If VCs disappear overnight most tech would not change ideologically. It hasn't changed too much ideologically for the past few decades.
Most were libertarian and continue to be libertarian.
The minor shift is from being left libertarian to more right libertarian, though that's mostly due to the political landscape where there isn't much room for contrarian leftists.
> If VCs disappear overnight most tech would not change ideologically. It hasn't changed too much ideologically for the past few decades.
What has changed is that the proportion of people who wind up in tech primarily due to passion has drastically dropped as it became more prestigious. I'll paraphrase something I read elsewhere that rang true to me. In the 80s and 90s, amoral,greed-is-good, get-rich-by-any-means people got into banking and finance because it paid well. Now they go into tech.
That still wouldn't change the political leanings much, which is my main point.
However the kind of moralization, where the industry has suddenly become amoral greedy monsters is imo wrong.
Tech has alway been ruthless. It's always been a cutthroat business. We even valorize that kind of character as the founder. That hasn't changed.
What has changed is the political opportunity. SV can now influence and leverage real political power. That political opportunity is why so many are switching away from being Left leaning Libertarians (with even re-distributive ideas like UBI), to more Right leaning libertarians.
And this is all because the incumbents on the Left aren't willing to make room for the new players in Tech. So path of least resistance is to move Right.
This realignment has happening for a decade plus now.
Most were libertarian and continue to be libertarian.
The minor shift is from being left libertarian to more right libertarian, though that's mostly due to the political landscape where there isn't much room for contrarian leftists.