Democrats aren’t only one to tow the woke line; Republicans mum for money too

Vivek Ramaswamy is a 37-year-old tech entrepreneur and 2024 Republican presidential candidate. He is the co-founder of Strive Asset Management and a critic of bank bailouts and environmental, social, and corporate governance—by which institutions make investment decisions based on how closely a company adheres to a set of cherished values. Is.

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Since the news of the Silicon Valley Bank failure, I have been an outspoken and unapologetic critic of the government, Silicon Valley and its VC-backed tech companies. I call it what it is: crony corruption.

Shouldn’t the self-proclaimed “free marketers” in Silicon Valley agree? Not when it messes with their bank accounts.

I received call after call this weekend from big-donor types who clarified that my position on SVB is a red line, and that if I continue with these kinds of views, they will take their big-donor money somewhere. Will take more.

It also explains why many Republicans who agree with me privately refuse to say so publicly.

One of the most prominent Republicans in America texted me privately in recent days after seeing my crusade against Silicon Valley cronyism: “I basically agree that the fear of systemic risk was overblown.”

But he did not say so publicly. The culture of fear and the rise of nepotism in America is a bipartisan problem.

But there are reasons to believe that the cultural tide is turning in the private sector itself.

Last January I launched Strive to compete directly with ESG-promoting asset managers like BlackRock, bucking a trend in financial markets at the time.

Friends at other Wall Street firms said we had no chance of breaking even.

But Strive raised more than $500 million in assets in its first three months after launching its first fund last August — advocating for “excellence over politics.”

Speaking purely as a civilian, I hope other contestants follow suit.

Even some unsuspecting skeptics are jumping on the new movement in favor of excellence. In the spring of 2022, a band of Netflix employees staged a “walkout protest” in the name of trans rights following the release of Dave Chappelle’s streaming special.

In an uncharacteristic act of corporate courage, Netflix stood its ground. Issuing a memo to employees stating that it promotes artistic expression and that employees who do not want to work on material they find objectionable can work elsewhere.

It’s no coincidence that Netflix is ​​reversing its dismal performance and anemic growth and attracting new subscribers.

There’s no point in being someone else’s puppet, whether it’s a candidate or a corporation. It may be a winning strategy in the short term – to appease vigilante employees or self-interested political donors – but in the long run, truth wins.