After graduating from law school, Vance worked for Republican senator
John Cornyn. He spent a year as a
law clerk for Judge
David Bunning of the
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, then worked at the law firm
Sidley Austin, beginning a brief career as a
corporate lawyer. Having practiced law for slightly under two years, Vance moved to San Francisco to work in the technology industry as a
venture capitalist. In June 2016,
Harper published Vance's book,
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.
Hillbilly Elegy was on
The New York Times Best Seller list in
2016 and
2017. The
Times listed it among "6 Books to Help Understand Trump's Win", and Vance was profiled in
The Washington Post, which called him "the voice of the
Rust Belt". In
The New Republic, Sarah Jones criticized Vance as "liberal media's favorite
white trash–splainer" and a "false prophet of
blue America", calling the book "little more than a list of myths about
welfare queens".
Hillbilly Elegys success helped propel Vance into contact with social elites, and he began writing a column for
The New York Times. Vance later said that his interactions with social elites from this time, particularly their perceived disdain for "the people he grew up with", helped shape his later views. Vance worked at a biotech company named Circuit Therapeutics from 2015 to 2017. Its chairman,
Frederic Moll, said he hired Vance for his intelligence, legal qualifications, and connection to Thiel. At Mithril, Vance clashed with Mithril's co-founder and managing director
Ajay Royan. He decided to leave in 2017.
Bloomberg reports he deleted all traces of Mithril from his
LinkedIn profile. Vance moved back to Ohio, where he published an op-ed in
The New York Times with the headline "Why I'm moving home", in which he complained about "highly educated transplants" in Silicon Valley. In another interview, he said elite tech crowds wielded "political-financial power in combination with a certain condescension". At Revolution Vance was tasked with expanding the "Rise of the Rest" initiative, which focuses on growing investments in underserved regions outside
Silicon Valley and New York City. Vance was a
CNN contributor from 2017 to 2018. In 2017, Vance sold the
film rights to
Hillbilly Elegy to
Imagine Entertainment. In April 2017,
Ron Howard signed on to direct
the film version, which was released in select theaters on November 11, 2020, and later that month on
Netflix. In 2019, Vance was on the board of advisors of the
With Honor Fund, a
Super PAC that helps veterans run for office. From 2020 to 2023, he was on the board of advisors of American Moment, a networking and training organization for young conservatives that is affiliated with
Project 2025. In 2019, Vance and
Chris Buskirk co-founded the conservative political advocacy group
Rockbridge Network. That year, he also co-founded venture capital firm
Narya Capital in Cincinnati with financial backing from Thiel,
Eric Schmidt, and
Marc Andreessen. In 2020, he raised $93 million for the firm. With Thiel and former Trump adviser Darren Blanton, Vance invested in
Rumble, a Canadian
online video platform popular with the political right.
Our Ohio Renewal '' at
New America's
Securing the American Dream for Young Children event in 2017 In December 2016, Vance said he planned to move to Ohio and would consider starting a nonprofit or running for office. According to a 2020 capture of the website, those four remained in those positions throughout the organization's existence. Our Ohio Renewal closed by 2021 with sparse achievements. According to Jivani, the organization's director of law and policy, its work was derailed by Jivani's
cancer diagnosis. It raised around $221,000 in 2017 (including $80,000 from Vance himself) and spent most of its revenue on
overhead costs and travel. In subsequent years, it raised less than $50,000. During Vance's 2022 U.S. Senate campaign,
Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee, said the charity was a front for Vance's political ambitions. Ryan pointed to reports that the organization paid a Vance political adviser and conducted public opinion polling, while its efforts to address addiction failed. Vance denied the characterization. Our Ohio Renewal's tax filings show that in its first year, it spent more (over $63,000) on "management services" provided by its executive director
Jai Chabria, who became Vance's chief campaign strategist, than it did on programs to fight opioid abuse. According to the
Associated Press (AP) and a 2019
ProPublica investigation, the charity's biggest accomplishment, sending psychiatrist
Sally Satel to Ohio's Appalachian region for a yearlong residency in 2018, was "tainted" by the ties among Satel, her employer,
American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and
Purdue Pharma, in the form of knowledge exchange between Satel and Purdue and financial support from Purdue to AEI. Satel denied having any relationship with Purdue or any knowledge of its donations to AEI. Company founder Jonathan Webb and top executives collectively had little experience with horticulture and indoor agriculture, and the company struggled to meet its produce buyers' standards. Workers complained to authorities about "brutal" working conditions in company greenhouses; after many local workers quit, they were replaced by migrant contract workers, who eventually constituted over half the company's labor force. Vance never held an operational role at the company, and his vice-presidential campaign said he had been unaware of the complaints about working conditions and that the decision to hire migrants was made after he resigned from the board. == U.S. Senate (2023–2025) ==