Drama Drives Interest: The Web Summit story

Web Summit has been touted as one of the biggest Irish business success stories of the last decade, growing from a 150-person meet-up into an over 70,000-person gathering of industry leaders.

Paddy Cosgrave, its charismatic co-founder cozied up to Silicon Valley elite, read Chomsky at the weekends, raised his family on a farm in Donegal, and attended Wimbledon with the wealthy. He had the world at his feet.

That world, however, came at a cost.

After spending years using social media to target people he disagrees with, and leading Web Summit with what some say was unfettered power for much of this time, in October 2023 Cosgrave resigned in a storm of controversy following his own online comments. As the company’s largest shareholder, Cosgrave has also been embroiled in a zealously– and increasingly public – row his long-time business partners, who allege that he is, among other things, a bully and a workplace belligerent who has left harassment claims and fractured relationships in his wake. Others allege that he has repeatedly used his prominent public platform to silence critics and pursue ego-driven vendettas, often to the detriment of the democratic values he claims to hold dear.

Now, with the future of his business and some of his longest relationships hanging in the balance, Paddy and the Web Summit seem to be edging towards some sort of reckoning – and this book will provide the first definitive account of one of Ireland’s most controversial business stories.