Conflict with social justice movements and visibility into global resistance efforts

Venture capitalists' thousands of startups have consistently attacked marginalized people, workers, their housing, communities, safety, health and jobs. This has made the tech industry a primary target of social unrest. Venture capitalists are now mounting a reactionary movement of their own.

Movements and inequality within the tech industry

Tech fascists often talk about the "tech lash" and the interior backlash from workers in the industry across the web 2.0 bubble. Within the industry, venture capitalists faced significant pressure against racism, sexism, unequal pay and equity, and poor working conditions, including exploitative work hours, sexual harassment on the job, and wealth inequality.

The tech lash was led by a movement of marginalized tech workers and their allies to improve working conditions and strengthen diversity in the field. The tech industry has a high degree of misogyny, with voluminous under-representation of women, and a high attrition rate of women from the field -- a pattern seen across other marginalized demographics. People of color, Black people and particularly Black women have faced the deep racism of the field, leading to such outrageous outcomes as "only 3.47 percent of the founders seeking funding from VC firms were Black, suggesting there are systemic barriers for Black founders to get these opportunities. But even among those that have made it into the VC pipeline, startups founded by Black entrepreneurs raised only a third of the amount raised by non-Black-founded startups." Black women represent just 3% of tech workers.

While tech companies initially made some effort to reform in line with the workers movement, it was quickly stamped out as the movement began making greater demands that would require major shifts in allocation of capital to marginalized groups, and particularly, giving them equity in venture-backed companies. For venture capitalists, allowing this movement risked permanent friction and sharing of power and capital with people outside of the white male-dominated tech class. This period saw significant attacks on tech activists involving 4Chan, 8Chan, Reddit, Y Combinator's Hacker News, and Twitter, with strong evidence of direct venture capital involvement still coming out today.

The web 3.0 or "AI" bubble has seen a reactionary counter-movement against DEI and "wokeism", with VC-backed companies implementing what they call "MEI" or "merit, excellence and intelligence." Reforms to the industry have been rolled back and the representation of marginalized groups in tech is at risk as programs dedicated to improving representation and equality have been revoked. Tech layoffs, rising quickly due to AI automation, disproportionately affect underrepresented groups and hide industry purges as venture capitalists work to eliminate diversity gains and secure a right-wing technology culture.

Over the years, the venture capital class has come up with a number of frameworks to justify the endemic discrimination in the field, from the "10x engineer," the supremacy of "shape rotators" vs "wordcels", and the idea of inherent IQ and IQ superiority. The frameworks have allowed venture capitalists to justify the misogynist and racist practices of the field and the exclusion of non-White men as a matter of inherent racial, genetic and gender superiority. The ongoing purge of marginalized people and their influence from the industry leads to a more homogenous, radicalized and bigoted environment.

Pressure from progressive movements

In the Bay Area more broadly, tech companies faced anti-gentrification movements, and movements of what has been called the "invisible workforce": workers in low-paid jobs for the tech class such as drivers, security workers, cleaning professionals, culinary workers, etc.

The development of the extractive gig economy model also brought venture capitalists into conflict with workers around the world. Their use of supply chains implicating child labor for cobalt extraction, and their contributions to climate change through datacenter build outs, have caused major backlash. Tech's role in both corporate and state surveillance has been a constant source of friction with many populations, with a major nexus point in the Snowden revelations of 2013. Harassment, abuse, and gendered violence on social media platforms from Instagram to Twitter, Reddit and others have consistently put pressure on tech companies and the tech elite.

Now, the new age of ICE activity -- addressed in the #NoTechforICE movement -- and use of technology in the genocide of Palestinians, have amplified social tensions with tech companies more than ever before, with venture capitalists specifically going after school systems due to "DEI" policies and pro-Palestine student protests on campuses.

Anti-Blackness and Black social movements

The anti-blackness of the industry can be seen in demographics, wealth distribution, impact on Bay Area communities, industry rhetoric, and labor exploitation. The belief in "IQ supremacy" serves as a thin veneer over anti-blackness, as it is deployed by their most extreme ideologues.

The George Floyd uprising in 2020 was a major catalyst for venture capital escalation, including the founding of Pirate Wires, a Peter Thiel-linked "parallel media" platform. The Pirate Wires founder stated: "This company began as a single newsletter in the batshit crazy summer of 2020, back when rioting was effectively legalized, and the country lost its mind. Locked in my home by fools and maniacs, I watched San Francisco crumble, and read about it all in horror from prominent writers throughout the press who considered this not only normal, but necessary. I disagreed, and I realized fairly quickly I was not alone."

Venture capitalists have consistently radicalized against Black resistance. Sharing the Bay area with Oakland, tech witnessed significant uprisings against the Oscar Grant murder at Fruitville Station, and a few years later, the Ferguson protests, where Oakland was a key location. Andreessen Horowitz hired Daniel Penny, the killer of 30-year old Black man Jordan Neely, in a show of support for the execution of Black men, in 2025.

Black people have been the most underrepresented demographic among tech workers. Only 0.4% of venture capital dollars goes to startups with a Black founder. While white women have been the primary beneficiaries of diversity in tech efforts, representation and funding of Black people remains dire.

Much of tech's radicalization is based on their desire to oppress Black people and make sure there will be no repercussions for violence against Black people. Black activism has been at the forefront of progressive politics, and thus a key target of venture capitalists. While venture capitalists seek to squash all progressive activism, their first target is Black people in the United States. Now, their incursions into Africa are expanding through retina scanning, mining operations, crypto, medical experiments and the Network State. The rising oppression of Black people by venture capitalists is global, as African countries now come under their crosshairs.

Visibility into global movements

Because of their monopoly on social media, venture capitalists have been able to surveil global social movements and social resistance with an unprecedented level of visibility. Arab Spring, Ferguson, Occupy Wall Street and #MeToo unfolded on their platforms, while venture capitalists also had visibility into social movements across many countries at the same time. They had more simultaneous views of global resistance against capitalism than any other power in world history. This has contributed to the rampant anti-communism in the venture capital class.

Combined antagonisms with workers and marginalized people, and the tech classes' view into global resistance movements, created an urgent need to keep global anti-capitalist struggle in check.