SF tech investment firm fires co-founder for anti-Palestinian posts

A San Francisco tech investment firm is firing one of its co-founders after he reportedly posted bigoted statements about Palestinians online.

Oyster Ventures, a venture capital company that works out of an office on Market Street, announced the firing of Kenneth Ballenegger on Monday night in a post on X. According to screenshots viewed by Business Insider, Ballenegger posted comments on social media about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas that were blatantly racist toward Palestinians. According to the screenshots, he wrote Sunday, “After the war, Israel should handle Gaza like China handles Xinjiang. Full surveillance state. Re education camps. Sterilizations. It’s warranted and the only way to pacify the jihadi population.”

Business Insider reported that he doubled down in a second post, writing, “They reproduce like rabbits and raise them to be terrorists, creating more poverty misery and terrorism. Why should we allow that. The world would be a much better place if they didn’t reproduce.”

Ballenegger’s co-founder Sophie Liao called the posts “appalling” in a written statement shared on Oyster’s accounts. She wrote that Oyster had decided to remove Ballenegger as a partner at the firm, starting with an immediate suspension. Ballenegger appears to own most of Oyster’s management company, per a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from April.

Ballenegger’s removal was not without its own controversy, though. The post in which Liao announced his departure was actually her second public statement on the matter. In her first post to Oyster Ventures’ X page after Ballenegger’s remarks were made public, Liao wrote, “Any employee’s personal or political opinion does not reflect the values of Oyster Ventures or myself.” The post received 1,300 responses, many pointing out that as a managing partner at the fund, Ballenegger was more than just an employee.

On Monday night, Liao’s longer statement arrived, announcing Ballenegger’s removal. She called the ongoing war “a human tragedy of immense proportions,” and said her firm’s leadership would be making a donation to humanitarian relief efforts. Ballenegger also served as an adviser for Zbiotics, a San Francisco startup, though the company told Axios on Monday night that Ballenegger’s posts were “abhorrent” and that another Oyster representative would take over his role.

Oyster, along with Liao and Ballenegger, did not respond to SFGATE’s requests for comment. Oyster’s website was down Tuesday and the business was marked as “temporarily closed” on Google Maps, though it’s not clear that those are related to the turmoil within the company.