The entrepreneurial gaze of digital capitalism

Abstract

Scholars have unearthed how tech companies exert unprecedented power through new modes of accumulation and control. Less attention has been paid to the social actors who command these companies. In particular, the subjectivities that characterize the entrepreneurial class remain largely unexplored. Drawing on Foucault, this paper develops the concept of the entrepreneurial gaze by examining a unique data set from Y Combinator, a prominent Silicon Valley-based ‘accelerator’. The empirical analysis reconstructs an entrepreneurial gaze within the tech elite structured by three central schemas: (1) need-spotting through personal experiences; (2) a faithful vision and (3) a short-cut orientation.