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Venture capital, like any business, is often dominated by the loudest voices in the room — and many of those voices have lent their support to former President Donald Trump’s third White House bid.
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But a roughly month-old group — which, as of writing, boasts 830 verified members — is backing Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. The group, VCs for Kamala, is made up of founders across the political spectrum; 30% of members identify as Republican or independent, creator Leslie Feinzaig says. Although it’s now emerged as something of a counter argument to the narrative that Silicon Valley is backing the former president, it didn’t start out that way.
“I just felt like somebody needed to say something,” said Feinzaig, the founder and CEO of venture firm Graham and Walker, adding that “nobody was” — except for a handful of well-known Democratic donors including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. “I did not intend to start a movement.”
Many in venture capital — or at least those who have signed VCs for Kamala’s pledge — agreed. According to an internal survey of those members, 89% of them strongly agreed that a “handful of billionaires” cannot accurately represent the views of the tech industry, while another 9% agreed. None disagreed.
More than half of the survey’s respondents specifically commented on that idea, according to former Textio CEO Kieran Snyder, who helped lead the survey. Several of those people specifically called out some of Trump’s biggest supporters, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Palantir’s Peter Thiel, and the founders of venture firm A16z.
Ninety-six percent of the signatories — a list that includes Hoffman, Mark Cuban, Vinod Khosla, and Stephen Wozniak — said they feel aligned with Harris’ views on social and economic issues. Ninety-seven percent of participants said the repeal of Roe v. Wade, which rolled back abortion rights, was a “mistake,” while about 25% said access to reproductive rights was the most important issue for a Harris administration to focus on.
Snyder said, “I think there’s actually a broad group who are concerned and recognize that it’s fundamentally a business issue — because if you don’t create opportunities for women to be able to make their own medical choices…What implication does that have for women’s ability to develop careers over time?”
Immigration is a core concern
Some 94% of poll respondents said the U.S. needs to make more skilled, H-1B visas available. Many respondents aren’t encouraging the U.S. to embrace “boundless immigration,” Synder explains, but they want to offer channels for more skilled immigrants to participate in the country’s economy. Silicon Valley has long pushed to expand the H-1B visa program. Some critics say the program drives down wages for tech workers.
Feinzaig, who was born in Costa Rica and moved to America to study at Harvard University 19 years ago, described her struggle to actually stay in the country amid a series of conflicts, including losing the H-1B lottery and her employer being mired in litigation. Under the Trump administration, her request for citizenship was denied.
“I lived most of my life in America in like a deep state of anxiety about being kicked out,” Feinzaig said. “It is preposterous to me that this is not already solved and fixed. We end up just being, quite literally, second-class citizens.”
It’s widely expected that a second Trump administration would add new restrictions on H-1B visas. After taking office in 2017, Trump’s immigration policies increased the denial rate for H-1B petitions for initial employment to 21% in fiscal year 2019, before a legal settlement forced the government to end several practices. The number of green cards issued to people not already living in the U.S. also decreased, according to the Cato Institute.
If similar restrictions are revived under a Trump White House, companies may end up sending jobs and resources outside of the U.S., Forbes reports.
“We have massive shortages. I think tech companies struggle to hire enough people,” said Tasneem Dohadwala, a founding partner at Excelestar Ventures, who is not affiliated with VCs for Harris. “If we try to make it any more difficult than, frankly, it already is, I think it’s just going to hurt America.”
According to Goldman Sachs analysts, the best outcome of the 2024 presidential election, at least for the economy, would be a Harris win and a Democratic sweep of Congress. The worst scenarios occur when Trump gets back into office and implements tougher controls on immigration and high tariffs on imported goods, the analysts said. A Harris presidency would likely slow immigration, but at a weaker pace than a Trump White House.
On crypto and AI
On Friday, 88 business current and former leaders endorsed Harris’ run for office, including several members of VCs for Harris. That includes Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, who said he hopes Harris will be friendlier to business interests — namely cryptocurrency — than Biden’s administration.
“The hope is that we’re not vilifying businesses anymore. It’s the lifeblood of America,” Larsen told The San Francisco Standard last month. “We’re hoping that Kamala, being from the Bay Area, understands that. I think that’s going to be a really important shift in what you’re seeing.”
Several of the prominent venture capitalists and tech leaders backing Trump’s candidacy have cited his embrace of crypto as a major reason for their support, contrasting Biden’s unease. Trump, along with his sons, are backing an upcoming platform called World Liberty Financial, and the former president is now on his fourth line of non-fungible tokens.
“My big concern is what we saw in crypto was the foreshadowing of what’s gonna happen in AI,” Marc Andreesen of A16Z said in July on a podcast as he and Ben Horowitz endorsed Trump. “They’ve sued, I think, over 30 of our companies,” Horowitz said in that podcast, referring to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The vast majority of respondents to VCs for Kamala’s survey agreed that the federal government should hire more talent with knowledge about modern technology. They also agreed that leaders need to be aware of and knowledgable about AI and crypto in order to effectively regulate the industries.
Brian Nelson, a key Harris advisor, told tech officials last month that Harris wants to protect and grow digital assets, the Washington Post reported, signaling that Harris may be more lenient with crypto than Biden.
