3 ms·

He's making a wise investment decision - if Trump wins he will probably gain a lot in favors. If Trump loses, he will lose a little bit of money and some goodwi

He's making a wise investment decision - if Trump wins he will probably gain a lot in favors. If Trump loses, he will lose a little bit of money and some goodwill of some people. I'm sure he can live with that. Cynical.

nodesocket 10y ago
This analysis in the purest form of just best business strategy is spot on. Little risk... big upside.
morgante 10y ago
But why is he making the donation now? That logic would have made a lot more sense when Trump's odds looked a lot better. You have to multiply the upside by its (low) probability. I also think the reputational cost is more severe than you let on: look at what happened to Brendan Eich, and his "crime" was a lot less than supporting Trump.
- nodesocket 10y ago
  I didn't know about Brendan Eich. That makes me angry. He made a personal decision to donate a small amount to Prop 8, and extreme political activists completely annihilated him and forced him out of his job. "Critics of Eich within Mozilla tweeted to gay activists that he had donated $1,000 to California Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California until 2013, when it was declared unconstitutional and marriages were allowed to resume. Eich stood by his decision to fund the campaign, but wrote on his blog that he was sorry for “causing pain” and pledged to promote equality at Mozilla. Gay activists created an online shaming campaign against Eich, with OkCupid declaring they would block access to the Firefox browser unless he stepped down."
  - morgante 10y ago
    > I didn't know about Brendan Eich. That makes me angry. It makes me angry too, but also raises (for me) some interesting political questions around what level of disagreement is "too far." I would never fire someone for being a Republican and personally/privately opposing gay marriage. But I would also immediately fire someone if they were a Nazi. So where is the line if what's an acceptable level of tolerance (and where does Trump fall on it)?
    - Hondor 10y ago
      Is Nazism really that bad? They want to favor some groups of people over others, even if it means killing some of those others. That's also what patriotism does (see every war ever) and we seem to be fine with it.
      - morgante 10y ago
        > Is Nazism really that bad? Yes. Please take your Holocaust apologia elsewhere. Killing millions of people for no other reason than that you don't like their ethnicity is pretty much the baseline of immorality. Heck, killing millions of people for more legitimate reasons (being Nazis) also would be pretty abhorrent. Also, for the record, "we" are not generally okay with senseless wars. There's a reason that murdering innocent civilians is considered a war crime.
    - metamicah 10y ago
      Maybe it's just practicality: there's not much business sense in having leaders that publicly work against some of the most deeply meaningful interests of a significant portion of their employees.
    - ubernostrum 10y ago
      So consider Proposition 8. This was a ballot measure whose sole purpose was to enshrine in law the idea that "this group of people over here aren't legally equal to everyone else". Privately believing someone has done something wrong, or belongs to a bad group, is one thing. Trying to enshrine that belief in law and disenfranchise the targeted person or group is quite another thing, and if you honestly are unable to see the difference between the two I'm unsure how to assist you.
      - morgante 10y ago
        > Privately believing someone has done something wrong, or belongs to a bad group, is one thing. Did I say they were the same thing? I absolutely think that "let's make gay marriage illegal" is categorically worse than "I don't like gay marriage." As bad a Prop 8 was, the policies Trump advocates are 1,000 times worse, yet I don't see anyone working to boycott or quit his companies.
  - newscracker 10y ago
    I wonder what kind of outrage will be exhibited, if any, in this case and which companies that Peter Thiel has stakes in would be boycotted en masse. My guess is nothing. I'm not in favor of Brendan Eich's personal choice, but I feel the reaction was far too strong in that case. Here we have something more than a thousand times larger that supports many oppressive things.
  - ubernostrum 10y ago
    I was working at Mozilla when this was going on. I likely would've quit if Eich had remained. I've written at length about Proposition 8 and the fact that it was not simply a matter of opinion or personal belief. It was, shorn of all the attempts to make it sound non-controversial, about taking a basic premise of a free society -- equality of all people under the law -- and putting it up for popular vote. Proposition 8 was literally a ballot measure to say "these people shouldn't be equal to everyone else". I am OK with applying social pressure to people who attempt that sort of thing, to make them feel as alienated from the core principles of society as they actually are.
