Colin Sheridan: Paddy Cosgrave's climbdown a lesson in moral reversal

One of the more high-profile examples of this policy of commercial Coventry has been Irish entrepreneur Paddy Cosgrave. The CEO of Web Summit — an annual global technological conference held each November in Lisbon (a business reportedly worth €250m) — was amongst the first to incur the outrage of pro-Israel Big Tech. He achieved this without mentioning either Israel, Palestine, or Hamas;

"I'm shocked at the rhetoric and actions of so many Western leaders and governments,” Cosgrave tweeted last Saturday, ”with the exception in particular of Ireland's government, who for once are doing the right thing."

So far, so fair you would think? In fact, in the nonsense context of divisive-disrupter-tweets-about-World Peace, the most notable aspect of his original post was the unambiguous compliment he paid the current Irish Government, an entity he remains spectacularly at odds with.

He continued: "War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies and should be called out for what they are."

You wouldn't need to be Alan Turing to decode the inference of this post; that the EU and US governments in particular had failed in their perceived moral obligation to challenge Israel on their bombardment of civilians in Gaza following the Hamas terror attacks. Part II, was in effect, an imputation — albeit via X (Twitter) — that Israel was committing war crimes, though he did not — perhaps wisely — specify any.

One can’t know the mind of Cosgrave, but, regardless of the genuine despair for humanity that likely inspired the original tweet, the timing and tenor of his stance could be construed as either typically combative or hubristically naive. Perhaps both. 

It’s one thing for a left-leaning columnist or academic to express a Pro-Palestinian viewpoint, quite another for an upstart entrepreneur reliant on Big Tech for financial oxygen to survive.

 Israel, roughly the size of Wales, has long been dubbed the "start-up nation," with more startups per capita than any other country in the world. According to the United States-Israel Business Alliance, California serves as the global or US headquarters for 35 Israeli-founded unicorns — startup companies with a value of over $1 billion. Cosgrave aside, this may go some way to explain President Joe Biden’s placatory posture towards Benjamin Netanyahu and his strategic starvation of Gaza.

Anyway, who cares what rebel Captain of New Capitalism, Paddy Cosgrave, thinks of war in the Middle East?

Well, Israel most definitely does.

Rather predictably, the retaliation to Cosgrave’s tweet was swift and brutal. Within 48 hours, Israel's ambassador to Portugal, Dor Shapira, announced that his country would no longer participate in the Web Summit as a result of Cosgrave's "outrageous statements."

"Even during these difficult times, he is unable to set aside his extreme political views and denounce the Hamas terrorist activities against innocent people," Shapira wrote on X.

Several industry leaders piled in, cancelling their appearances at the upcoming Web Summit, including Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator; Ori Goshen, co-CEO of AI21 Labs; Ravi Gupta, a partner at Sequoia; Keith Peiris, CEO of Tome; Adam Singolda, head of advertising company Taboola; and David Marcus, CEO of Lightspark and former PayPal chief executive.

"We at AI21 cannot be part of such indecency and moral bankruptcy," wrote Goshen, who was set to give a keynote speech at the conference.

After initially appearing to double down on his stance, Cosgrave issued a clarification on Tuesday: "I understand that what I said, the timing of what I said, and the way it has been presented has caused upset to many. To anyone who was hurt by my words I apologise deeply.

"What is needed at this time is compassion, and I did not convey that."

By Wednesday he announced he was taking a break from X, bookending an episode indicative of the power of money, and those who wield it like an axe. 

In executing a tactical retreat, Cosgrave fulfilled a very familiar Public Person prophecy — (1) Express opinion (2) Double down on opinion (3) Qualify opinion (4) Apologise for opinion (5) Defeated, leave platform opinion was expressed on.

His reflection-under-duress came too late for both Intel and Siemens, who in recent days announced they too were pulling out of the summit. Intel has long standing operations in Israel, while Siemens is listed as one of the main sponsors of next month's tech conference. And on Friday, tech behemoths Google, Meta and Stripe all announced that they would also boycott the event. Google is one of the summit's commercial partners.

Scant consolation for his business, but Cosgrave was far from being alone. Harvard president Claudine Gay remains under pressure from benefactors to resign over her delayed response to a student letter blaming Israel for the Hamas terror attacks on October 7. More than 30 student groups signed a letter stating: "We, the undersigned student organisations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence."

The fallout was immediate, with some university donors such as Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and the Wexner Foundation cutting ties with the school. The Harvard Jewish Centre called the statement antisemitic. There are already reports of white shoe law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell rescinding job offers to students associated with the letters.

Back to Cosgrave. His eventual climbdown was met by many on social media with a brand of schadenfreude commensurate with his self-assumed role as political disruptor and apparent speaker of truths. Since 2020, there have been four separate court cases taken against Cosgrave related to his Twitter activity, each one alleging untrue, malicious, and defamatory comments. Meanwhile, the Commercial Court is currently hearing one in a series of suits and countersuits between Cosgrave and two other Web Summit co-founders, Daire Hickey and David Kelly.

Quietly, some of his detractors in public life may have been fleetingly envious that he had the courage to say, however briefly, how he actually felt.

There is a lesson in his reversal, too. Maybe the more you have, like Paddy and his €250m Web Summit, the more you stand to lose. That’s what makes the man with less than nothing, the man so deliberately deprived he has nothing left to drink but seawater, so difficult to beat. Netanyahu should take note.