Back in the heady days of 2021, the tech bro reigned supreme. It was an era of meme stocks, rocket ship emojis and unabashed self confidence.
Then, for a while, in the aftermath of the hype cycle amid rising interest rates, mass layoffs and a series of high-profile startup collapses, humility was in fashion.
But bro-ity is back. LinkedIn is awash with the groupspeak of cracked engineers, ARR boasts and maxxing in all its forms. Prominent ecosystem podcasts go months without interviewing a woman. And hackathons are back, big time, but female participants remain in the minority.
The bronaissance has come up in an increasing number of my chats with female sources over the last six months. Unsurprisingly, nearly all requested anonymity in print.
The grindset
When I ask people to pinpoint examples of bro-ity, hackathons nearly always come up.
“There’s always a jock contingent,” one prominent woman in the ecosystem points out to me. “People in subterranean basements with thousands of screens, saying ‘the boys are locked in, 996.’ It’s an aesthetic that’s pretty repulsive to most women.”
Data suggests 30% of hackathon participants globally are women.
“The hackathon stopped being a thing for a few years,” says a VC I spoke to. “All of a sudden, it’s back and that’s really exciting. But, whether it's the hacker houses or the hackathons, we're seeing a really homogenous group go along.”
Europe’s tech industry has moved from creating open communities to building closed-off rooms where a certain shared lifestyle and lexicon is the entry ticket. 996 — the idea that those who want to succeed should work 9am to 9pm six days a week — exemplifies both.
“Everybody advocating for 996 is a very particular archetype,” says the VC. Founders with parental responsibilities will find it harder to dedicate the majority of their waking life to work, for example.
New media brands covering the industry both reflect and spur on its homogeneity, reinforcing the idea that success looks and talks a certain way. Baseball caps are in, diversity is out.
Ronan Chambers, one of the founders and presenters of tech show ETN — and a frequent cap-wearer — told the Basis Points podcast this week: “It’s very, very, very easy to identify someone who’s not on the inside, just purely because of the language they use.”
“You notice when they’re not using the correct slang.”
The diversity of guests on industry shows is often limited. In the last year, the 20VC podcast has published 144 episodes, seven of which feature a woman. As one source puts it: “Bro culture is pretty simple: it’s bros calling each other bro on podcasts.”
"What I'm seeing is subtle but significant — an increase in public 'bro' language that signals to people this industry isn't for them,” says Sophie Winwood, founder of Unlock VC — a community she says exists to show people that there are other mentalities out there.
AI swagger
The clearest catalyst for the bro’s re-emboldening is Donald Trump’s return to office in the US. Alongside him, figures like Musk have made it enviable to be loud and contrarian; while virtues like introspection are talked of with disdain.
“Trump created role models,” says Winwood. “It's a snowball effect: you start at the top, and then people see you're allowed to do it.”
The Trump-inspired rollback of DEI initiatives means LPs are putting less pressure on VCs to ensure their investments reflect diversity. Companies face less scrutiny over the makeup of their leadership teams. The guardrails have come off.
“Sadly, it is a breath of fresh air for some people, that they don't have to deal with it anymore and they can be back in their boys club. It is easier for them to do that, they can work with their mates. They’re on top again,” says Winwood.
The resurgence of tech bro-ity is also fuelled by the technology itself.
“The AI boom has given the archetype revived strength and a new justification: if you're building AGI, the swagger feels almost obligatory,” says one woman, who works at a London-based AI startup. “It has restored the sense that a small group of founders are once again reshaping the world, and that entitles a certain attitude.”
Pop psychology offers another lens: a group long told to be ashamed of themselves has suddenly found a community that celebrates them. The boys are just happy to have found the boys.
The opportunity
Bro culture is not just a social quirk; it harms companies. Monocultures create products that people outside of them don’t feel served by, and don’t want to buy.
The VC I spoke to worries that the younger founders in her portfolio will burn out via an obsession with the in-crowd's all-in, 996 lifestyle. “It’s incompatible with long-term company building.”
Perhaps the most intriguing chat I’ve had recently was with someone who, despite a firm dislike of the current mood, believes the bronaissance has made her career simpler.
Earlier in her career, she spent time working to uplift other female founders. That work is no longer rewarded by the ecosystem.
“I have felt less of a need to spend my entire time apologising for not doing well enough for other women in tech. Suddenly that's not been an expectation,” she says. The freed-up time allows her to focus on her own career.
The other side effect? “There’s now so much alpha on the table for people who have taste, originality and emotional intelligence."
