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Extremely wealthy people are just like any other group of people in that they come in all shapes and sizes. Here, one very wealthy individual used his money to

by grellas 10y ago

Extremely wealthy people are just like any other group of people in that they come in all shapes and sizes. Here, one very wealthy individual used his money to fund someone else's lawsuit. He did so secretly. He did so against an organization that had harmed him and against which he presumably wanted payback but that also had done a gratuitously damaging and sleazy act as part of a pattern of sleazy acts upon which it had built its erstwhile presumably profitable venture, hence presumably deserving payback. So what does this say about Silicon Valley? Well, nothing at all, really. Both before and after this incident, Silicon Valley was, is and remains a place where multiple tech entrepreneurs and those who back them financially have built amazing ventures (and fortunes) that have reshaped all of world commerce even while many others failed. The thing that is new and different is the tech and the ways of using it to disrupt old-style business models. What is not different is the people. As with people everywhere, some are great, others sleazy, still others ravenously greedy, still others amazingly kind and gracious - in short, people who come in all shapes and sizes. I guess they are on average more educated and accomplished than average folks but the personal traits that define them, both good and bad, are pretty much the same as with people everywhere. I don't know Mr. Thiel and don't know any more about him than what the headlines say. He may be fully justified in taking this action (it is a perfectly legal thing to do) or he may be displaying traits deserving our opprobrium. What I am sure of is that his actions here, good or bad, have little or nothing to do with what other prominent tech entrepreneurs do or how they think or how they run their companies. So the logic of this piece - Mr. Thiel did x as a private act in his life, therefore all Silicon Valley tech billionaires stand indicted, therefore the public will now see them as no different than robber barons - seems to rest on multiple non sequiturs that really need to be more carefully thought through. I guess we are conditioned to accept this sort of sloppy reasoning when it comes to discussing the very rich but this seems like a way-over-the-top overreaction to an individual episode that is what it is but that reflects very little on the broader environment surrounding it (or, if it does, not in ways that can be generalized in the crazy ways the author does here).

