Why We Need Bill Gurley In Politics

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Just over a year ago, I attended the All In summit in Los Angeles. One of the best talks came from the retired Venture Capitalist, Bill Gurley, called 2,851 Miles.

The basic point of the talk is that Silicon Valley has been successful because it is so far away from Washington, DC. Gurley recounts his experiences with the political system and some of the worst excesses of corruption and self-dealing in the Beltway and contrasts it with the innovation focused, let’s go build something spirit of the Valley. All excellent points.

Initially I stood up and clapped with everyone else at his resounding finish but the feeling didn’t last long. I’ve heard a lot of these types of speeches and they feel great in the moment but don’t amount to much in the end.

It also occurred to me that someone like Bill Gurley who has experience building real things and who has an enormous amount of influence and resources is exactly who we need involved in our politics to make it better. Unfortunately, the nature of politics repels people like Gurley. They want to want to run 2,851 miles in the other direction.

Politics is all the things he says it is.

I get the disgust; I understand the frustration; and I sympathize with the desire or even instinct to just wash your hands of the whole thing. However, our best people need to resist this urge and understand that they have to engage with the system to make it accomplish things rather than just critique it.

It won’t get better on its own. In fact, it’ll get much worse.

Politics Isn’t Going Anywhere

One of the implications of Gurley’s message is that politics and the people engaged in it should be better. I actually think about it the opposite way. Why isn’t it worse? For most of human history, it has been.

There’s nothing new about politics. I’ve always said that it is the world’s second oldest profession-right after prostitution. (Some can’t tell the difference.) It’s an old but very necessary technology. It’s how we resolve conflicts without resorting to war.

As one of the main authors of our Constitution and two term President, James Madison, wrote in Federalist 10: “As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed…. The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; … and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other, than to co-operate for their common good.”

Madison wasn’t expecting people to be “good.”

He knew that a healthy politics wasn’t about winning complete victories. If you do, the people in the other faction stop playing and then you get war. Inevitably, a lot of politics is about log-rolling different interests and compromising. You get partial wins and have to compensate the losing side to some extent.

That looks like corruption a lot of the time. Of course we shouldn’t tolerate blatant graft and we should prosecute criminal behavior but we need to accept that we are going to have to engage in some level of unpure activity to get things done.

Government’s ability to adjudicate these disputes will always attract people trying to manipulate the process to their own ends (I think lobbying is the third oldest profession). Again, we can do things to minimize the impact of this but until we change humans this will persist at some level. And without people like Gurley at the table, we forfiet the entire game to the manipulators.

The dark sides of politics are the dark sides of humans but the wisdom of good politics is that it recognizes these facts and channels them to better ends.

“Just because you don’t take an interest in politics, doesn’t mean that politics isn’t interested in you.”

This quote comes from the 5th Century Athenian, Pericles, who is one of the most famous politicians of all time.

While I’m pretty sure that a man of Gurley’s intelligence, connections, and resources has little to fear from our political system no matter how interested it might be in him, the same can’t be said for the tech industry, startups, venture capital, etc.

No industry or sector can be that successful without politics coming knocking. The response can’t be, “I’m not interest, go bother someone else.”

The better response is, “This is something we need to on top of.”

That 2,851 miles doesn’t mean anything once politics has you in its sights and the signs of politics increased interest in tech are everywhere.

We can bemoan this truth but Pericles knew it 2,400 years ago so I don’t think it’s changing.

In my view it is exactly people like Gurley who have had successful careers building and shaping companies and industries, and who have resources and influence that we need to help shape our politics. If they throw up their hands and walk away, we are lost.

Getting Involved Doesn’t Mean Accepting the Status Quo 

All this said, Bill Gurley doesn’t need to actually run for office. I’d love it if he did but getting involved doesn’t have to mean being a candidate yourself. It also doesn’t mean just handing money to the existing players in return for connections or influence. That’s fine as far as it goes but what I’m advocating isn’t just status quo politics.

Ideally, I’d like to see people like Gurley seek to shape the system from outside either as individuals or in coalitions. They would be independent of the two parties but would cooperate with them to an extent and seek to reshape them from outside.

I think Peter Thiel has shown how this can be done. Rather than just donating to super pacs to try to get an ambassadorship, he is identifying change agents that he thinks can reshape the parties and helping them win elections. He accepts the system but refuses to play its game. He’s applying his analytical mind and resources to the problem just as he did to the startups he has helped fund.

Change won’t come from within but rather be forced upon the parties. (I’ll write more in the future about how I think this is best done.) People like Gurley can make that happen. It won’t be pleasant or pretty but I don’t think getting Travis Kalanick out of Uber was that easy either.

If people like Gurley won’t engage in the system, I despair for its future.

Keep growing,

Alan

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