Startup founders flocked to inauguration parties in hopes of closing a deal

On Monday, while tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg sat on stage for President Donald Trump’s inauguration, dozens of founders were at parties all over Washington, D.C., trying to get an audience with of the new president’s inner circle.

To hear them tell it, it wasn’t that difficult. Valar Atomics founder Isaiah Taylor spent the weekend partying, rubbing shoulders with Sean Spicer and conservative podcaster Jordan Peterson. Taylor’s company wants to use nuclear energy to produce synthetic hydrocarbons. He even received three separate invitations to Mar-a-Lago last month, sending a two-page document on changes he would like to see in nuclear regulations to anyone he knew with connections to Washington. “People say, ‘Please tell me, how can we solve this problem? We have to rebuild things,” he said of the administration.

His story was surprisingly common. Across the U.S. capital, founders have enjoyed the fruits of their industry’s political maneuvering. They watched Snoop Dogg at David Sacks’ Crypto Ball, attended an early-hours crypto rave sponsored by the Milady NFT group, and dressed up for a “Coronation Ball” hosted by a publishing company associated with Curtis Yarvin, the controversial opinion leader cited by Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel.

Tyler Sweatt, CEO of defense technology startup Second Front Systems, said one of his biggest frustrations with the federal government is bureaucratic opacity. Often, founders don’t even know who contact the government, let alone get a huge contract.

But Sweatt left events such as the vice presidential dinner and Trump’s pre-inauguration candlelight dinner feeling like the country could be entering a rare moment when the federal government, big tech and the ecosystem startups are lined up – and where the veil surrounds the inner workings of government. could be lifted. “From an apolitical point of view, it’s really interesting in terms of what we could do as a country,” he said.

At a watch party hosted by the conservative organization American Moment, members of Congress wore suits with red ties and technicians wore sneakers. Jacob Martin, general partner at crypto fund 2 Punks Capital and co-founder of gaming guild Ready Player DAO, continued to monitor news that Trump immediately pardoned infamous Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who is currently serving a life prison sentence. He has not done so, although he promised to do so at a Libertarian convention in May.

Martin also lamented missing his chance to buy the Trump meme coin during its launch at Sacks’ Crypto Ball, at a time when major crypto donors were away from their computers. Trading on the coin quickly skyrocketed. “I could have bought. But I didn’t do it, because it was clearly a scam, right? Martin laughs. “There were people who made hundreds of millions from it.”

He hopes the Trump administration can ensure that “people can use blockchain technology to build better things, launch tokens if necessary, and not have to worry about jail time.”

DOGE as their big chance

Several founders believed that Musk’s Department of Government Effectiveness would open the floodgates for startups to pitch their products to government to deliver on his promise to make government more efficient. James Layfield, sales director of Samplify.ai, which helps businesses identify redundant software, created a website called “DogeProof.com.” The concept, he explained, is to offer Samplify.ai’s products for free to government agencies so they can get rid of unnecessary subscriptions before Musk comes along to cut their costs.

Layfield introduced it to Florida Rep. Byron Donalds at an inauguration ball and said he seemed intrigued. “The whole experience has been incredibly rewarding to see how open people are to this possibility,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rabi Alam, founder of Counter Health, hopes that DOGE can support his company’s mission to streamline the healthcare system while keeping the quality of care high. But first, like everyone else in the country, he needs to understand what exactly DOGE is. Luckily, Alam received an invitation to the inauguration ball, where he intended to spot some DOGE employees. “I would like to get what I call finer granularity and more color on the approach,” he said.

If this weekend shows anything, it’s that the toughest challenge founders will face, between proms and trips to Mar-a-Lago, might just be staying focused on their day jobs. “There are people trying to be in the right room,” Taylor said. “And there are people trying to get the job done.”