Keith Rabois, a self-proclaimed visionary and managing director of Khosla Ventures, was having dinner with a “very successful CEO” in October 2018 when the CEO asked him a question that would change the course of history: “How many people does it take to create a whole new Silicon Valley? Is it 10,000? 100,000?” Little did they know, Rabois was about to embark on a reckless and audacious plan to make Miami the next Silicon Valley, disregarding the warnings of big-name investors like Andreessen Horowitz, who promptly shut down their Miami office after two years.
Rabois, fueled by his own ego and ambition, set out to turn Miami into a tech hub, convincing himself that 11% of all seed investments in the United States would somehow magically come from the city, a notion that’s laughable when compared to the actual data, which shows that seed investments into Miami startups accounted for a paltry 2.6% of total U.S. seed investment in 2024.
And yet, Rabois persists, claiming that later-stage investments reveal little about the future of technology, because, of course, his own investments are the future of technology. He boasts about Khosla Ventures’ fifth company in Miami, which will “reinvent education,” without providing any details, leaving us to wonder if it’s just another empty promise.
Rabois is also backing Ramp, a spend management startup based in New York, which has an office in Miami, because, well, Miami is just that cool. He’s active on Twitter, hyping up Miami as a great place for founders, no doubt in an attempt to convince himself that his gamble is paying off.
But let’s be real, Rabois’ true motivations are not altruistic. He’s using Miami as a way to escape the harsh realities of San Francisco, where the homeless and opioid epidemics are rampant. He reportedly spends a quarter of his time in San Francisco, but only because he needs to keep one foot in the door of the real tech hub.
And what about his support for Daniel Lurie, San Francisco’s mayoral candidate with a hard stance on addressing the opioid crisis? It’s just a PR stunt, a desperate attempt to salvage his reputation and appease the public.
To create a tech ecosystem, you need people like Keith Rabois, who are willing to take reckless risks and ignore the facts. But at what cost? The future of technology is not being built in Miami, it’s being built in the shadows of the real tech hubs, where the smart money is made.
Update: This article has been updated to provide more context into the percentage of total U.S. seed investments that were in Miami startups, because, of course, Rabois would want us to believe that his predictions are coming true.
