UC Santa Cruz

This dissertation poses the question of why there is, at the time of writing, no social critique of venture capital. To answer the question, this work attempts to perform that critique, employing a combination of political theory, political economy, and critical theory. There are three parts. Part I addresses temporality in the venture capital process and is organized around the topic of exit. It argues that the underlying essence of the venture capital process can be described by the relationship between equity and growth and by a form of temporal displacement described as “contracted time.” Part II addresses spatiality in the venture capital and is organized around the topic of value capture. It argues that the mechanism of growth underlying the venture capital process is a symbolic representation of the capture of human capital, on the one hand, and market space, on the other, and by a form of spatial displacement described as “contracted space.” Part III addresses appearance in the venture capital process and is organized around the topic of investment. It argues that the basis of the venture capital process may be described by the phenomenon of future social necessity, and that when combined with the foregoing argument allows for a definition of value in venture capital that I describe as socially necessary contracted space-time. This theory of value is presented as a critical supplement to both Karl Marx’s theory of socially necessary labor time and David Harvey’s theory of time-space compression.