You may recognize the name J.D. Vance from his bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy which I wrote about in the “Trump’s Great White Wall” series (Read Parts I, II, III, and IV). In the book you see how he made himself into a success.
Vance worked for Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital and is now moving back home, according to this WSJ article, to work for Steve Case’s (founder of AOL) investment funds Revolution LLC. to bring venture capital to the Ohio area. “A lot of problems I write about are not entirely economic,” said Mr. Vance, 32 years old. “But a lot of these areas have been left behind and it does add to the problems and makes it harder to solve them. There is a lot of energy and untapped resources in these cities.” As the article notes, the idea is to bring investments to other states. California, by example, attracted 46% of venture capital 10 years ago and 45% back in 1997. Not a lot has changed. At Revolution, Vance will focus on the “47 states” that receive only 20% of the nation’s venture commitments.
J. D. Vance, author of HILLBILLY ELEGY, at First-Year Experience
