Mayoral candidate Mark Farrell just filed his paperwork to run for mayor on the November ballot, and curiously asks to be called “Small Business Owner” even though his venture capital firm has $100 million to throw around.

Even though former SF supervisor and one-time interim mayor Mark Farrell announced he was running for mayor back in mid-February, it is only now, four months later, that he is filing his nomination paperwork at City Hall. This is normal, plenty of mayoral and supervisor candidates posted a similar tweet to the one below showing that they just filed this paperwork with the Department of Elections in the last couple weeks.


What is not normal is how Farrell wishes to be described on the ballot. It is well-known that Farrell is a venture capitalist, as the managing director of Thayer Ventures. But Mark Farrell does not want to be described on your ballot as the managing director of a venture capital firm. As Mission Local reports, Farrell requested on his paperwork that the ballot show him as “Small business owner.”

Uhh, how small is this “small business,” Thayer Ventures? According to their own press releases, “Thayer Ventures manages four active investment vehicles with over $100 million in capital.”  

Mission Local also notes that there’s a field on the form asking for a justification of the designation. Farrell simply left that field blank.

We don’t begrudge someone their success, and obviously, Farrell is not the only very wealthy person running in this year’s mayor’s race. (Though rival candidate and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie probably uses $100 million bills to wipe dog poop off his shoes.) But we’ve seen a fair amount of candidates fudging their credentials in this year’s elections. And there is an effort, particularly among the venture capital set, to portray themselves as being from humble roots where they are absolutely not from humble roots.

So when Mark Farrell claims on the ballot that he's just a "Small business owner," he may just be trying to give voters the business.

Related: Someone Who Hates Mark Farrell Bought the ‘Mark Farrell for Mayor’ Website Just to Trash Him [SFist]

Image: @MarkFarrellSF via Twitter