Cigarette smoking is spreading among tech founders and investors who treat the smoke break as a way to meet people and close deals, in an industry that had moved on to vapes and nicotine pouches, according to Henry Chandonnet at Business Insider. Revamp AI cofounder Stephen Campbell says a night of barbecue, Baijiu, and chain-smoking in Shenzhen made a stiff meeting with a Chinese tech giant personal, and he’s hired staff he met over cigarettes. Zeno Ventures partner Jake Jolis isn’t looking for smokers but reads the habit as a sign a founder’s guard is down, and says two he’s backed have done extremely well. US adult smoking has fallen to 11.6% from over 40% in 1966, but rates in Europe and Asia run near double that, and Silicon Valley’s immigrant workforce brings the habit with it.
