Paddy Cosgrave Reinstated as Web Summit CEO Following Resignation Over Israel/Gaza Controversy

Paddy Cosgrave, the co-founder of the Web Summit tech conference, is reclaiming his position as CEO after stepping down in October following controversial remarks he made about the Israel/Gaza conflict on social media last year. Speculation about his return emerged over the weekend, and Cosgrave confirmed the move in a post on X today.

Interestingly, in his announcement, Cosgrave avoids referencing the politicized statements that led to his departure less than six months ago (with his social media posts from that time also deleted, except for his public apology). Instead, he adopts a strategy of de-escalation, revealing plans to shift focus towards “smaller” groups.

“As Web Summit becomes bigger, our aim should be to make it smaller for our attendees. More intimate. More convivial. More community focused,” he states.

This move bears resemblance to Mark Zuckerberg’s pivot to “community” at Facebook following the social network’s significant post-2016 election controversies (including the Cambridge Analytica scandal, election interference, and congressional hearings).

Smaller groups provide larger entities, whether social networks or events, with a means to cater to diverse agendas and opinions. Similar to Facebook, the emphasis on community might act as a counterbalance to Web Summit’s overarching business objective: scalability. For Web Summit, this entails expanding its conference empire by attracting as many individuals and companies as possible to its events.

In a subsequent blog post, Web Summit detailed its new emphasis on targeting smaller communities, likely as a means to extract more value from its events—both in terms of attracting lucrative sponsorships and enhancing the value of the large, sometimes unwieldy, conferences for individual attendees: “Over the last year, we have piloted small prototype meetups for attendees in similar industries like product engineers or marketing leads, facilitated through our Web Summit app… Our software, design, production, and all teams and elements of Web Summit will expand to help realize this worthwhile mission.”

Web Summit hosts several large, global tech conferences, with the most prominent and sizable event held in Lisbon, which in recent years has drawn upwards of 70,000 attendees. Additionally, the roster includes smaller, invite-only gatherings under brands like F.ounders for later-stage founders and similar events.