Television star and technology entrepreneur Chris Sacca is a very rich man thanks to early investments in companies like Twitter, Uber, and Instagram. But he is also deeply unhappy about the current leadership of the country and a lack of diversity in Silicon Valley. Sacca wants to do something about it, so he recently announced that he will leave his enormously popular TV show and billions of investments.
Appearing at the Collision conference in New Orleans yesterday, and swigging beer while he held court on the main stage for nearly two hours, Sacca insisted that he really was going to step away from his investment firm – Lowercase Capital – and “Shark Tank,” the startup-funding TV show that he participates in with other venture-backers, including Mark Cuban.
“I wasn’t put on earth just to be an investor,” said Sacca. “There’s more in life.”
Mark Cuban could be president
Sacca told the Collision audience that he has been working with leading Democrats, including Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, to improve the use of digital technology and social media to get their messages across. He also flatly declared that he had no intention of running for political office himself, but said that the “messiah-like” Cuban could run for president and win easily.
“If Mark Cuban ran for president, he could be elected with a 15 point margin,” said Sacca. “In contrast to Trump, he’s not an idiot.”
Sacca calls Uber an "adolescent company"
Sacca was an early investor in the ride-sharing company Uber, a mammoth success in the disruptive tech world.
But Uber has experienced a significant wave of bad publicity in recent months, ranging from charges of sexual harassment inside the company to viral video of CEO Travis Kalanick verbally berating a driver.
“Uber is a truly adolescent company,” said Sacca.
The entrepreneur revealed yesterday that after a lengthy period of many years when he did not speak with Kalanick, he had begun advising him again in recent days.
Sacca said that he provided the Uber CEO with names of potential female executives (the company is seeking to hire a COO), and explained how the company’s culture may have become “hardened” by their battles with municipal government officials across the country.
“In city after city we met with corrupt politicians who were simply bought off to protect a (taxi) cartel,” said Sacca.
“We were up against something that was truly evil.”
Silicon Valley lacks integrity
Although his investments in numerous tech companies have made him rich, Sacca acknowledged that the industry’s lack of diversity is a problem that must be addressed. Uber’s problems are symbolic of a “win at all costs” culture that has driven the tech world for much of the past two decades.
“Silicon Valley has embraced failure, but they haven’t embraced a lack of integrity,” Sacca told the Collision gathering yesterday.
Sacca bemoaned the current direction of a Trump-led country, while expressing concern about inequality in the nation’s justice system and the lack of social mobility across the country.
“I have a very sincere fear for the plight of America right now,” said Sacca, who also indicated that he plans to teach what he knows “to the next generation of activists who might take this country back.”
Sacca lives modestly
Despite the “Shark Tank” image of wealthy investors throwing their money around, Sacca spoke about his less-than-glamorous life. When the TV show’s producers wanted to film him at his lavish mansion or on a yacht, he explained that he still lived in a modest three-bedroom home with his family in the mountains of Truckee, California and didn’t own a boat or private plane.
The producers had to rent a conference room to show Sacca meeting with his team, because his investment company was managed out of their own homes.
“I’m really good at not having a boss,” said Sacca. He then smiled and took another sip of beer.
