> it got coverage that was nearly universally mocking it and sneering at it, and the second they were able to ignore it and pretend it didnt exist anymore, corporate news moved on.

This is exactly how I remember the coverage, but it’s notable that these people tied their own noose:

Occupy Richmond 10/6/11 Intro to "Progressive Stack" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCwhlZtHhWs

The leadership then largely went along for the ride in the technology and corporate finance sectors by electing to become a pseudo-priesthood under the banner of DEI. A lot of money got siphoned off by these people during the boom in exchange for countersignalling the anti-corporate sentiment prevalent among progressive coalitions at the time. This declined somewhat during the latter half of the 2010s after the tech companies started censoring conservatives (“They’re a private company, they can do whatever they want.”), and then the trend reversed when Biden’s senility became obvious, and the tech companies pivoted to Trump and started (disingenuously) signalling that they were anti-woke. In a lot of ways, Peter Thiel’s entire model of hiring ostensibly right-wing influencers (while himself being a homosexual immigrant) mirrors that of woke capital 10 years prior.