internaut 10y ago
He is not using sloppy reasoning, he is only saying what members of the media have been thinking for a long time now. The media see us as competition. More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11824117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11824117
davesque 10y ago
Actually, the main point of the article was not really that Thiel had done something wrong. The point was that, given the average person's (not tech nerds, mind you) understanding of silicon valley's utopian dreams, the revelation of Thiel's secrecy is not going to look good. It's a matter of public opinion, whether or not that's fair. I agree, actually. I think big tech would be wise to put its money where its mouth is or face a public revolt.
- internaut 10y ago
  > The point was that, given the average person's (not tech nerds, mind you) understanding of silicon valley's utopian dreams, the revelation of Thiel's secrecy is not going to look good. Believe me, the average person doesn't know jack shit about our utopian ideals. The idea they have even heard of them in passing is probably a Silicon Valley conceit. Do a vox pop on the streets of a city that is not San Francisco. Draw up any list of shared/common ideals we have. Unless you lead the interviewee by generalizing wildly my guess is that you'll get no response at all. This isn't to dismiss the public. It's just that the only place you'd have heard of our ideas is places like HN or otherwise being directly involved in geek culture.
  - davesque 10y ago
    You'd better hope this is true/continues to be true. If there's anything the latest election season has shown us, it's that a lot of people resent big, secret money.
    - nostrademons 10y ago
      Like Trump's fortune? I think a better lesson would be that a lot of people are angry, and all too happy to follow anyone who gives them a target for that anger. Both this case and the press cycle following it are examples of that.
      - davesque 10y ago
        I don't think Trump supporters give a crap about that. They're too dumb to care. I was mostly referring to the Bernie camp of which I am not necessarily a member.
CPLX 10y ago
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it's hopelessly naive. It takes time for people who have been suddenly vaulted into the position of being the ruling class to realize that they are regarded as such. Silicon Valley as a culture still sees itself as a scrappy underdog. They see startups as small underfunded rebels trying to disrupt rich and powerful corporate interests. They see themselves as unstylish and unpopular "geeks" outside the social power of the attractive and successful. Silicon Valley doesn't perceive itself as a center of wealth, power, and social control. But the rest of the world has no trouble whatsoever figuring it out, and they are scared of this power. As they should be. Concentrations of wealth and power without accountability are dangerous. The meta-discussion around Peter Thiel and Gawker is fundamentally about power and who wields it in society. When you see someone on your playground who is clearly far stronger than a normal person walk over and punch someone in the face with no accountability and no real ability to seek redress you don't actually care much what the person did to deserve it. You suddenly start getting very nervous about who he's going to punch in the face next, as you're keenly aware that it's not you who gets to decide. This backlash is going to get louder not softer. The "Who me? What are you talking about we're all just private ordinary citizens pay us no mind" type arguments like this one I am replying to are not going to help. Stanford has the number one business school in the country. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are the top three most valuable companies in the world. Peter Thiel has almost three billion dollars. To an outsider watching this movie, the tech sector isn't Hoth, it's the Death Star. Extremely wealthy people are not at all like any other group of people. They are far, far, more powerful.
- leereeves 10y ago
  Peter Thiel funding a lawsuit is far from the center of power and social control. In this, he's merely a petitioner, hoping the true center of power and social control (the courts and lawmakers) will act in his favor.
  - zem 10y ago
    except that having effectively unlimited amounts of money to keep throwing at a lawsuit is a depressingly good predictor of success.
alexandercrohde 10y ago
I largely agree with your overall point (that you can't overgeneralize), but I don't think this says "nothing." The fact of the matter is that billionaires wield a lot of power, and a lot of people trust billionaires to consistently behave more rationally and more cautiously than an average person. Personally I think it's scary that any of these giants will weaponize the legal system and use their disproportionate power in an act of bitterness. And it raises the question how often this type of thing happens but doesn't get reported, moreso because these individuals are uniquely positioned to influence what gets published.
- soperj 10y ago
  Pretty sure Hulk Hogan won the suit no? If it was a series of illegitimate lawsuits to try to bankrupt a legitimate news organization then I think there would be a case.
android521 10y ago
I agree. It is sad that now when people think of tech billionaires , they think of people like Peter thiel, a bad apple who even supports Trump. Valley has a lot of successfully people like Bill gates who have huge positive impacts on the world. Peter Thiel is such a notorious figure. It is disappointing that he is now representing other impactful tech billionaires.
bambax 10y ago
> the logic of this piece - Mr. Thiel did x as a private act in his life, therefore all Silicon Valley tech billionaires stand indicted It's a little disingenuous to characterize the logic of this piece thusly. Mr Thiel is not just some guy, he's the main guru of the Silicon Valley crowd, a major "idea machine" who's constantly quoted, etc. What the author is saying is more akin to this: we were used to seeing tech billionaires as "different" (more pure, better), and this episode shows they in fact aren't. The argument is defensible, esp. with all the talk about disruption and "changing the world". Some things are new, some certainly do change, but "the world" does not seem very different.
- ben_jones 10y ago
  It was ironically Chris Sacca (Of Twitter and Uber fame) who said in a Bill Simmons podcast in regards to Trump something akin to: "The American people trust Billionaires implicitly because they are successful and therefore worthy of admiration". Again not a direct quote and it wasn't said of the context of "I believe this is true" but just an observation he had made. I'll take it a step further and say Americans think wealthy and successful people are implicitly better then everybody else even if they received their wealth and success from their parents.
abandonliberty 10y ago
It seems like we're entirely way off base here thanks to a piece that seems like a well written piece of propaganda by a media consultant. The NYT version has many more facts and significantly less unsubstantiated extrapolation. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-thiel-tech-billionaire-reveals-secret-war-with-gawker.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-th... One better topic is: In our society you need a wealthy patron to help protect you if someone posts defamation or something illegally obtained from you. If someone stole and posted my sextape, I would need 10 million dollars. What happens to society when laws can only be enforced by the wealthy?
- ada1981 10y ago
  >> What happens to society when laws can only be enforced by the wealthy? << Well, look around - we are in that society. Years ago I was assaulted by former pro football player Ron Dayne in a bar in Madison, WI. He was pissed at the bouncer for making him wait in line like everyone else and took his anger out on me who happened to be in the front of the line by jabbing my eye three times, tearing my eyeball and covering me in blood. There were about a dozen witnesses, including the bouncer, and when the police came and arrested him there was no real question about what happened. It cost me a bunch in hospital bills and I had to wear an eye patch for a while. After months of not hearing what was going on, I finally got the DA on the phone who told me that it would be hard for him to prove "intent" in prosecuting him... Seemed sketchy, if I shoot you with a gun, but don't "intend" to harm you is that ok? How about 3 rapid judo eye jabs tearing my eye? Or maybe it was that no one wanted to prosecute the hometown football star. I tried unsuccessfully to find a law firm to represent me in a civil case and what I learned was that Mr. Dayne had every major law firm in town on retainer so that it was a conflict of interest for them to take the case. I probably could have continued my search, but I was exhausted with what felt like an uphill battle in a big sports / football town.
  - Teeboo 10y ago
    That's actually a really depressing story. Genuinely made me sad to be honest.
babesh 10y ago
You are just as presumptuous as the author. Perhaps there are traits more peculiar amongst these people that you presume is not the case. Perhaps the position itself allows these traits fuller expression. We don't know.
rhizome 10y ago
He may be fully justified in taking this action (it is a perfectly legal thing to do) or he may be displaying traits deserving our opprobrium. Why the "or?" He can be both.
wyclif 10y ago
Extremely wealthy people are also just like any other group of people in that they act in their own self-interest.
rpgmaker 10y ago
> I don't know Mr. Thiel and don't know any more about him than what the headlines say. He may be fully justified in taking this action (it is a perfectly legal thing to do) or he may be displaying traits deserving our opprobrium. Had I not known who Thiel is (or read the subject of this submission), is sentences like this that would give away that the article is about an influential Silicon Valley player. The lawsuit has been throughly reported but if you don't want to comment on it for professional reasons that's fine. No one is questioning the legality of the lawsuit.

