A Venture Capital View of Occupy Wall Street

Fred Wilson is part of the 1 percent.

The managing partner of Union Square Ventures admits that freely in a blog post for CNN Money he wrote today on a recent trip to visit the Wall Street protests at Zuccotti Park. (It's the first venture capitalist perspective on the Wall Street protests that I've seen distributed widely.)

Wilson says he has empathy for the Wall Street protests. But he admits to "struggling to relate to it."

In part, that seems to be because Wilson is an optimist. He believes that a technology revolution is in full force, one that will help rectify some of the problems the protesters have with the financial system. (He points out that the protests have been successful across the world because of participants' use of technology to spread their message.)

From Wilson:

"So much depends on what we get out of this growing desire for change. It's good that people are getting angry. Whether it be the Tea Party on the right or the #OWS on the left, the citizens of the U.S. are clamoring for change.

I'd like to do what I can do to help make sure that change is intelligent, progressive change taking us forward to a new prosperity, not backward into a false hope for a time that has passed and is not coming back. And I'm wondering if the #OWS movement is interested in that conversation."

A flurry of comments followed, some supportive of Wilson:

"Yes, the 99% would love to have a discussion with you about how we can move forward to bright new prosperity. Please include yourself in the 99% and make sure your view points continue to be well articulated and thoughtful."

Others not so much:

"Perfect example of why the U.S. is doomed to fail, and well ahead of the historical schedule. The successful are too often cowed into showing empathy with the lazy, retarded, and stupid people at the low end of the economic scale."

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Kirsten Grind covers venture capital, private equity and money matters for Portfolio.com.