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Peter Thiel is a YCombinator partner, yet YC has steadfastly refused to disavow him. In a Twitter exchange with David Heinemeier Hansson, Paul Graham suggested

Peter Thiel is a YCombinator partner, yet YC has steadfastly refused to disavow him. In a Twitter exchange with David Heinemeier Hansson, Paul Graham suggested that to do so would somehow be the equivalent of firing an employee for having a distateful political opinion. YC's silence on a partner's outspoken support of Trump is disgraceful, and sends the most shameful message about our industry.

adnzzzzZ 10y ago
It's disgraceful that you're trying to bully an organization based on the political opinions of one of their partners. You should be ashamed of yourself and of the damage you're doing to your country.
- joshkpeterson 10y ago
  Political opinions are not always sacred - there IS a point where you must oppose what is wrong. If you don't think that Trump's racism, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, demagoguery, and general incompetence crosses that line...you're obviously not alone. But many of us feel that speaking against Thiel is justified.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Having political beliefs that you disagree with does not constitute "bullying".
  - adnzzzzZ 10y ago
    Trying to shame someone who has different political beliefs via social pressure seems like bullying to me. One of the big reasons why so many people are voting for Trump is because people like you (and liberals in general) like to shame people for beliefs by calling them racists, sexists, homophobes and all that.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      If someone votes for Trump because because they oppose the shaming of racists, sexists, and homophobes, they deserve the shame they feel. They have the right to express their noxious beliefs, but no norm of justice or civics or our Constitutional system protects their feels from my right to warn others of their noxiousness.
      - adnzzzzZ 10y ago
        >because they oppose the shaming of racists, sexists, and homophobes, They oppose unjust shaming. If someone believes in stronger borders and they get called a racist for that it's an unreasonable form of shame that happens way too often.
        tptacek 10y ago
        Where I wrote "oppose the shaming of", you can simply add or substitute "belief that shaming people for racism, sexism, and homophobia is unjust".
  - smsm42 10y ago
    Trying to make expressing those belief dangerous to the point of losing one's job, income and business is. Trying to make not participating in implementing the above as dangerous as expressing those opinions, through guilt by association, is. If you don't like somebody's speech, speak against them, not try to ruin their life and lives of those that don't run to help you to do that.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      That's exactly what's being done here. And, I'll remind you again: * Thiel is not an employee of Altman or Graham's * Graham himself publicly claims that a strength of startups is that one can choose business partners without regard for moral norms, unlike employees.
      - smsm42 10y ago
        These are tiny details, which are immaterial for the large point - that supporting unpopular point should be ruinous, and mere association with somebody doing this must be a blemish one has to work to remove, or else. Thiel is billionaire and he probably has way over fuck you money. He can do anything he wants. Most of us don't have fuck you money, and that's exactly the point - creating the climate in the industry where not being politically conformant, expressing or supporting unpopular point of view, doing something not conforming to the majority opinion or fashionable opinion - means being ostracized, being denied job prospects, being fired, being uninvited from conferences, being target of personal destruction campaigns, etc. Being a pariah. Thiel is not the point, he'll be more fine than 99.999% of people here in any case. Creating the intolerant lynch mob culture is the point. They may be building this machine to use it against Thiel or Eich or some other large target, but once it's working, the potential target would be everybody. Such things are never put in storage after the first use, they are only used more and more. And what I am seeing that not only this machine is being created and successfully tested, people are enthusiastically cheering it because it's being used against people they dislike. That's always how it starts - but it never stops there.
        tptacek 10y ago
- paulcole 10y ago
  He can dry his tears with the $25 I pay for Pinboard.
  - idlewords 10y ago
    I sleep on that $25! I got it in singles so it would look like a lot.
- audran_marid 10y ago
  bully : (verb) use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants. i.e. you're completely wrong about what it means to "bully". You should be ashamed of yourself for your abuse of the English language.
  - TillE 10y ago
    I wish someone would tell this to UK politicians/media, where MPs are constantly being "bullied" by their constituents who said a mean thing to them on Facebook.
chrissnell 10y ago
Unbelievable. I'm disgusted that you would suggest the blackballing of an investor simply because you don't agree with his political opinion--an opinion, I might add, that is shared amongst a large percentage of our country. Trump say a lot of nutty things but he's not far off the mark when he speaks of a liberal conspiracy to ruin him in this election. Your suggestion is a textbook example of this: using out-of-band threats and pressure to force the hands of major supporters. You should be ashamed of yourself.