by grellas 10y ago

internaut 10y ago

He is not using sloppy reasoning, he is only saying what members of the media have been thinking for a long time now. The media see us as competition. More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11824117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11824117

davesque 10y ago

Actually, the main point of the article was not really that Thiel had done something wrong. The point was that, given the average person's (not tech nerds, mind you) understanding of silicon valley's utopian dreams, the revelation of Thiel's secrecy is not going to look good. It's a matter of public opinion, whether or not that's fair. I agree, actually. I think big tech would be wise to put its money where its mouth is or face a public revolt.

internaut 10y ago
> The point was that, given the average person's (not tech nerds, mind you) understanding of silicon valley's utopian dreams, the revelation of Thiel's secrecy is not going to look good. Believe me, the average person doesn't know jack shit about our utopian ideals. The idea they have even heard of them in passing is probably a Silicon Valley conceit. Do a vox pop on the streets of a city that is not San Francisco. Draw up any list of shared/common ideals we have. Unless you lead the interviewee by generalizing wildly my guess is that you'll get no response at all. This isn't to dismiss the public. It's just that the only place you'd have heard of our ideas is places like HN or otherwise being directly involved in geek culture.
- davesque 10y ago
  You'd better hope this is true/continues to be true. If there's anything the latest election season has shown us, it's that a lot of people resent big, secret money.
  - nostrademons 10y ago
    Like Trump's fortune? I think a better lesson would be that a lot of people are angry, and all too happy to follow anyone who gives them a target for that anger. Both this case and the press cycle following it are examples of that.
    - davesque 10y ago
      I don't think Trump supporters give a crap about that. They're too dumb to care. I was mostly referring to the Bernie camp of which I am not necessarily a member.

CPLX 10y ago

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it's hopelessly naive. It takes time for people who have been suddenly vaulted into the position of being the ruling class to realize that they are regarded as such. Silicon Valley as a culture still sees itself as a scrappy underdog. They see startups as small underfunded rebels trying to disrupt rich and powerful corporate interests. They see themselves as unstylish and unpopular "geeks" outside the social power of the attractive and successful. Silicon Valley doesn't perceive itself as a center of wealth, power, and social control. But the rest of the world has no trouble whatsoever figuring it out, and they are scared of this power. As they should be. Concentrations of wealth and power without accountability are dangerous. The meta-discussion around Peter Thiel and Gawker is fundamentally about power and who wields it in society. When you see someone on your playground who is clearly far stronger than a normal person walk over and punch someone in the face with no accountability and no real ability to seek redress you don't actually care much what the person did to deserve it. You suddenly start getting very nervous about who he's going to punch in the face next, as you're keenly aware that it's not you who gets to decide. This backlash is going to get louder not softer. The "Who me? What are you talking about we're all just private ordinary citizens pay us no mind" type arguments like this one I am replying to are not going to help. Stanford has the number one business school in the country. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are the top three most valuable companies in the world. Peter Thiel has almost three billion dollars. To an outsider watching this movie, the tech sector isn't Hoth, it's the Death Star. Extremely wealthy people are not at all like any other group of people. They are far, far, more powerful.

leereeves 10y ago
Peter Thiel funding a lawsuit is far from the center of power and social control. In this, he's merely a petitioner, hoping the true center of power and social control (the courts and lawmakers) will act in his favor.
- zem 10y ago
  except that having effectively unlimited amounts of money to keep throwing at a lawsuit is a depressingly good predictor of success.

