By Scott Mendelson

With a guest list made up of high-level venture capitalists and tech executives from the likes of Coatue Management and 500 Startups, the upcoming Web Summit Qatar was positioned as a kind of coming-out party for the nation as a business and entertainment force to be reckoned with. Now, weeks after the terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel, those plans are in jeopardy. Coatue and others abruptly canceled their plans earlier this month even though for now the Web Summit is still set for February of next year.  

For years Qatar, a monarchy that borders Saudi Arabia, has sought to use its vast oil wealth to establish itself as a hub for media, culture and entertainment despite its minuscule size (population 2.7 million). Home to the influential Al-Jazeera network, Qatar is a major investor in Peter Chernin’s The North Road studio, Elon Musk’s Twitter, the majority owner of Miramax and also hosted the 2022 World Cup.