J.D. Vance's short career in venture capital
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Venture capital has its vice presidential candidate, with Donald Trump yesterday picking J.D. Vance to be his running mate.
The big picture: Vance wasn't a successful or failed VC. Namely because he didn't have enough time, spending just six years at three different firms.
Catch up quick: Vance was a corporate lawyer who went to Silicon Valley and got connected with Peter Thiel, via a two-year stint at venture capital firm Mithril Capital.
- As his book "Hillbilly Elegy" blew up, he connected via Twitter with investor and AOL co-founder Steve Case, who at the time was on a bus tour to highlight geographies were underserved by venture capital.
- Vance agreed to join Case's firm, Revolution, to invest in Midwestern startups and help launch a new seed fund. While at Revolution he overlapped with Ron Klain, who would later become President Biden's first chief of staff.
- Two years later he left Revolution to co-found a Cincinnati-based firm called Narya Ventures with former Mithril colleague Colin Greenspon. Investors in its debut fund included Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Eric Schmidt and Scott Dorsey.
- Then came a successful Senate run in Ohio, and a full-bearded MAGA conversion, leading up to yesterday's announcement.
- Both Ron Klain and Peter Thiel declined to comment.
What to know: Vance's only board seat was at AppHarvest, a Kentucky-based indoor farming startup that went public via SPAC but later filed for bankruptcy (after Vance had left).
- Some former colleagues, however, rave about his abilities. One VC told me that Vance is "one of the smartest guys I've ever met."
- Crystal McKellar, who worked with Vance at Mithril, tweeted: "As a former colleague who worked pretty closely with JD, I can tell you from personal experience that [he] was a great VC. Super smart, pragmatic, developed expertise in new industries very quickly (and before our founder meetings!), and he had great instincts about people."
Zoom out: Vance made his early bones in Silicon Valley, and has plenty of tech billionaire benefactors, but is sympathetic to FTC chair Lina Khan and dismantling what he's referred to as a "Big Tech oligarchy."
- He's supported breaking up Google, opposed the TikTok ban, and came out against AI regulation that he believes could help incumbants.
The bottom line: Expect the media to dig into Vance's venture work, including some things that don't really have anything to do with him (like an FBI investigation into Mithril, while Trump was president).
- But this won't be like Mitt Romney in 2012, when Bain Capital kept capturing headlines, because Vance just wasn't in the game long enough to become a major player.
