(1) Thrive capital becomes the top firm for supporting startups that want to disrupt govn-related industries. It will become common knowledge that the Kushner-Kushner direct channel will be shamelessly exploited by Thrive and their portfolio.
(2) Thrive capital becomes associated with incompetence and dumb money, the type of ignorant bravado that begets wars, environmental disasters, haphazard vetting, creation of opacity instead of transparency, and corruption. Sensible startups will avoid this money because of the taint it will leave on them in 3-4 years when they are seeking public markets.
Thrive was a <$2M series B(1) investor, they have closed $70M in funding since then. It's unclear whether Joshua Kushner was involved with OpenGov, or one of his GPs. No one from Thrive currently sits on the board.
So we get cries of "nepotism!" and "cronyism!" because, basically, "the brother of one of our investors is married to the daughter of someone important". (I know, Jared Kushner is himself in a position of power: I drew that out as hyperbole.)
Do you know how common this is? Or how easy it is to find a 2nd or 3rd level relationship like this?
Is this not proof the media is losing touch with reality...
This kind of corruption is not necessarily illegal if you do it right, but it's looked down upon because it means you're using the office for personal gain rather than the gain of your constituents.
If his company isn't qualified or they are getting overpaid then I'd call it corruption.
It stinks either way.
