Venture Capital & Silicon Valley

Much has been said about Silicon Valley, the startup capital of the world, and its “young white male” culture. Often considered the Mecca of the tech industry, the Bay Area has been the subject of significant bad publicity in the past couple of years. From high profile discrimination cases and sexual harassment scandals to diversity challenges and significant homelessness issues, Silicon Valley’s status symbol has never been shakier.

Bob addresses the region’s tarnished image in the second half with an unapologetic voice that zooms in on its “echo chamber” and “bro culture” syndromes. By zooming in on the venture capital industry, his wordplay takes the reader to the epicenter of the polarizing Silicon Valley culture and provides a first-person account of the various ways VCs attempt to capitalize on the region’s culture.

As a critical subset of the broader tech sector, venture capital, which is financing that is provided to early-stage startups, is often considered (for good or for bad) the heart of entrepreneurship.

Because of the critical importance of financial capital, VCs are often viewed as god-like heroes in the tech space. Their blogs and sayings are dissected by entrepreneurs and their investments are equally scrutinized by the media. VCs are fully aware of the power they hold in the tech and media industries and many of them leverage this power to their advantages.

As more millennials enter the venture capital space, the values that have traditionally defined the industry are starting to change. These young VCs are highly engaged and equally expressive minority champions who tend to do a better job at making their voices heard than the more senior members of the VC community.

Arlan Hamilton, Jenny Lefcourt and Yvonne Bajela, to name a few, are outspoken leaders who use their platforms to help advance minority, gender and race issues in the venture capital industry. The “Resistance”, as Bob calls them in the Streets Is Talkin entry of his diary, is in full display in the second half of the book.