It’s lunchtime at the Web Summit Forum on Tuesday and, as I finish chatting to a seasoned Silicon Valley startup investor, Chelsea Manning brushes by me at the coffee bar. I move off to ask her a question, but am stopped by a familiar-sounding voice on my blind side – Conor Lenihan.
The Aer Lingus flight to Lisbon on Sunday was full, but, for the first time in my time flying to the event, had no-one I recognised from the Irish tech industry.
Two years ago, in a Web Summit press conference in Lisbon, I asked Paddy Cosgrave whether he ever worried that his relentless criticism of the IDA, among other institutions, could cost him or his company business.