J.D. Vance’s bona fides for a run to the U.S. Senate in 2022 largely rested on two things—the success of his Rust Belt memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which captured the plight of the white working class, and a career in venture capital that began in 2016 at Mithril, the firm founded by billionaire investor and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel.
But according to some of Vance’s former colleagues, the new vice presidential nominee’s track record at the fund that gave him his start wasn’t all that memorable.
A person who worked at Mithril Capital Management in 2016 told the Wall Street Journal that in the year Vance was there, he never once saw him in the office. Another former colleague told the Journal that he remembered seeing Vance, but also that the newly acclaimed author spent a good deal of time promoting Hillbilly Elegy. Neither person could remember any significant deals Vance worked on while at Mithril, which is named after a fictional precious metal featured in J.R.R. Tolkien’s works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
“I don’t think he had a long enough career in venture to have demonstrated the successful VC narrative that’s being expressed,” David Hornik, a prominent VC and Democratic donor, told the Journal.
Vance’s stint at Mithril coincided with his book’s explosion in popularity. Hillbilly Elegy, which came out during the summer of 2016 became something of a textbook for understanding Trump’s appeal to poor voters in places like Appalachia during his first campaign, and in the fall of that year Vance went on Charlie Rose, TED, ABC, and PBS to talk about the memoir and Trumpism.
Not everyone who worked with Vance at Mithril remembers his time there as being marked by absenteeism, however. In a post on X shortly after Vance was nominated, Crystal McKellar, former managing director at the fund, said the Ohio senator was “a great VC,” who “had great instincts about people.”
As a former colleague who worked pretty closely with JD, I can tell you from personal experience that @JDVance1 was a great VC-super smart, pragmatic, developed expertise in new industries very quickly (and before our founder meetings!), and he had great instincts about people.…
— Crystal McKellar (@CrystalMcKellar) July 15, 2024
Neither Mithril nor Vance’s office responded to Fortune’s request for comment.
Although his time at Mithril was brief, Vance made a lasting connection with Thiel, whom the Republican senator was first introduced to at a talk Thiel gave at Yale in 2011. In an essay in a Catholic literary journal, Vance credited the investor with steering him away from a career in big law and instead pursuing entrepreneurship.
Thiel, who Vance said “would later blurb my book and become a good friend,” has been as influential in the senator’s political rise as his career in venture capital. The PayPal cofounder gave him $15 million for his 2022 campaign in Ohio—the largest amount ever given for a single Senate race, according to Politico. Thiel also brokered an introduction between Vance and former president Trump in 2021, a connection that ultimately led to an endorsement that helped Vance win his campaign.
Vance left Mithril in the spring of 2017 to join Revolution, the investment firm started by AOL cofounder Steve Case. Former colleagues at Revolution have a better recollection of Vance’s impact at his second firm—Vance was lead partner or co-lead on 14 deals, including deals on startups in defense and artificial intelligence sectors, one source told the Journal.
During his time at Revolution Vance also invested in AppHarvest, a food production startup developing indoor farms in Appalachia, and he would later sit on the company’s board, though he stepped down to make his Senate run. Shortly after Vance departed, AppHarvest came under fire in five separate lawsuits for misleading regulators and investors, and the company filed for bankruptcy in 2023.
Following his stint at Revolution, Vance cofounded his own venture firm, Ohio-based Narya, along with Colin Greenspan—with significant backing from none other than Thiel.