    - sangnoir 10y ago
      > I was working at Mozilla when this was going on. I likely would've quit if Eich had remained I don't know you or what you did at Mozilla: if it were up to me, I would rather had you quit than Eich (no offense). Frankly, Mozilla has lost focus and I think it would have done much better under Eich. Edit: more thoughts on the politics. Eich's opinion was far from controversial- half of Americans held the same belief. I would guess half of Mozilla users in the US also had the same opinion: were those people also disposable? Supporting prop 8 (to me as a lefty) is more benign than supporting Trump; yet I don't see any calls to boycott or quit companies with executives that support Trump. Finally, it was a dangerous precedent for left wing politics to adopt, what if the right wing had adopted it and gotten someone fired for affronting beliefs held as strongly as yours?
      - cygx 10y ago
        Just to clarify, Eich did not get fired - he got pressured into resigning. Note that people in fact have been fired (in some cases, allegedly - I'm too lazy to verify all the stories I just googled) for being gay, supporting Occupy, supporting Obama, or more trivial reasons like bikini photos on facebook or because the employer found their short stories offensive.
      - ubernostrum 10y ago
        As I've said in other comments, I think the line is when you decide to move from "I believe this" to "the law should enforce my beliefs on everyone". There have been plenty of people calling to pressure people who support Trump; pg is one of them, and has been getting lit up on Twitter recently for continuing to work with Thiel. Finally, you seem to think this is something unique to "left wing politics". Which is perhaps true: left-wing movements tend to resort to social pressure, boycotts and similar methods. Right-wing movements tend to attempt to outlaw or in some cases just literally exterminate the people who disagree with them. Which sort of world would you rather live in: the world where people who disagree with you simply refuse to associate with you, or the world where people who disagree with you seek to have your existence made illegal? (and for the record, I no longer work for Mozilla, but that's unrelated)
  - radmuzom 10y ago
    So now you're angry when liberals exercise their right to free speech?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- nostrademons 10y ago
  It's not just multiplying the upside by the probability. The upside depends upon how many people are in the crowd with you. Right now, everybody else is deserting Trump - and so if Thiel doubles-down on his bet, Trump and his loyalists will remember that all the moreso, and so if Trump wins Thiel stands out even more from everyone that deserted Trump but then came crawling back when times looked good. Eich and Trump are in very different roles. Eich was CEO of a non-profit: as a non-profit, they depend crucially on his ability to fundraise, and so pissing off big Mozilla donors makes it impossible to do his job. Thiel is an investor of his own capital: pissing off other people is generally neutral to him, as he doesn't depend on anyone else for anything, and being able to piss people off allows him to take risks that are underpriced because other people are too afraid of pissing others off.
  - morgante 10y ago
    > It's not just multiplying the upside by the probability. The upside depends upon how many people are in the crowd with you. Sure, it's true that his upside is greater thanks to Thiel's unitary status. But I don't think that effect is any greater now: Trump enjoyed 0 SV support a month ago, so the investment would have had just as much impact then as now, but the probability is much lower now. > Eich and Trump are in very different roles. Absolutely, Thiel and Eich have very different roles. But to think public image is unimportant to Thiel is also naive: I could easily see this having a negative impact on his deal flow, either because founders are personally offended or because they'e afraid of tainting their reputation. There's a reason that VCs have PR and at least pay lip service to things like Women in Tech.
rconti 10y ago
I'd absolutely agree if I thought: 1. Thiel needed favors 2. Trump was going to hand out favors 3. It wasn't too late. #3 is really what gets me. We've got 3 weeks. Mail-in ballots are out in a bunch of states already. Peoples' minds are made up. The election is basically over. If you believe in extreme polling error, sure, Trump could win -- but, again, it's so late, will this have made the difference? I almost wonder if he believes Trump will win, and thinks his last-minute donation will merely give the impression of having made the difference, when he was going to win anyway. But again -- why now?
- MaysonL 10y ago
  It's almost certainly too late to elect Trump, but it isn't too late to be a first investor in Trump Media, with Roger Ailes and Stephen Bannon.
- icelancer 10y ago
  The favors you can get from politicians are never in short supply. Buy shares of them whenever you can.

