In the introduction to her book, Drama Drives Interest, a historical narrative outlining the journey of the controversial Web Summit, Catherine Sanz denotes this Irish company as the most riveting business tale of her time. Although from my perspective, I slightly disagree. There’s ambiguity around what exactly deems a story as ‘Irish’, however, in my opinion, Stripe outrightly takes the title. The fintech giant, under the leadership of the Collison brothers, has a strong valuation of €65 billion and anticipates revenue of around €13 billion in 2023. Compared to this, the revenue of Web Summit, stated by Sanz to potentially touch €100 million this year, seems significantly small. Additionally, Stripe’s controversy score is relatively low.
Nonetheless, over the past decade and a half, the most captivating saga of Irish businesses will undoubtedly be associated with Web Summit. This is primarily attributed to its cofounder Paddy Cosgrave, who recently reclaimed his role of the CEO. Cosgrave is often seen as a frustrating yet remarkably ingenious provocateur, who does not shy away from supporting questionable or radical claims, making him both a beloved figure and a nemesis to many.
Contributor to the Business Post, Sanz, sets the scene towards the end of the narrative focusing on the Web Summit 2023 in Lisbon. Cosgrave had courted controversy in the month leading up by making an insensitive tweet criticising Israel following the October 7th Hamas attacks. He attempted to make amends, however, seemed pleased that his statements had boosted ticket sales. As a result, major sponsors (including Stripe, Intel, Google, Amazon, IBM, and Meta) pulled out, causing Web Summit to plunge into a catastrophe, which subsequently led to Cosgrave stepping down.
While all this was happening, a parallel legal drama took place in an Irish court involving Cosgrave and another Web Summit founder, Daire Hickey. They are part of an ongoing dispute where all three original founders, including David Kelly, are involved in legal actions against each other, resulting in a large amount in attorneys’ fees and a consistent feed of news stories.
The narrative of Drama Drives Interest predominantly reveals the journey of Cosgrave, Hickey and Kelly from the inception of the Web Summit in 2009 till date. The title of the book is influenced by a remark that Cosgrave made to Sanz as he frequently voiced his contentious opinions. This intriguing tale, with its specific focus on Irish events, is hard to resist and serves as an insightful contribution to Ireland’s business archives. However, its repetitive emphasis on a one-sided (mostly male) narrative can sometimes be repetitive and mind-numbing.
The narrative often includes unidentified sources, indicating that these individuals might have preferred to stay away from Cosgrave’s social media criticisms. This heavy reliance on faceless opinions does pose a question: Does the anonymous sayings of an unknown person carry any significance?
Many of the narrative’s disclosed interviews involve individuals who would willingly engage in a debate with Cosgrave, all of whom would be familiar to those well-versed in X.
The book lacks efficient organisation with an absence of an index, footnotes and source citations, meaning quotes and references are often provided without any supporting context. This is particularly unexpected, considering its author’s journalistic background and the fact that he is writing about particularly litigious characters.
The narrative omits two crucial preliminary moments of the Web Summit: firstly, Cosgrave’s visit to his acquaintances in Silicon Valley around 2008. Astoundingly, he was invited to give an informal speech at Yahoo, drawing the interest of people intrigued by Ireland’s booming tech industry. To Cosgrave’s amazement, not only was there a gathering, it also included one of the founders of Yahoo. This event resulted in him gaining unexpected connections and visibility.
The first-ever pre-Web Summit event was initiated by Cosgrave, featuring a talk at Dublin’s Trinity College by Tim Draper, a celebrated Silicon Valley venture capitalist and third in a lineage of such influential individuals. In 2009, I first became acquainted with Cosgrave when I noticed the advertisement for this talk. We had some common connections – Draper’s family had at one point been our neighbours in California, and our mothers were friendly with each other. With this connection, I reached out to Cosgrave to propose service in promoting the event. The night was a success with a lecture room packed to capacity, followed by lively drinks at Fade Street Social, a neighbouring restaurant. By the end of the evening, Cosgrave had done an impressive job of winning over Draper, securing a high-profile tech contact. His charm also captivated the Irish tech industry and set the stage for a distinguished event. Buoyed by this success, Cosgrave later launched the first Web Summit, which ultimately morphed into a tech event with unparalleled scale.
The book majorly explores the business and legal conflict surrounding the Web Summit’s growth, with a lesser emphasis on its technological context. Perhaps due to this, the dubious practice of relentless digital data collection from attendees is briefly mentioned. Sanz implies potential overreach before the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation. It was contested that these practices breached EU data protection legislation. Notably, ironic was the keynote speech by Edward Snowden during the Web Summit in 2019 where he condemned both state and corporate data surveillance. Snowden was speaking at an event that once utilised ceiling-fitted GoPro cameras to monitor every attendee movement in Dublin, which Cosgrave had acknowledged to me personally.
Sanz demonstrates a knack for pinpointing contradictions and contentious issues, one being Cosgrave’s plan to orchestrate a Web Summit event in Qatar in 2023, a country renowned for its notorious human rights violations. In a 2022 interview, Noam Chomsky, a revered icon of Cosgrave’s and formerly a speaker at the Web Summit, spoke of the prevailing condition in Qatar where migrant workers, representing the majority of the populace, suffer in “slave-like conditions,” tasked with constructing extravagant hotels, stadiums, and the like for the elite class’s celebrations, terming it a shameful, appalling scenario. Sanz, however, points out that for all its issues, Qatar is a profitable venue for the Web Summit, an event that seems to thrive amidst the opulence.
Sanz’s book, however, suffers setbacks owing to a hasty publication (the narration goes up to as recent as events in August), and an inadequate editing process. An abundance of typographical errors, incorrectly spelled words, and incongruous vocabulary choices detract from the work, such as the misuse of “spurned” in place of the likely intended “spawned.” There are certain blunders, including the misnaming of the renowned creator of Craigslist, the remarkable speaker at an early Web Summit, as Chris Newmark, which contradict the brand’s name.
Yet, by the conclusion of Drama Drives Interest, there remains uncertainty regarding whether the recent series of controversies could pose a threat to the ongoing survival of the Web Summit. However, this possibly won’t have much impact. As noted by Sanz, numerous entities and individuals, who had boycotted the Web Summit the previous year in consequence of Cosgrave’s remarks, hadn’t shown any concern regarding the verbal castigation towards different businesspersons, journalists, enterprises, and politicians in earlier years. Despite Cosgrave’s presence or absence, it is projected that they would be meeting in Lisbon in November for the Web Summit 2024.