High-profile venture capitalists, including Y Combinator’s Garry Tan and Sequoia Capital partner Ravi Gupta, are withdrawing from a major gathering of tech leaders after conference CEO Paddy Cosgrave made comments that appear to refer to Israel’s retaliatory strikes in Hamas-controlled Gaza as “war crimes.”
At least five speakers said they would no longer participate at the November Web Summit conference, which draws tens of thousands of founders and executives to Lisbon every year. Those announcing their withdrawal include Ori Goshen, co-founder of AI21, an Israel-based rival to OpenAI, and Keith Peiris, co-founder of AI startup Tome. The boycott exposes the widening fallout in the business world from terrorist group Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel, which have forced hundreds of Israeli tech workers to the front lines and prompted Wall Street financiers to publicly criticize academic institutions they back for their positions on the war.
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