When a Berlin VC wrote this week that he “struggles to connect” with left-wing founders, it tapped into a familiar assumption in tech: that to scale aggressively, break rules and chase hyper-growth, there’s little room to indulge left-wing ideas around social justice.
“I struggle to truly connect with left-wing founders because the core behaviours that create elite founders collide with left-wing instincts,” wrote Johann Nordhus Westarp, founding partner at Lucid Capital, in a LinkedIn post.
Where elite founders sell aggressively and chase profits, he said, left-wingers frame such behaviour as “exploitation or greed”; while elite founders act without permission, lefties view rules, regulations and “society” as a barrier.
But is this true?
Check Warner, CEO of inclusivity-focused Ada Ventures, tells Sifted: “There are a bunch of examples of successful companies and founders where there are strong liberal values that coexist with support for and championing of capitalism, growth and high-performance culture.”
It’s fair to say the business world offers few examples of left-wing leadership. Many up-and-coming tech CEOs spend their days charting a course towards the kind of otherworldly billionairedom enjoyed by the Elon Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, both of whom have rejected “woke” initiatives like content moderation and fact-checking in the name of free speech.
But high-growth behaviours — selling hard, taking risks, challenging incumbents — are not inherently right-wing. They are the mechanics of entrepreneurship. What founders do to scale tells you little about their values.
Some of this comes down to how we’re defining “left-wing”, which varies wildly between the US and Europe.
Prominent businesspeople in the US may occasionally be branded communists for donating to the Democratic Party or voicing support for issues considered middle-of-the-road in much of Europe — abortion access, universal healthcare or renewable energy, the list goes on.
“Many founders I know would happily call themselves left-wing on social issues while being very right-wing in the way they operate their business,” says Nick Mulder, founder of Berlin-based proptech Hypofriend. “They sell hard, move fast and use capital aggressively. Which box do they belong in? The labels just stop being useful at that point.”
A recent survey of 250 UK founders, conducted by the Entrepreneurs Network, found a third would vote for an explicitly right-wing party (18% for the Conservatives; 15% for Reform) if an election was held tomorrow.
But 16% said they would vote for the Liberal Democrats, which pitches itself as moderately centrist but has endorsed legalising cannabis and pushed for more green energy usage. Another 10% for the centre-left Labour Party; 3% for the Green Party.
"The idea that you ‘can’t be a left-wing founder’ is a myth, mostly imported from the loudest corners of US tech culture,” says David Houghton, founder of Social Mobility Ventures.
People confuse participating in a market economy with right-wing ideology, says Houghton, “When in reality, building a company is a tool — not a worldview.”
He tells Sifted: “Some of the most impressive founders I meet are progressive in their instincts: they want to fix systems that are unfair or inefficient, widen access or create better jobs.”
The perception of founders as inherently right-wing has been imported from the US, spurred by “grindset” memes and loud chatter about moving to Dubai to avoid tax, Houghton says.
“They dominate the feed but don’t represent the real UK ecosystem.”
