Spare a thought for the public relations team behind Web Summit, who had quite the roller coaster ride on Tuesday as its founder, Paddy Cosgrave, first declared he would “not relent” in harsh criticisms of Israel, only to apologise later.
Cosgrave once boasted that Web Summit “don’t use a PR agency as my talent alone is sufficient”, but recently signed up Drury Communications to help promote its work with Irish startups at next month’s event in Lisbon.
And what a baptism of fire for Sebastian Hamilton, in his first month in the newly created role of head of public affairs at Web Summit. “It’s time to switch rocketships,” Hamilton posted on LinkedIn last August, announcing his departure from Revolut. We hope he’s well strapped in.
[ Intel and Siemens pull out of Web Summit over Cosgrave commentsOpens in new window ]
Cosgrave’s apology included a defence of Web Summit’s decision to stage an event in Qatar next February. This followed criticism by Josh Kopelman, an American venture capitalist, who published an email he’d received from Cosgrave in September. In it, the Web Summit founder said the Qatari government was interested in bringing together leading venture funds from around the world, and would like to meet the American in person. “We’ve chosen not to do business with sovereign wealth funds as LPs,” Kopelman had told him.
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On Twitter, and some would say unfairly, Kopelman linked the financial support the Qatari government gives to Hamas to Cosgrave’s criticisms of Israel. “Your sponsor is getting their money’s worth from you,” Kopelman claimed. Damagingly, this was reposted by Garry Tan, founder of tech start-up accelerator Y Combinator, to his 370,000 followers as he announced his withdrawal from Web Summit in Lisbon.
In his apology, Cosgrave’s way of defending the summit in Qatar was to align himself with US secretary of state Antony Blinken. “Like the US government, Web Summit believes in working with regional and global partners – including Qatar – to encourage the dialogue and communication on which peace depends, and to strive for a just and lasting settlement to the underlying questions facing the region,” he declared rather grandiosely.
But was anyone convinced by the apology? “Sorry Paddy Cosgrave, too little too late,” Zack Weisfeld, vice-president of Intel Ignite, posted on LinkedIn. That was pretty typical of the responses.
