> If you pitch a VC and throw in "btw, I'm a communist," or they find your online writings about being a communist, you aren't getting a check.
A friend of mine has had half a dozen startups funded in the Bay Area, and most of the books on show in his living room is Marx, Engels and Trotsky. He now runs a VC fund. One of the first things he told me when I met him was that he used to be a member of a communist party.
If you make a big deal of it in contexts where it would seem weird, like as part of a pitch, then yeah, because it'll make them question why. But the Bay Area is quite more tolerant of left wing views than the rest of the US.
That's not to say it will not affect you - said VC above did tell me he once lost a job over it, but the one time he knows of it was an "outsider" not someone from the Bay Area that prevented him from getting hired.
A friend of mine has had half a dozen startups funded in the Bay Area, and most of the books on show in his living room is Marx, Engels and Trotsky. He now runs a VC fund. One of the first things he told me when I met him was that he used to be a member of a communist party.
If you make a big deal of it in contexts where it would seem weird, like as part of a pitch, then yeah, because it'll make them question why. But the Bay Area is quite more tolerant of left wing views than the rest of the US.
That's not to say it will not affect you - said VC above did tell me he once lost a job over it, but the one time he knows of it was an "outsider" not someone from the Bay Area that prevented him from getting hired.