nodesocket 10y ago

This analysis in the purest form of just best business strategy is spot on. Little risk... big upside.

morgante 10y ago

But why is he making the donation now? That logic would have made a lot more sense when Trump's odds looked a lot better. You have to multiply the upside by its (low) probability. I also think the reputational cost is more severe than you let on: look at what happened to Brendan Eich, and his "crime" was a lot less than supporting Trump.

nodesocket 10y ago
I didn't know about Brendan Eich. That makes me angry. He made a personal decision to donate a small amount to Prop 8, and extreme political activists completely annihilated him and forced him out of his job. "Critics of Eich within Mozilla tweeted to gay activists that he had donated $1,000 to California Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California until 2013, when it was declared unconstitutional and marriages were allowed to resume. Eich stood by his decision to fund the campaign, but wrote on his blog that he was sorry for “causing pain” and pledged to promote equality at Mozilla. Gay activists created an online shaming campaign against Eich, with OkCupid declaring they would block access to the Firefox browser unless he stepped down."
- morgante 10y ago
  > I didn't know about Brendan Eich. That makes me angry. It makes me angry too, but also raises (for me) some interesting political questions around what level of disagreement is "too far." I would never fire someone for being a Republican and personally/privately opposing gay marriage. But I would also immediately fire someone if they were a Nazi. So where is the line if what's an acceptable level of tolerance (and where does Trump fall on it)?
  - Hondor 10y ago
    Is Nazism really that bad? They want to favor some groups of people over others, even if it means killing some of those others. That's also what patriotism does (see every war ever) and we seem to be fine with it.
    - morgante 10y ago
      > Is Nazism really that bad? Yes. Please take your Holocaust apologia elsewhere. Killing millions of people for no other reason than that you don't like their ethnicity is pretty much the baseline of immorality. Heck, killing millions of people for more legitimate reasons (being Nazis) also would be pretty abhorrent. Also, for the record, "we" are not generally okay with senseless wars. There's a reason that murdering innocent civilians is considered a war crime.
  - metamicah 10y ago
    Maybe it's just practicality: there's not much business sense in having leaders that publicly work against some of the most deeply meaningful interests of a significant portion of their employees.
  - ubernostrum 10y ago
    So consider Proposition 8. This was a ballot measure whose sole purpose was to enshrine in law the idea that "this group of people over here aren't legally equal to everyone else". Privately believing someone has done something wrong, or belongs to a bad group, is one thing. Trying to enshrine that belief in law and disenfranchise the targeted person or group is quite another thing, and if you honestly are unable to see the difference between the two I'm unsure how to assist you.
    - morgante 10y ago
      > Privately believing someone has done something wrong, or belongs to a bad group, is one thing. Did I say they were the same thing? I absolutely think that "let's make gay marriage illegal" is categorically worse than "I don't like gay marriage." As bad a Prop 8 was, the policies Trump advocates are 1,000 times worse, yet I don't see anyone working to boycott or quit his companies.
- newscracker 10y ago
  I wonder what kind of outrage will be exhibited, if any, in this case and which companies that Peter Thiel has stakes in would be boycotted en masse. My guess is nothing. I'm not in favor of Brendan Eich's personal choice, but I feel the reaction was far too strong in that case. Here we have something more than a thousand times larger that supports many oppressive things.
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  I was working at Mozilla when this was going on. I likely would've quit if Eich had remained. I've written at length about Proposition 8 and the fact that it was not simply a matter of opinion or personal belief. It was, shorn of all the attempts to make it sound non-controversial, about taking a basic premise of a free society -- equality of all people under the law -- and putting it up for popular vote. Proposition 8 was literally a ballot measure to say "these people shouldn't be equal to everyone else". I am OK with applying social pressure to people who attempt that sort of thing, to make them feel as alienated from the core principles of society as they actually are.
  - sangnoir 10y ago
