Watch: A venture capitalist’s fiery speech — howling, really — about Seattle
AI House founder and director Jacob Colker may be Seattle’s first publisher. In LinkedIn posts, panel discussions and recent news, Colker reminds Seattleites that this is a very special place.
All of that came to the fore at the Seattle Tech Week showcase on Tuesday when the financier gave a fiery speech about the virtues of Seattle — a city that despite a strong innovation economy, spectacular scenery and a good show during the World Cup has been a bit of itself lately.
Colker, spreading the best dynamic speaker vibes, has released it at Showbox Market.
“I’m here because Seattle is at the forefront and has the opportunity to have a huge impact on this next wave of technology,” he said. “But we’re missing a big part of making that happen.”
He explained that the missing piece is community and communication.
He shared a story about his first experience at a Cirque du Soleil show, saying that his mind was blown by seeing people doing stunts and flying horses floating above him. He was surprised, he was surprised. Years later, he took his family to Redmond’s Marymoor Park to see a Cirque show, and they came out worried.
“We become numb to this magic,” said Colker. “And I’ll tell you what’s going on here in Seattle.”
He continued, “We have flying horses in every part of this city,” citing the influence of companies like Boeing, Amazon, Microsoft and countless startups. “We literally created the cloud,” he said.
Colker also noted the world-changing impact of the University of Washington, which ranks as one of the nation’s top public education institutions.
At the end of the day, it wasn’t so much talked about as a rallying cry. Or, perhaps, a love letter to a city that Colker believes punches above its weight and yet is globally (and locally) underappreciated in many ways.
Colker’s message resonated with others, including fellow venture capitalist Jen Haller of Ascend, who commented on Colker’s LinkedIn post: “Jacob for Mayor!”
Asked later by GeekWire why he felt compelled to share this message with the crowd, Colker said Seattle “has taken years of criticism of laziness and has started to internalize it.”
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“The city doesn’t have a talent problem, an ambition problem, or an innovation problem,” he tells us. “It has a self-confidence problem. Too many people have forgotten what was built here, what was built here, and how much talent is still in this region waiting to be implemented.”
Colker doesn’t see himself as a social activist. He just wants people to stop accepting other people’s interpretations of society, see the extraordinary goods that already exist and “start to behave with urgency, pride, and the inner-city conviction of what’s next.”
It was a common theme at Seattle Tech Week. Earlier in the day, at the Building event in Seattle, first-time leader Zaylan Jacobsen, co-chairman of the local chapter of Young Professionals Nexus, described Seattle as “one of the most special places in the world.” While acknowledging the temporary problems, he urged the crowd to recognize its timeless qualities, including the natural environment.
Colker, after his speech later that night, still had energy left in the bottle to play drums on the Showbox stage with his band: Good Lettuce and the Hallpasses.
One of the songs Colker and his bandmates came out with: Don’t Stop Believin’ for a trip. It seems like the right message for Seattle at this given time.
Look, Jacob. Shake it up.
