The tech guys are fighting. Literally.
Written by David Yaffe-Bellany
Walking into the crowded hotel conference room, Andrew Batey looked like any other tech guy attending ETHDenver, an annual cryptocurrency conference. A venture capital investor based in Florida, Batey wore a black sweatshirt emblazoned with the logos of more than a dozen crypto companies, with names like LunarCrush and bitSmiley.
Batey, however, was at the conference not to network with fellow crypto enthusiasts but to fight one of them — live on YouTube. At the hotel, a short drive from the conference convention center, he was preparing for his official weigh-in, the final step before a fight the next evening in an arena packed with crypto colleagues. Under the watchful eye of a representative from the Colorado Combative Sports Commission, Batey, 40, stripped down to his boxers.
He weighed in at just under 195 pounds, on target for the fight. The bare-chested venture capitalist raised his biceps and flexed for the cameras.
The nation's tech elite, not content with unfathomable wealth and rising political influence in Washington, have recently developed a new obsession — fighting. Across the United States, men like Batey are learning to punch, kick, knee, elbow and, in some cases, hammer an opponent over the head with their fists. The figurehead of the movement is Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire CEO of Meta, who has charted his impressive physical transformation from skinny computer nerd to martial arts fighter on Instagram, one of the apps he owns.
The tech industry's newfound devotion to martial arts is one facet of a broader cultural shift that has upended U.S. politics. Many of these tech founders-turned-fighters are chasing a testosterone-heavy ideal of masculinity that is ascendant on social media and embraced by President Donald Trump. An enthusiastic practitioner of Brazilian jujitsu, Zuckerberg, 40, lamented this year that corporate culture was getting 'neutered' and was devoid of 'masculine energy.' In 2023, Zuckerberg's fellow billionaire Elon Musk, a longtime corporate rival, challenged him to a televised cage match. (The fight never took place.)
Most of the tech world's aspiring fighters have a crucial thing in common: Before they started pursuing their extravagant new hobby, they made a lot of money.
In 2018, Batey founded Beatdapp, a company that develops software to eliminate fraud in music streaming. He also runs a venture capital firm, Side Door Ventures, that invests in crypto startups.
Two years ago, Batey's venture fund invested $500,000 in Karate Combat, a would-be competitor to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The league operates as a hybrid between an athletic competition and a tech startup. Rather than offering traditional shares, Karate Combat gave Batey's firm Karate tokens — a cryptocurrency that fans can wager on Karate Combat fights, which stream on YouTube as well as TV channels like ESPN Deportes.
Karate Combat's primary business is professional fighting — mixed martial arts contests featuring seasoned athletes, some of whom also fight in UFC. (A representative for Karate Combat declined to reveal how much money the league generates.) Last year, the company created a new competition for amateurs and started offering it as the undercard at pro events, which are sometimes held at crypto conferences. The competition was called Influencer Fight Club, and its premise was simple: Put a couple of tech guys in the ring and see what happens.
Karate Combat's fights have an extensive following on Crypto Twitter, and Influencer Fight Club has helped attract more of those super-online fans. Over the past 18 months, the competition has featured some big names in the crypto world, including Nic Carter, a venture investor. At a crypto conference in Nashville, Tennessee, last summer, Carter knocked out a tattooed crypto marketer in one round. On social media, he was hailed as 'kingly' and adopted the nickname 'Tungsten Daddy.'
'This is an amazing clout-forming exercise,' Carter said in a recent interview. 'Not to be cynical about it.'
Batey attended an Influencer Fight Club event in Austin, Texas, last year and decided he wanted to fight, too. Once an amateur athlete who dabbled in boxing, he had gained a lot of weight as his career took off. He was about to turn 40 and needed to get into shape for health reasons. But he also wanted to have the sort of athletic experience usually reserved for serious fighters, who sometimes train their entire lives for the chance to compete on TV.
'This is my 40th birthday party — me fighting,' Batey explained. 'Maybe it's a midlife crisis.'
For four months, Batey put his career on hold and spent $75,000 on a trainer, a nutritionist and a rotating cast of professional sparring partners. After the fight was scheduled for ETHDenver, a conference devoted to the cryptocurrency Ethereum, he booked a block of nearly 30 hotel rooms to accommodate his friends and supporters.
At first Batey had trouble finding a suitable opponent.
Then a solution emerged: Chauncey St. John, a crypto entrepreneur based in upstate New York.
St. John does not seem much like a fighter. 'I've got this Mister Rogers vibe to me,' he said recently. But he had endured his share of hardship in the crypto world. In 2021, he founded Angel Protocol, a startup that aimed to help charities raise money using crypto. Unfortunately, he steered his clients toward an investment platform tied to Luna, a digital currency whose price crashed overnight in 2022, erasing much of what the charities had raised.
After the Luna crash, St. John, 38, retreated from public view. He reimbursed the charities with money his firm had saved up and embraced Christianity, searching for meaning in the worst moment of his career. One day in January, St. John glanced at a group chat that included other crypto enthusiasts. His eyes fell on a message from an industry colleague who goes by the nickname 'The Degen Boii': Karate Combat needed a fighter for ETHDenver.
The invitation 'felt like testimony from God,' St. John said.
A few hours after the weigh-in, Batey drove to the Stockyards Event Center, a venue on the outskirts of Denver where Karate Combat had erected four sets of stands, overlooking a pit lined with mats. An entourage came along: two trainers, a couple of fighters from Batey's gym and a filmmaker shooting footage for a documentary.
With 24 hours to go until the fight, it was time for the ceremonial face-off, an opportunity for trash talk.
Batey drew close to St. John, almost nose to nose. 'Are you gonna kiss me?' St. John asked.
'We'll find out,' Batey replied.
When the theatrics concluded, St. John walked down to the pit. Unlike Batey, he had not had much time to prepare; his entourage consisted of a single person, a trainer with no pro fighting experience.
Chiheb Soumer, a former professional kick boxer, was watching him closely. A native of Hamburg, Germany, Soumer, 36, had once worked as an in-house trainer for Snap in Los Angeles, teaching tech employees how to box. He traveled to Denver as Batey's trainer.
'I love to see these nerds all of a sudden try to man up,' he said.
On fight night at the Stockyards, the enemy combatants warmed up a few feet from each other as the arena slowly filled with spectators — men in crypto T-shirts and backward baseball caps, swigging beer and taking photos. At 6 p.m., a roar spread through the building, as St. John and Batey slid into the pit.
What followed more closely resembled a schoolyard scrap than a professional martial-arts bout. The choreographed moves that Batey had rehearsed were nowhere to be seen. Over and over, he threw punches and missed, lunging forward and then lurching back. St. John swung his arms wildly, whirling in a circle, like a helicopter. Next to the pit, a panel of announcers offered live analysis for the YouTube audience. 'What they lack in technical, they make up for in the heart,' one commentator said. His partner offered a blunter assessment: 'It's hilarious.'
By the end of the first round, Batey's nose was bleeding heavily. But soon he forced St. John to the ground and straddled him, raining punches down onto his head. Within 10 seconds, the referee intervened: St. John couldn't continue. It was over.
Batey held his arms aloft and started to dance, thrusting his pelvis toward the crowd. 'I just want to thank my wife,' he told the cheering crowd. 'Thank you for supporting me, making my meals, putting the kids to bed.'
Backstage, St. John was smiling. 'I didn't embarrass myself,' he said. All the effort had been worth it. He would happily do it over again.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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