alexandercrohde 10y ago

I largely agree with your overall point (that you can't overgeneralize), but I don't think this says "nothing." The fact of the matter is that billionaires wield a lot of power, and a lot of people trust billionaires to consistently behave more rationally and more cautiously than an average person. Personally I think it's scary that any of these giants will weaponize the legal system and use their disproportionate power in an act of bitterness. And it raises the question how often this type of thing happens but doesn't get reported, moreso because these individuals are uniquely positioned to influence what gets published.

soperj 10y ago
Pretty sure Hulk Hogan won the suit no? If it was a series of illegitimate lawsuits to try to bankrupt a legitimate news organization then I think there would be a case.

android521 10y ago

I agree. It is sad that now when people think of tech billionaires , they think of people like Peter thiel, a bad apple who even supports Trump. Valley has a lot of successfully people like Bill gates who have huge positive impacts on the world. Peter Thiel is such a notorious figure. It is disappointing that he is now representing other impactful tech billionaires.

bambax 10y ago

> the logic of this piece - Mr. Thiel did x as a private act in his life, therefore all Silicon Valley tech billionaires stand indicted It's a little disingenuous to characterize the logic of this piece thusly. Mr Thiel is not just some guy, he's the main guru of the Silicon Valley crowd, a major "idea machine" who's constantly quoted, etc. What the author is saying is more akin to this: we were used to seeing tech billionaires as "different" (more pure, better), and this episode shows they in fact aren't. The argument is defensible, esp. with all the talk about disruption and "changing the world". Some things are new, some certainly do change, but "the world" does not seem very different.

ben_jones 10y ago
It was ironically Chris Sacca (Of Twitter and Uber fame) who said in a Bill Simmons podcast in regards to Trump something akin to: "The American people trust Billionaires implicitly because they are successful and therefore worthy of admiration". Again not a direct quote and it wasn't said of the context of "I believe this is true" but just an observation he had made. I'll take it a step further and say Americans think wealthy and successful people are implicitly better then everybody else even if they received their wealth and success from their parents.

abandonliberty 10y ago

It seems like we're entirely way off base here thanks to a piece that seems like a well written piece of propaganda by a media consultant. The NYT version has many more facts and significantly less unsubstantiated extrapolation. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-thiel-tech-billionaire-reveals-secret-war-with-gawker.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-th... One better topic is: In our society you need a wealthy patron to help protect you if someone posts defamation or something illegally obtained from you. If someone stole and posted my sextape, I would need 10 million dollars. What happens to society when laws can only be enforced by the wealthy?

ada1981 10y ago
>> What happens to society when laws can only be enforced by the wealthy? << Well, look around - we are in that society. Years ago I was assaulted by former pro football player Ron Dayne in a bar in Madison, WI. He was pissed at the bouncer for making him wait in line like everyone else and took his anger out on me who happened to be in the front of the line by jabbing my eye three times, tearing my eyeball and covering me in blood. There were about a dozen witnesses, including the bouncer, and when the police came and arrested him there was no real question about what happened. It cost me a bunch in hospital bills and I had to wear an eye patch for a while. After months of not hearing what was going on, I finally got the DA on the phone who told me that it would be hard for him to prove "intent" in prosecuting him... Seemed sketchy, if I shoot you with a gun, but don't "intend" to harm you is that ok? How about 3 rapid judo eye jabs tearing my eye? Or maybe it was that no one wanted to prosecute the hometown football star. I tried unsuccessfully to find a law firm to represent me in a civil case and what I learned was that Mr. Dayne had every major law firm in town on retainer so that it was a conflict of interest for them to take the case. I probably could have continued my search, but I was exhausted with what felt like an uphill battle in a big sports / football town.
- Teeboo 10y ago
  That's actually a really depressing story. Genuinely made me sad to be honest.

babesh 10y ago

You are just as presumptuous as the author. Perhaps there are traits more peculiar amongst these people that you presume is not the case. Perhaps the position itself allows these traits fuller expression. We don't know.

rhizome 10y ago

He may be fully justified in taking this action (it is a perfectly legal thing to do) or he may be displaying traits deserving our opprobrium. Why the "or?" He can be both.

wyclif 10y ago

Extremely wealthy people are also just like any other group of people in that they act in their own self-interest.

rpgmaker 10y ago

> I don't know Mr. Thiel and don't know any more about him than what the headlines say. He may be fully justified in taking this action (it is a perfectly legal thing to do) or he may be displaying traits deserving our opprobrium. Had I not known who Thiel is (or read the subject of this submission), is sentences like this that would give away that the article is about an influential Silicon Valley player. The lawsuit has been throughly reported but if you don't want to comment on it for professional reasons that's fine. No one is questioning the legality of the lawsuit.