- idlewords 10y ago
  I'm suggesting Thiel face consequences for supporting a sexually predatory bigot. I'm literally just a guy with a Twitter account, so the idea that I'm strong-arming billionaires with my ruthless tweets is a little hard to credit.
  - welanes 10y ago
    You're demanding a struggle session because someone openly supports one of the two candidates. The one that you don't like. What consequences do you have in mind for the millions of others that will vote Trump in November? Don't you find it dangerous to try to witch-hunt individuals for their political choices?
    - tptacek 10y ago
      That's not what he's doing. Paul Graham and Sam Altman have both openly repudiated Trump, not as someone whose ideas they disagree with but as someone whose efforts threaten the fabric of our society. Both Graham and Altman has publicly (and correctly) called Trump an aspiring dictator. It is not then a "struggle session" when we point out to both of them that their actions and beliefs are incoherent: that they can comfortably disavow Trump while continuing to collaborate with one of Trump's chief enablers. They are both, in a very small but (I think) meaningful way, working for the benefit of Donald Trump and the forces that make Trump possible. If you support Trump, you are arguably in a safer moral position than Graham and Altman. Both of them believe you to be supporting a modern-day Mussolini. They have no regard at all for your politics. But they're both willing to continue profiting from and generating profit for Thiel through their entirely voluntary association with him. (If you support Trump, I would implore you to reconsider).
josho 10y ago
I have to admit as much as I dislike Trump pg raises a valid point. Another analogy would be YC disavowing Thiel for being gay. An employer has no business in their employees sexual lives or politic preferences.
- idlewords 10y ago
  Disavowing Thiel for being gay would be the opposite of what I am asking for. "Supporting bigotry" and "gay" are not interchangeable moral categories.
- tptacek 10y ago
  The foundations of this argument are so rickety that my heart is racing just seeing you perched up on it. Come down, before you hurt yourself! Graham isn't Thiel's employer. Neither is Altman. Thiel is a business partner of Altman's, and to a lesser extent (Graham's involvement with YC being at present attenuated) to Graham. Meanwhile, Paul Graham is literally the dean of the movement to recognize tech-style startups as singular among modes of human endeavor. To my chagrin, he's managed to redefine a mainstream business term ("startup") through sheer force of will. And among the things that make his "startups" unique, so important that it got a callout in Graham's most famous essay about them, is that affiliation with partners and founders isn't subject to discrimination law. I refuse to accept that Paul Graham simultaneously believes that it's right to refuse to start a company with a mother of small children, but wrong to refuse to maintain a partnership with someone who campaigns stridently for intolerance --- worse, someone who donates sum so large it makes the front page of CNN to the campaign for intolerance even as that campaign rallies to attack the vote itself. A core understanding of justice and equal citizenship exists, even between libertarians and supports of teachers unions. We should be able to agree on these principles even if we agree on nothing else. By campaigning for intolerance, giving speeches in favor of intolerance, and funding intolerance, Thiel places himself outside that understanding. Our disagreements aren't merely political, but about the urgency of preserving equal citizenship. Paul Graham knows this. He has obligated himself, in his own words, to oppose Trump. Were Trump to win, Graham says, he'd "join the resistance". We cross no lines of civility or fairness by pointing out what it takes for Graham to live up to his own words. Justice does not require that Paul Graham stand idly by while Thiel works to destroy the society that makes Graham's life's work possible.
pdog 10y ago
What are you suggesting that YC say or do? Should they be compelled or forced to make a statement?
- idlewords 10y ago
  They should say whatever they want, but remember that silence looks an awful lot like assent.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    His silence here is assent. He'd rather we not recognize it as such, and I feel bad for him because I think he'd rather not recognize it as such either. But Graham's own writing spells out what makes his relationship with Thiel different than that of a relationship between employers and employees. If he can discriminate against mothers with young children, he cannot claim that the unfairness of discrimination prevents him from severing ties with Thiel.
  - tacticus 10y ago
    The current chief of the Australian army has a great line on this. "The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. that goes for all of us, but especially those, who by their rank, have a leadership role."
atom-morgan 10y ago
I'd say that your kind of mentality which is very common within our industry sends a shameful message about our industry.
frakkingcylons 10y ago
I think Graham's point is sound. How is making a donation not an instance of political expression?
- idlewords 10y ago
  It's a public political act. I'm asking Graham to do the same thing—publicly express an opinion.
3princip 10y ago
