Inside the Gay Tech Mafia

No 1 can accidental precisely when, oregon if, cheery men started moving Silicon Valley. They look to person dominated its precocious ranks astatine slightest the past 5 years, possibly more. On platforms similar X, the clues are there: whispers of private-island retreats, tech executives going “gay for clout,” and the proposition that a “seed round” is not, strictly speaking, a fiscal term. It is an thought truthful taken for granted, successful fact, that erstwhile I telephone up a well-connected hedge money manager to inquire his thoughts astir what is sometimes referred to successful manufacture circles arsenic the “gay tech mafia,” helium audibly yawns. “Of course,” helium says. “This has ever been the case.”

It had been the case, the hedge funder says, backmost successful 2012, erstwhile helium was raising wealth from a task capitalist whose bureau was staffed with dozens of “attractive, beardown young men,” each of whom were “under 30” and looked arsenic though they had freshly decamped from “the precocious schoolhouse statement club.” “They were each sleeping with each different and starting companies,” helium says. And it is perfectly the lawsuit now, helium adds, erstwhile cheery men are moving influential companies successful Silicon Valley and support full societal calendars with scarcely a consecutive man, overmuch little a woman, successful sight. “Of people the cheery tech mafia exists,” helium continues. “This is not immoderate Illuminati conspiracy theory. And you bash not person to beryllium cheery to join. They similar consecutive guys who slumber with them adjacent more.”

Ever since I started covering Silicon Valley successful 2017, I’ve heard variations of this rumor—that “gays,” arsenic an AI laminitis named Emmett Chen-Ran has quipped, “run this joint.” On its face, a cheery tech mafia seemed excessively dumb to warrant existent investigative inquiry. Sure, determination were cheery men successful precocious places: Peter Thiel, Tim Cook, Sam Altman, Keith Rabois, the database went on. But the thought that they were operating immoderate benignant of shadowy cabal seemed calved wholly of homophobia, the indulgence of which mightiness play into the hands of conspiracy-minded conservatives similar Laura Loomer, who, successful 2024, tweeted that the “high tech VC satellite conscionable seems to beryllium 1 big, exploitative cheery mafia.”

Over time, though, the rumor refused to die, yet curdling into thing person to accepted wisdom. Last spring, astatine a task capitalist’s enactment successful Southern California, a middle-aged capitalist complained to maine astatine magnitude astir however helium was struggling to rise his caller fund. The problem, helium explained, boiled down to discrimination. I took him successful arsenic helium spoke. He had the azygous down cold: a achromatic antheral with a unit cut, wearing a tasteless button-down stretched implicit mild prosperity, and a fluent condemnation that AI was, convey god, the adjacent large thing. He looked precisely similar the benignant of antheral Silicon Valley has been built to reward. And yet present helium was, insisting that the strategy was rigged against him. “If I were gay, I wouldn’t beryllium having immoderate trouble,” helium said. “That’s the full happening with Silicon Valley these days. The lone mode to drawback a break,” helium claimed, “is if you’re gay.”

Over the people of 2025, akin sentiments bubbled up connected X, wherever Silicon Valley tech workers joked astir offering “fractional vizier services to the cheery elite.” Anonymous accounts hinted astatine an underworld of cheery Silicon Valley powerfulness brokers who influenced and courted—“groomed”—aspiring entrepreneurs. At an AI league successful Los Angeles, an technologist casually referred to a apical AI firm’s offices, much than once, arsenic “twink town.”

By the fall, speculation intensified, and past a photograph appeared connected X of a radical of Y Combinator–backed founders crowded adjacent a sauna with Garry Tan, the incubator’s president. The representation seemed innocuous enough: a fewer young, nerdy men successful aquatics trunks, squinting into the camera. But astir instantly, it acceptable disconnected a circular of viral gossip astir the peculiar intimacies of task superior culture. Not agelong after, a laminitis from Germany, Joschua Sutee, posted a photograph of himself and his antheral cofounders—apparently naked, swaddled successful bedsheets—submitted arsenic portion of what seemed to beryllium a Y Combinator application, a determination that appeared designed to tribunal a knowingly erotic antheral audience. “Here I come, @ycombinator,” the caption read.

The conception that Y Combinator was grooming antheral entrepreneurs makes small sense—for tons of reasons, and for 1 successful particular. “Garry is straight consecutive straight straight,” says a idiosyncratic who knows Tan. “But helium believes successful the benefits of the sauna.” When I inquire Tan for a comment, helium is blunt—some founders were implicit for meal and asked to usage his precocious installed sauna and acold plunge. From there, Tan says, “rejects” of Y Combinator “manufactured this meme that it was someway much than that.”