Brooklyn VC says risk of ‘fascist dictatorship’ under Trump will hurt business

Charlie O’Donnell of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures is none too pleased with the recent actions of our President and the venture capitalist has taken to his weekly newsletter to note the dangers Papa Trump poses for investing.

“Just realizing that I forgot to list one risk factor in my Fund II PPM—the possibility that the US turns into a fascist dictatorship,” O’Donnell writes in his weekly newsletter. “That probably won’t have a positive effect on venture capital returns.”

The investor, who has been a frequent critic of the new Trump administration, is serious. Risk comes in many forms, and the risk of an impulsive or otherwise unplanned-for policy move could have real consequences.

“Investors are willing to take early stage risk because they don’t have other risks like nationalization of industries, martial law, dissolution of human rights, etc. It’s easy to take that for granted, but that’s why places like Russia have trouble getting their startup community off the ground.  What investor wants to take that extra layer of government risk?”

#muslimban most Un-American thing I've seen US do in my lifetime. If you disagree, you don't get why USA even exists. Look up your history.

— Charlie O'Donnell (@ceonyc) January 28, 2017

In another interesting part of the post he discusses the notion of how, while corporate political activism can turn off conservative consumers, the failure of a startup to take a political stand can turn off its own developers and engineers.