Letter from Lisbon: Trump Summit and angel investors dropping F-bombs

YOU COULD PROBABLY dub day two of this event ‘Trump Summit’ given the president-elect’s disembodied presence throughout the day.

The same sentence echoed across panels and interviews – ‘How did this happen?’ – while several people I spoke to complained that the amount of push notifications they got overnight meant they barely slept.

Renowned angel investor Dave McClure got quite animated on stage about the result of the US election and dropped an F-bomb or two, or three.

“We need to stand the fuck up against this thing, Trump was not playing fair, he was lying,” he said while part of a panel on centre stage.

But that’s not where it stopped as he arose from his seat, moved closer to the crowd and implored everyone stand up to the likes of Donald Trump.

“Technology has a role in that we provide communication platforms and we are allowing shit to happen, just like the cable news networks and talk radio, it’s a propaganda medium.

“If people aren’t aware that they are being told a story of fear and not understanding assholes like Trump are using them to get into office, then yes, people like Trump are going to take office. And it is our duty as entrepreneurs and as citizens of the fucking world to make sure that shit does not happen. It will not stand and you will fight for your rights.”

It’s an unsurprising refrain from a member of the Silicon Valley elite, a section of US society which – with the notable exception of Peter Thiel – has been united in its disdain for the Republican.

Earlier in the day, a more tempered panel of political experts and activists discussed what the results of the presidential election will mean for the world.

Political activist with Up to Us, Shailene Woodley, decried that the two-party system in America is “dead” and took at swipe a mainstream media for giving Trump a platform to spread his fear.

Meanwhile, Bradley Tusk, the man who oversaw Mike Bloomberg’s campaign for New York mayor, was rather blunt when he said that he was “embarrassed” to be in Europe during such an event.

He also pointed out that, no matter how much people across the globe debate the US election fallout, “90% of America doesn’t care what the rest of the world really thinks”.

So, it seems, like Brexit, no one at Web Summit really has a clue what a Trump presidency will mean for them. But everyone seems to have one thing in common – they’re worried.

Irish Startups @ Web Summit

LuvGuru – Currently being incubated in NDRC, Luvguru is a dating app that’s like Tinder, however, it is billed as a much more social experience that allows you to make matches through friends’ validations. The company is looking for seed capital, hoping to raise a round of $500,000, and will be releasing its app in the next couple of weeks.

Helixworks – This Cork-based startup has set its sights on making DNA more affordable to tinker with in order to boost and accelerate the breakthroughs being made in scientific research. The company has already secured investment from SOSV, whose European investments are overseen by CoderDojo co-founder Bill Liao, and is looking for a lead investor to close its seed round.

Elmar Frickenstein of BMW Group on centre stage today

Tomorrow’s talks

What next for the biggest game in the world? – Centre Stage (1:45pm)

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past six months, you have probably heard of Pokémon GO. During its sharp rise to fame, it broke nearly every record an app can set and tomorrow, the mastermind behind marketing the game, Mike Quigley, will discuss what’s coming next.

Advertisers should love ad-blocking – PandaConf (12:00pm)

Tomorrow, one man in particular has a very tough job. The creator of Adblock Plus, Till Faida, will share the stage with one publisher and one devout marketeer to try and convince them why advertisers should love ad-blocking. It’s a tough pitch, but Faida will also touch on details about how his company is now working with publishers to make sure users are not inundated with adverts when reading the news online.

The age of moonshots and Hyperloop One – Centre Stage (4:35pm)

As lots of companies are thinking about how to tap into the fact drones are the big thing right now, Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk, venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar and former SpaceX engineer Josh Giegel are trying to reinvent rail travel. In the final talk of Web Summit 2016, on centre stage, Pishevar and Giegel will outline their plans for Hyperloop One, which recently signed a deal to connect Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The journey will apparently take 12 minutes.

Killian Woods is reporting from Web Summit 2016 in Lisbon.