https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/11/the-wars-come-home.html

Posted on November 24, 2024 by Conor Gallagher

I always appreciated techno-feudal lord Peter Thiel’s obsession with the blood of the young being used in pursuit of eternal life for himself. It seems a perfectly upfront metaphor for our late-stage capitalism in which the pursuit of profit drains the life of an ever increasing number.

Thiel’s lust for the fountain of youthful blood came to mind recently when reading about Sequoia Capital’s return to Israel.

Sequoia is one of the largest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley and it invested early in the likes of Apple, Google, and Oracle. It also sprang the “PayPal Mafia” to prominence, a group that includes Thiel and President-elect Donald Trump’s current sidekick and world’s richest man, Elon Musk. Unsurprisingly, as a citadel of capitalism built on eugenics, bombs, and hatred of the working class, Silicon Valley is now among the upcoming Trump Administration’s biggest backers and helps push for the US’ ongoing involvement in the Gaza genocide.

Sequoia left Israel in 2016 because, according to partner Shaun Maguire, Israeli founders looked to sell early in the hundreds of millions of dollars range while the VC firm prefers to invest in companies that could be worth $50 billion or more.

So why is Sequoia back? Maguire says that “The founders here today are among the most ambitious in the world, and we believe that the country will produce companies large enough to suit the fund.” Oct. 7 and the ensuing genocide play a large role in that calculation.

Sequoia’s dozens of investments are centered around defense tech and cybersecurity and are oftentimes headed by veterans of the Israeli Defense Forces Unit 8200, the central collection unit of the intelligence corps, and the Israel Air Force’s Shaldag Unit, which specializes in clandestine operations and military intelligence.

Israeli tech is of course being used and tested in the genocide:

https://x.com/Mondoweiss/status/1858867237928501431?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1858867237928501431%7Ctwgr%5Ea2ab62b775d00a230fb30b7eb221f68550fb7522%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2024%2F11%2Fthe-wars-come-home.html

That doesn’t trouble the likes of Maguire at Sequoia. In his telling he’s a profile in courage for his support of Israel that is under attack from all sides, including the Biden administration. By making such comments he’s presumably implying that the jump on the right of the following graph should go much higher:



He expects Trump to accomplish that. It’s not just Sequoia. Others like Greylock, another Silicon Valley behemoth, and New York City-based Lux Capital, which specializes in “deep” tech startups, are getting in on more action in Israel. Here’s the co-founder of Lux with more details that Friedrich Flick could be proud of:

https://x.com/wolfejosh/status/1851016945270751405?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1851016945270751405%7Ctwgr%5Ea2ab62b775d00a230fb30b7eb221f68550fb7522%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2024%2F11%2Fthe-wars-come-home.html

Lux claims to “champion companies that work at the intersection of the new and the not-yet-imagined, looking decades into the future to create a world most of us can barely imagine.”

That’s one way of putting it.

Maybe it’s not a bad bet on these Companies helping bring that world into being are doing quite well. Israeli defense tech firm Elbit Systems, for example, has a record order backlog worth $22 billion at the moment.

American big tech has long supported the Israeli apartheid regime where its products can be tested, and they continue to do so despite the genocide being perpetrated.

Sequoia, Lux, and the others, are of course betting that these technologies developed in Israel can be brought to scale around the world.

Is it just the tech being exported? While Israel is effectively a colonial laboratory for tech of surveillance, control, and extermination, what does that portend for its benefactor, the US — more specifically our ruling class’ inclinations?

Etc.