It's disgraceful that you would suggest someone be punished for a political opinion. What's worse is that Clinton is a pathological liar supporting neocon policies which will likely lead to more conflict. This whole anti-Trump atmosphere is very 1984.
cancan 10y ago
As another immigrant to this country, I agree with idlewords. Trump is not a regular candidate but someone who has openly argued for bigotry, war crimes, violence against journalists and other groups as well as jailing opponents. He's not out to make some policy changes; he's openly arguing for throwing out the regime of this country. Now, I don't think he'd be able to do that but at best, he's so callous and lacking of judgement that he'd be utterly manipulated by people, inside and outside US, to do so. Trump and Hillary are not on any sort of comparable level; Trump is utterly out of what's acceptable political behavior. And I haven't even come to his personality; which I would argue in a civilized society would be enough to distance yourself with. So Thiel's actions must be considered in this regard. He's not some poor, misinformed person. He's not someone who is so ravaged by the economy that he's judgement compromised. He should not be prone to demagogues putting the blame on immigrants. The only explanation I can come up with is that he's arguing for Trump because he's arguing the current political system must be fully debased and must be replaced with something else. That could be an argument but if you are supporting Trump, the only thing that can replace it with is a form of authoritarianism tinged with racism, bigotry and outright hatred. It's just disingenuous for me to see PG, who while I rarely agree with his views on most things outside of tech, ignore this. He's said that Thiel's actions are a blind spot and it would be a slippery slope to "punish" Thiel for his political stance. Firstly; calling this a "blind spot" is being naive at best; misleading at worst. Thiel has contributed millions, spoke at a keynote. And he's obviously smart and thoughtful. This is not just some guy being tricked. And no one is calling for a punishment. YC, by way of taking Thiel's money, is now supporting financially (I assume Thiel invested in YC to make money), this person. This isn't firing someone, which is a different kind of relationship where you involve someone's livelihood. What idlewords (and others like me) are asking for is just a statement of disapproval of Thiel's actions. Just like Zuckerberg did when Marc A. spoke about the wonders of colonization for Indians (and even then he had the decency of apologizing for his callousness) or when Musk withdrew from FWD.US when he realized there were fossil fuel companies on board as well. This isn't hard.
johndavi 10y ago
Public statements made under duress (however weak the duress) or after the political calculus is done are worth their weight in tweets. Any silence -- which has been anything but in Graham's back and forth with Hansson -- is already indelible. This is really just a lame, Valley-lensed Pascalian wager. Say nothing and maintain a flatline with YC applicants (who care mostly for YC demo day flow) and the notoriously humorless Thiel; say something and enjoy only the satisfaction of having demonstrated (Apple-like) courage of conviction -- while risking whatever havoc Thiel wishes to wreak upon you.
timehastoldme 10y ago
Right there with you. I'd like to know your perspective of the explicit amorality of the SV "quirky-elite", especially the YC-Facebook nexus. To me, Altman, Zuckerberg, and Thiel all very obviously have ulterior scifi motives (live forever, solve the question they think underlies existence, etc) predicated upon a sort of über anthropic principle, i.e., "I'm one in a million so there is a special underlying meaning to my life." I'm only guessing this from afar. Do you think I'm on base with this, or is their issue just hubris?
- idlewords 10y ago
  I think of it as "AI cosplay". They imagine how an ultimate superintelligence would behave, trying to pull the hidden levers of power in the world to achieve their ends, and then try to emulate it. At the heart is a very undemocratic belief that the most capable people should 'hack' the world to their own ends, and the rest of us will catch up.
roguecoder 10y ago
I know that after this, I won't work at any YC company, as well as any place Peter Thiel is involved in any way. The organization get to decide which reputation hit they want to take, but no option is neutral in the face of a racist, sexual-assaulting demagogue.
t27 10y ago
Why aren't you going behind mark zuckerberg as well? Thiel is not only an influential investor, but also has a board seat there, and he probably has a bigger share in facebook than he has in YC right?
- tptacek 10y ago
  There's a bunch of responses here: * It would be weird to suggest that Zuckerberg gets a free pass from the likes of DHH and Maciej Ceglowski. * Zuckerberg's affiliation with Thiel is less voluntary than Graham and Altman's. Fb took on Thiel before the Trump election, and they're bound together by contract. * Attacking Facebook for not taking a stand against Trump would probably be counterproductive, because it would play into the false Trump narrative that the media elites are conspiring against him when in reality it's simply human decency creating all his public adversaries.
- idlewords 10y ago
  I agree, and I've called them out, too. But I'm trying to tilt at one windmill at a time. Paul Graham (to his credit) at least answers my emails, while I have no hope of reaching anyone at Facebook.
  - t27 10y ago
