doesn’t seem to me the letter of the law is really what Parker’s mad about. Eight years ago, he believed his career was ending. He needed support, and he received the opposite. The experience was traumatic.

In terms of the messaging, I think some of this is getting mixed up. I found the press release, and it looked amicable. Both men were quoted positively. I've spoken with people close to this issue who say there was no second press release. But the email David sent Zenefits employees opened in a manner far more blunt, succinctly citing compliance issues, and clearly implying this is why Parker had to leave. This certainly framed all of the reporting that followed, which was brutal.

To be clear, with information so limited I’m mostly operating on my biases here, which are pronounced. What do I think of each man? Through my work with Founders Fund, I know and like them both. I wish they would stop fighting. But then that’s easy to say from the sidelines.

Speaking of which!

I have more of a perspective on why Paul Graham chose to twist this story, which had nothing to do with him, into a weapon against David eight years later, about a week after David spoke at the Republican National Convention. In the first and most obvious place, Paul hates Trump. David Sacks is now the face of Trump in Silicon Valley. The math here isn’t complicated.

Paul has naturally denied his attack has anything to do with politics. His vicious public attack is all, he insists, a matter of defending Parker Conrad (who — one more time — lost his company eight years ago, founded a successful competitor, and is now running one of the hottest companies in tech). As evidence of Paul’s political neutrality, he has repeatedly invoked Peter Thiel, the only billionaire in America, it seems, who isn’t throwing Molotov cocktails on a social media platform.

When Peter supported Trump in 2016, and an army of culture warring lunatics demanded Sam Altman “fire” Peter from Y Combinator, it’s true Paul stood up for sanity. Which he keeps reminding us:

Okay, a little more context.

It’s true Peter accepted a position at YC so minor it bordered on ceremonial. He did so as a favor to Sam, an investing partner of his, and a friend. Peter was already at that time one of the most famous and influential investors in history. He didn’t need YC, though he of course respected it, and YC never held any meaningful power over him. “Firing” Peter from his fake job only would have publicly embarrassed him a bit, which maybe would have burned a bridge — with Peter fucking Thiel — but it wouldn’t have helped YC. Yes, ignoring the mob was, at that time, a nice and moral thing to do. Good job (how many times do you need this pat on the back?). But let’s be real, ignoring the mob was also a tactically smart decision… which, again, Sam made eight years ago. None of this has any relevance to what is very clearly open political war in 2024.

To a certain extent, Silicon Valley’s new scorched earth norm was inevitable following the vibe shift. For over a decade, conventionally contrarian political views were punished in the industry (by which I mean literal anarchy was fine, provided it was framed with some intellectual whimsy, but you better not be voting for the GOP). The press played a major role in policing these norms, ruthlessly targeting anything right of center, while concurrently lifting up all manner of fan-fic tech leaders for confirming their own (exclusively left wing) views.

As the influence of the tech industry’s niche press declined, most of the influencers they minted for purposes of information war — an Anil Dash, for example, essentially reimagined by the New York Times as a stratospherically successful “tech leader” to say nasty things about actual leaders in tech — have receded from memory. The press’s tactics haven’t really changed. We see a glimmer of our old media reality in today’s Times piece on the growing political clash in Silicon Valley, which prominently quotes a former growth ops person from Slack nobody heard of until last week, when she shared her opinion Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz had "traded” women (all of them (like, the concept of them)) for money. Now, in the latest deranged follow-up: their support for Donald Trump actually puts her life at risk. Today, we can all laugh at crazy things like this and move along. But a couple years ago this story would have minted a new social justice influencer. The Times would have quoted her for months. Many others would have seen and cared about the attention she received, and the behavior would have shaped our Overton window.

Today, while Silicon Valley is still overwhelmingly a DNC shop, disagreement with mainstream opinion has never been more acceptable. Histrionics like “I’m going to literally die if you don’t vote Team Coconut,” on the other hand, are generally frowned upon. This is resultant of the shift in how the Valley learns about itself. The niche industry press, while still an important piece of this puzzle, has declined in influence. Tech influencers, newsletters run by people working in the industry, and industry podcasts have never been more dominant.

As industry voices in control of their own distribution emerged mostly in reaction to our former press culture, they naturally resist the kind of thought policing which peaked around late 2020, or early 2021. This broadened the Overton window of acceptable discourse. But it also meant attention shifted to contrarian, rather than conventional tech voices. In more honest moments, the validity of this attention — beyond its political content — is called into question directly.

Former YC head Michael Seibel shared a great recent example:

Never mind that Garry Tan, Seibel’s boss, has his own popular podcast, and is himself a popular tech influencer — though I do wonder if, on some level, Seibel was jealously hinting at this fact. Let’s consider his point: is “going direct,” as the founders and investors on All-In have done, antithetical to their work as founders and investors?

I think it’s likely too much time online negatively impacts one’s ability to focus elsewhere, but it’s silly to pretend there aren’t considerable benefits. Seibel’s old boss Paul Graham was one of the industry’s first influencers, in a way, an early, successful essayist, and a very popular voice on social media. That work has definitely contributed to, rather than detracted from, the success of YC. It has also, obviously, drawn him into mimetic conflict with Sacks. But I digress.

What’s more clear than the benefit of going direct for one’s own company is the benefit accrued to the industry. There was no alternative tech press in 2016, when Parker was witch burned, or 2019, when the mob came for Travis Kalanick. Neither of these stories would play out the same, lopsided way today.

But we’re talking about politics, right? Let’s talk about politics.

There has not been a modern president with less of a relationship to his supporters than Joe Biden. For four years, the man was entirely dependent on professional political reporters to tell his story, and to protect him. This worked really well! Until a few weeks back when the press flipped a switch like that evil robot in 2001, and destroyed him. In the end, when his career was over (following the coup we can’t mention due to the “dangerous questions” it suggests) Biden turned to social media. There was no sit down story. There was not even a leak to the press. He posted his farewell address to X, of all places, minutes before he posted it to Instagram and Facebook. Because that’s all he had left. But that direct relationship is a lot.

With this little bit of new leverage, tech has built an independent world online. That media landscape is growing into something powerful, and unambiguously better for founders. The “founder friendly” thing to do? Probably to celebrate that new ecosystem, and help it grow, rather than try to destroy the men who’ve helped create it.

Jealousy’s a bitch, however. I get that. Maybe start a company or something? That will always be a cool thing to do, and God knows you have the time.

-SOLANA

EDITOR'S NOTE: I've added a bit of context on the Zenefits story above, specifically regarding the press release David Sacks sent following Parker Conrad's departure. I've also removed a line of mine, indicating David avoided discussing the press release on his podcast. Realizing now the degree to which some of this story has been jumbled over time, I'm not convinced he realized the press release was an issue, and no longer believe I got that piece right.