Big Technology
A VC Explains Why VCs Are So Pissed Off Right Now
A conversation with Bloomberg Beta venture capitalist Roy Bahat
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OneZero is partnering with Big Technology, a newsletter and podcast by Alex Kantrowitz, to bring readers exclusive access to interviews with notable figures in and around the tech industry.
This week, Kantrowitz sits down with Bloomberg Beta head Roy Bahat. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
To subscribe to the podcast and hear the interview for yourself, you can check it out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast.
Venture capitalists, founders, and others in the tech industry are feeling pretty raw these days. Once admired as upstarts fighting the status quo, they now feel under siege, under attack for the negative things their products do without being appreciated for how they improve our lives.
Bloomberg Beta head Roy Bahat, a veteran venture capitalist, joins the Big Technology Podcast this week for a nuanced conversation about what’s going with the tech world, how its innovation might be linked to its problems, and how it should handle the criticism.
Kantrowitz: You’re one of the VCs out there that are very public with what you think. You tackle the important issues, not skirting around them. And I feel like you don’t yell at journalists, and that’s a good start.
Roy Bahat: I definitely do not yell at journalists. As a person who once thought I might be a journalist and failed at it, I basically think journalists are looking for the truth. If we all want to operate in this world, let’s help them find the truth and then we can figure it out. You just mentioned having the voice, a question I got asked by a founder in our portfolio, he’s like, “Why is VC Twitter so weird?”
You’re getting right into my question.
Oh, good. Then ask me questions and…
I want to hear what you got to say, and then I’ll follow.
Well, I was thinking about it. Look, venture capital is a strange business because: What do we do? People think we invest in companies. Kind of. We really sell money to companies because the companies have so…