    So, basically, you're only targeting YC because they respond/reply to you? Also, Thiel is the biggest shareholder in Palantir, you should also start a movement for all anti-Trump employees/stakeholders of palantir to quit as well? Also it doesn't seem fair to target YC even though their supposed "crime" is pretty small compared to facebook or palantir, does the fact that pg and sama have been vocal about their stance against Trump differentiate them? Had they not said anything about their political views(much like zuck and many other important people in the valley), would you still have pressed them to disavow Thiel?
smsm42 10y ago
What is disgraceful is trying to ensure there is only one acceptable point of view, and preclude people from trying to support other points of view under threat of public boycott, being fired, deemed unemployable, etc. This is ultimately what you fight is for - so that nobody would be able to speak in support candidate you don't like or policy you don't like or idea you don't like because if he does, he will be run out of his job and made into a pariah. You (taken broadly, not as you personally but as a community of people making similar demands) are not only trying to ruin Thiel, you are trying to make not participating in ruining him as dangerous as being Thiel. And, I assume, not participating in ruining those that didn't participate too. This is not how marketplace of ideas supposed to work. This is how a totalitarian state is supposed to work.
- whorleater 10y ago
  This false dichotomy of "Thiel is making a political statement and expressing his beliefs, he shouldn't be punished/bullied/ruined/etc for it, less we start moving down the slope of totalitarianism" is intellectually dishonest. It paints Thiel as this everyman who is simply expressing his rights, while the truth could be no further than this story. Peter Thiel is an influential person. He has created and helped build some of the richest companies in the world, an extremely impressive effort. However, his success, intentionally or not, has catapulted him into a leadership role for many in the tech industry, and an advisor for many more. As a result, we should hold him to a higher standard, because he has so much more sway and influence than your every day person. When Thiel made this contribution he crossed the line of neutrality, moving from expressing his speech into an action. Whether this action is a good one or not is debatable, but to pretend that it is not an action is incorrect. We should allow everyone to express their freedom of speech. We should definitely criticize those who perform actions we deem harmful, since to act as a bystander comes close to being complacent with the action.
  - smsm42 10y ago
    > This false dichotomy of "Thiel is making a political statement and expressing his beliefs, he shouldn't be punished/bullied/ruined/etc for it, less we start moving down the slope of totalitarianism" is intellectually dishonest. It's not a false dichotomy, for two reasons. First is it's not a dichotomy - you need two things for it, and you have here just one claim - that Thiel should not be ruined for expressing support for Trump. Also, it is not false - it is completely true, he should not, otherwise we are on the way to totalitarian unity of opinion, where dissent is not tolerated. > Peter Thiel is an influential person. So is it ok to support people you don't like, but only if you are not influential? Once a person is influential, and their opinions actually does matter, they must agree with you or it is beyond the acceptable normal? It looks like for you only acceptable opposition is a weak and inefficient one. Having strong and influential opposition is something you are not willing to tolerate, but powerless and useless dissent is completely OK. It's a step away from not tolerating any dissent at all, but very small and largely meaningless step. > When Thiel made this contribution he crossed the line of neutrality, moving from expressing his speech into an action. Thiel does not owe anybody any obligation to be neutral, and of course he is not. Of course he did it in support of Trump, and it's completely normal. "Speech" does not mean only literally producing acoustical vibration with your mouth, it is a much broader term and has been for centuries. It means a multitude of actions done in support of political point or candidate you prefer, including donating money to the causes you prefer. His expression of his political opinion is not some fault you can tolerate, but only if he hides it well and it doesn't matter. It's a basic right any person of a democratic country is entitled to, and it is a right that millions of persons exercise proudly every day. Thiel is one of them, and there's absolutely nothing exceptional in what he did or is doing. The only difference is that he is doing it in support of the cause you oppose. That may be unpleasant for you - as is a row of millionaires and billionaires routinely supporting the causes I hate is for me - but it's in no way abnormal or unheard of or beyond what is normally done in US politics. > but to pretend that it is not an action is incorrect. Of course it's an action. Nobody ever claimed otherwise, including me. What I said is claiming his action somehow is exceptional is completely false, and trying to get him and everybody he associates with ostracized for the fact he did it betrays intolerance to opposing opinions which can develop into a full blown totalitarian mindset if left unchecked. > We should definitely criticize those who perform actions we deem harmful, Criticizing him and demanding his peers to ostracize him is different.
deleted 10y ago
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adnzzzzZ 10y ago

