An Evening with Vivek Ramaswamy and Hillsdale’s Student Entrepreneurs
Written by Lauren Smyth
It’s a snowy Tuesday evening on Hillsdale’s campus. Students are heading to the Searle Center formal dining room, retrieving their blue satin nametags and filling their plates with hors d’oeuvres. Seventeen of these students are Kehoe Fellows, members of the College’s first two cohorts of student entrepreneurs. Others are business students fulfilling class requirements, economics students hoping to meet their future employer, and students who haven’t declared their major but are hoping to discover what they love. All of them have one thing in common: They’re here to learn.
Joining the students are hundreds of Hillsdale College’s generous donors, who have traveled across the country to participate in the College’s thriving intellectual culture. For some of them, “across the country” kept its literal meaning—one pair of cousins traveled all the way from Utah just to attend this event, as they’ve done routinely for the past three years.
This is an Executive Speaker Series dinner, hosted by the Kehoe Family Initiative for Entrepreneurial Excellence. These events are designed to “provide students with an opportunity to hear from established entrepreneurs and learn more about what life as an entrepreneur is like.” Past guests have included Roger Griggs, the pharmaceutical executive who first marketed Adderall for ADHD; Bill Bouse, a Ford executive; Karl LaPeer, a capital investor, and many more. Tonight’s speaker is Vivek Ramaswamy, a serial entrepreneur, best-selling author, and founder of Roivant Sciences and Strive Asset Management.
“I’ll tell you a funny story about my father,” he jokes, “who lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, when he first came to this country. I asked him, ‘Why’d you come halfway around the world to Cincinnati, Ohio, of all places?’ and he said it was because his sister had moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana. The family joke is that it’s because Indiana is the only U.S. state with the word ‘India’ in the name.” His quip is met with laughter.
Ramaswamy’s talk quickly turns serious, however, as he begins to speak on one of the topics he’s best known for. “Woke capitalism,” a term originally coined by Ross Douthat, is the subject of Ramaswamy’s book Woke, Inc. and tonight’s talk. It’s defined as a cooperation between big business and progressivism to further social agendas, and, according to Ramaswamy, it’s a silent killer of the modern economy. In his words, woke capitalism has “undermined America’s greatest geopolitical asset”—that is, its moral standing before the world.
“We’re hungry for identity at a moment in our national history when the things that used to give us that sense of purpose—patriotism, our work, family—those things have disappeared. What does it mean to be an American today?” Ramaswamy asks. “Our lack of an answer to that question is the black hole at the center of our nation’s soul.”
He spends the next half hour exploring a few possible remedies. “My first view is that not all solutions will be delivered or ought to be delivered through politics. I think that market actors can play a role.” Ramaswamy suggests that a return to meritocracy in business might be the first step to restoring a right relationship between business and social agendas. That means going a step further than simply choosing a deserving candidate for a job or scrapping lofty but unprofitable attempts to mix business with politics. “One of the areas where I care about meritocracy is … [in] the ideas that prevail in our society and in our government, too,” Ramaswamy said. “And we can only have a meritocracy of ideas in America if we embrace one of the foundational cornerstones of the Great American experiment, and that is free speech.”
After dinner, David Danford, director of Hillsdale’s Business and Industry Program, notes that Ramaswamy’s speech has left a strong impression on the attendees. “He resonates with a lot of people, especially those who have been exposed to the toxic work environments created by diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as environmental, social, and corporate governance practices. Vivek is particularly astute and provides a convincing analysis of the problem before passionately explaining how we should fix it.”
For nine of the 17 Kehoe fellows, this dinner will be their first of many throughout their time in the entrepreneurial program. “The Kehoe Executive Speaker Series Dinner with guest speaker Vivek Ramaswamy was a wonderful event,” says Lindsey Larkin, ’25, who’s starting her business selling date boxes. “Ramaswamy spoke out against the rampant politicization of corporate America and pushed for corporate excellence. This was my first time attending an Executive Speaker Series dinner as a fellow, and it was a pleasure to meet so many donors and faculty members.”
Lauren Smyth, ’25, is a prospective political economy major and French minor. Outside of starting arguments in philosophy class, she enjoys curling up on a bench outdoors (sun, rain, or snow) to write novels or articles for her blog, www.laurensmythbooks.com.
Published in February 2023