    > I was working at Mozilla when this was going on. I likely would've quit if Eich had remained I don't know you or what you did at Mozilla: if it were up to me, I would rather had you quit than Eich (no offense). Frankly, Mozilla has lost focus and I think it would have done much better under Eich. Edit: more thoughts on the politics. Eich's opinion was far from controversial- half of Americans held the same belief. I would guess half of Mozilla users in the US also had the same opinion: were those people also disposable? Supporting prop 8 (to me as a lefty) is more benign than supporting Trump; yet I don't see any calls to boycott or quit companies with executives that support Trump. Finally, it was a dangerous precedent for left wing politics to adopt, what if the right wing had adopted it and gotten someone fired for affronting beliefs held as strongly as yours?
    - cygx 10y ago
      Just to clarify, Eich did not get fired - he got pressured into resigning. Note that people in fact have been fired (in some cases, allegedly - I'm too lazy to verify all the stories I just googled) for being gay, supporting Occupy, supporting Obama, or more trivial reasons like bikini photos on facebook or because the employer found their short stories offensive.
    - ubernostrum 10y ago
      As I've said in other comments, I think the line is when you decide to move from "I believe this" to "the law should enforce my beliefs on everyone". There have been plenty of people calling to pressure people who support Trump; pg is one of them, and has been getting lit up on Twitter recently for continuing to work with Thiel. Finally, you seem to think this is something unique to "left wing politics". Which is perhaps true: left-wing movements tend to resort to social pressure, boycotts and similar methods. Right-wing movements tend to attempt to outlaw or in some cases just literally exterminate the people who disagree with them. Which sort of world would you rather live in: the world where people who disagree with you simply refuse to associate with you, or the world where people who disagree with you seek to have your existence made illegal? (and for the record, I no longer work for Mozilla, but that's unrelated)
- radmuzom 10y ago
  So now you're angry when liberals exercise their right to free speech?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
nostrademons 10y ago
It's not just multiplying the upside by the probability. The upside depends upon how many people are in the crowd with you. Right now, everybody else is deserting Trump - and so if Thiel doubles-down on his bet, Trump and his loyalists will remember that all the moreso, and so if Trump wins Thiel stands out even more from everyone that deserted Trump but then came crawling back when times looked good. Eich and Trump are in very different roles. Eich was CEO of a non-profit: as a non-profit, they depend crucially on his ability to fundraise, and so pissing off big Mozilla donors makes it impossible to do his job. Thiel is an investor of his own capital: pissing off other people is generally neutral to him, as he doesn't depend on anyone else for anything, and being able to piss people off allows him to take risks that are underpriced because other people are too afraid of pissing others off.
- morgante 10y ago
  > It's not just multiplying the upside by the probability. The upside depends upon how many people are in the crowd with you. Sure, it's true that his upside is greater thanks to Thiel's unitary status. But I don't think that effect is any greater now: Trump enjoyed 0 SV support a month ago, so the investment would have had just as much impact then as now, but the probability is much lower now. > Eich and Trump are in very different roles. Absolutely, Thiel and Eich have very different roles. But to think public image is unimportant to Thiel is also naive: I could easily see this having a negative impact on his deal flow, either because founders are personally offended or because they'e afraid of tainting their reputation. There's a reason that VCs have PR and at least pay lip service to things like Women in Tech.

rconti 10y ago

I'd absolutely agree if I thought: 1. Thiel needed favors 2. Trump was going to hand out favors 3. It wasn't too late. #3 is really what gets me. We've got 3 weeks. Mail-in ballots are out in a bunch of states already. Peoples' minds are made up. The election is basically over. If you believe in extreme polling error, sure, Trump could win -- but, again, it's so late, will this have made the difference? I almost wonder if he believes Trump will win, and thinks his last-minute donation will merely give the impression of having made the difference, when he was going to win anyway. But again -- why now?

MaysonL 10y ago
It's almost certainly too late to elect Trump, but it isn't too late to be a first investor in Trump Media, with Roger Ailes and Stephen Bannon.
icelancer 10y ago
The favors you can get from politicians are never in short supply. Buy shares of them whenever you can.