It's disgraceful that you're trying to bully an organization based on the political opinions of one of their partners. You should be ashamed of yourself and of the damage you're doing to your country.

joshkpeterson 10y ago
Political opinions are not always sacred - there IS a point where you must oppose what is wrong. If you don't think that Trump's racism, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, demagoguery, and general incompetence crosses that line...you're obviously not alone. But many of us feel that speaking against Thiel is justified.
tptacek 10y ago
Having political beliefs that you disagree with does not constitute "bullying".
- adnzzzzZ 10y ago
  Trying to shame someone who has different political beliefs via social pressure seems like bullying to me. One of the big reasons why so many people are voting for Trump is because people like you (and liberals in general) like to shame people for beliefs by calling them racists, sexists, homophobes and all that.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    If someone votes for Trump because because they oppose the shaming of racists, sexists, and homophobes, they deserve the shame they feel. They have the right to express their noxious beliefs, but no norm of justice or civics or our Constitutional system protects their feels from my right to warn others of their noxiousness.
    - adnzzzzZ 10y ago
      >because they oppose the shaming of racists, sexists, and homophobes, They oppose unjust shaming. If someone believes in stronger borders and they get called a racist for that it's an unreasonable form of shame that happens way too often.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        Where I wrote "oppose the shaming of", you can simply add or substitute "belief that shaming people for racism, sexism, and homophobia is unjust".
- smsm42 10y ago
  Trying to make expressing those belief dangerous to the point of losing one's job, income and business is. Trying to make not participating in implementing the above as dangerous as expressing those opinions, through guilt by association, is. If you don't like somebody's speech, speak against them, not try to ruin their life and lives of those that don't run to help you to do that.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    That's exactly what's being done here. And, I'll remind you again: * Thiel is not an employee of Altman or Graham's * Graham himself publicly claims that a strength of startups is that one can choose business partners without regard for moral norms, unlike employees.
    - smsm42 10y ago
      These are tiny details, which are immaterial for the large point - that supporting unpopular point should be ruinous, and mere association with somebody doing this must be a blemish one has to work to remove, or else. Thiel is billionaire and he probably has way over fuck you money. He can do anything he wants. Most of us don't have fuck you money, and that's exactly the point - creating the climate in the industry where not being politically conformant, expressing or supporting unpopular point of view, doing something not conforming to the majority opinion or fashionable opinion - means being ostracized, being denied job prospects, being fired, being uninvited from conferences, being target of personal destruction campaigns, etc. Being a pariah. Thiel is not the point, he'll be more fine than 99.999% of people here in any case. Creating the intolerant lynch mob culture is the point. They may be building this machine to use it against Thiel or Eich or some other large target, but once it's working, the potential target would be everybody. Such things are never put in storage after the first use, they are only used more and more. And what I am seeing that not only this machine is being created and successfully tested, people are enthusiastically cheering it because it's being used against people they dislike. That's always how it starts - but it never stops there.
      - tptacek 10y ago
paulcole 10y ago
He can dry his tears with the $25 I pay for Pinboard.
- idlewords 10y ago
  I sleep on that $25! I got it in singles so it would look like a lot.
audran_marid 10y ago
bully : (verb) use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants. i.e. you're completely wrong about what it means to "bully". You should be ashamed of yourself for your abuse of the English language.
- TillE 10y ago
  I wish someone would tell this to UK politicians/media, where MPs are constantly being "bullied" by their constituents who said a mean thing to them on Facebook.

