Paddy Cosgrave, co-founder of technology conference Web Summit, is returning to his role as CEO after stepping down in October following controversial statements he made on social media last year about the war between Israel and Gaza. Rumors about his return began to surface over the weekend; Cosgrave confirmed this decision in a post on X today.
Notably, in his announcement, Cosgrave makes no mention of the political remarks he made that led to his departure seven months ago (with social media posts he made at the time also deleted) . Instead, Cosgrave opts for de-escalation by focusing on smaller groups.
“As Web Summit grows, our goal should be to make it smaller for our attendees. More intimate. More user-friendly. More community oriented,” he writes.
In doing so, he seems to be inspired by Mark Zuckerberg’s “community” turn on Facebook, following the social network’s enormous electoral scandal after 2016 (Cambridge Analytica, electoral manipulation, congressional hearings and others).
Of course, smaller groups give a larger entity – whether it’s a social network or an event – a way to cater to different agendas and opinions. More opportunistically, as with Facebook, the focus on community is meant to be a counterbalance to Web Summit’s broader business goal: scale, in Web Summit’s case, growing its conference empire by making paying as many people and businesses as possible to attend its events.
Web Summit organizes a number of global technology conferences, the best known and largest of which is held in Lisbon, which has attracted over 70,000 attendees in recent years.
The flagship event went through a tumultuous period last year after coming under fire from its big tech sponsors, who pulled out of the event following Cosgrave’s remarks.
The controversy began when, shortly after October 7, the day of Hamas’ massacre of Israeli citizens, Cosgrave published data on the human cost of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict between 2008 and 2023, but omitted the events (and casualties). ) of this conflict. weekend.
In the face of outcry, Cosgrave continued to double down in subsequent posts.
Cosgrave also showed support for the Irish government’s criticism of Israel’s implicit plans to cut off water and electricity to Gaza as part of its war plans.
tweet from Cosgrave
This was the final straw for many of the Web Summit speakers, with the strongest criticism coming from Israeli-based venture capitalists and founders, which were later supported by founders and US-based technology investors.
Major sponsors, including Microsoft and Google, then withdrew from the conference.
Under pressure, Cosgrave apologized for the offense caused by these posts and resigned as CEO. (Later, Israel actually cut off water and electricity to Gaza.)
As the Lisbon event approached, Web Summit quickly named Wikimedia CEO Catherine Maher to replace Cosgrave, even though Cosgrave retained an 80% stake in the company.
It was a very short tenure: Maher left Web Summit a few months later to serve as CEO of NPR, once again leaving Cosgrave’s company rudderless, but also paving the way for Cosgrave’s return.
techcrunch