chrissnell 10y ago

Unbelievable. I'm disgusted that you would suggest the blackballing of an investor simply because you don't agree with his political opinion--an opinion, I might add, that is shared amongst a large percentage of our country. Trump say a lot of nutty things but he's not far off the mark when he speaks of a liberal conspiracy to ruin him in this election. Your suggestion is a textbook example of this: using out-of-band threats and pressure to force the hands of major supporters. You should be ashamed of yourself.

idlewords 10y ago
I'm suggesting Thiel face consequences for supporting a sexually predatory bigot. I'm literally just a guy with a Twitter account, so the idea that I'm strong-arming billionaires with my ruthless tweets is a little hard to credit.
- welanes 10y ago
  You're demanding a struggle session because someone openly supports one of the two candidates. The one that you don't like. What consequences do you have in mind for the millions of others that will vote Trump in November? Don't you find it dangerous to try to witch-hunt individuals for their political choices?
  - tptacek 10y ago
    That's not what he's doing. Paul Graham and Sam Altman have both openly repudiated Trump, not as someone whose ideas they disagree with but as someone whose efforts threaten the fabric of our society. Both Graham and Altman has publicly (and correctly) called Trump an aspiring dictator. It is not then a "struggle session" when we point out to both of them that their actions and beliefs are incoherent: that they can comfortably disavow Trump while continuing to collaborate with one of Trump's chief enablers. They are both, in a very small but (I think) meaningful way, working for the benefit of Donald Trump and the forces that make Trump possible. If you support Trump, you are arguably in a safer moral position than Graham and Altman. Both of them believe you to be supporting a modern-day Mussolini. They have no regard at all for your politics. But they're both willing to continue profiting from and generating profit for Thiel through their entirely voluntary association with him. (If you support Trump, I would implore you to reconsider).

josho 10y ago

I have to admit as much as I dislike Trump pg raises a valid point. Another analogy would be YC disavowing Thiel for being gay. An employer has no business in their employees sexual lives or politic preferences.

idlewords 10y ago
Disavowing Thiel for being gay would be the opposite of what I am asking for. "Supporting bigotry" and "gay" are not interchangeable moral categories.
tptacek 10y ago
The foundations of this argument are so rickety that my heart is racing just seeing you perched up on it. Come down, before you hurt yourself! Graham isn't Thiel's employer. Neither is Altman. Thiel is a business partner of Altman's, and to a lesser extent (Graham's involvement with YC being at present attenuated) to Graham. Meanwhile, Paul Graham is literally the dean of the movement to recognize tech-style startups as singular among modes of human endeavor. To my chagrin, he's managed to redefine a mainstream business term ("startup") through sheer force of will. And among the things that make his "startups" unique, so important that it got a callout in Graham's most famous essay about them, is that affiliation with partners and founders isn't subject to discrimination law. I refuse to accept that Paul Graham simultaneously believes that it's right to refuse to start a company with a mother of small children, but wrong to refuse to maintain a partnership with someone who campaigns stridently for intolerance --- worse, someone who donates sum so large it makes the front page of CNN to the campaign for intolerance even as that campaign rallies to attack the vote itself. A core understanding of justice and equal citizenship exists, even between libertarians and supports of teachers unions. We should be able to agree on these principles even if we agree on nothing else. By campaigning for intolerance, giving speeches in favor of intolerance, and funding intolerance, Thiel places himself outside that understanding. Our disagreements aren't merely political, but about the urgency of preserving equal citizenship. Paul Graham knows this. He has obligated himself, in his own words, to oppose Trump. Were Trump to win, Graham says, he'd "join the resistance". We cross no lines of civility or fairness by pointing out what it takes for Graham to live up to his own words. Justice does not require that Paul Graham stand idly by while Thiel works to destroy the society that makes Graham's life's work possible.

pdog 10y ago

What are you suggesting that YC say or do? Should they be compelled or forced to make a statement?

idlewords 10y ago
They should say whatever they want, but remember that silence looks an awful lot like assent.
- tptacek 10y ago
  His silence here is assent. He'd rather we not recognize it as such, and I feel bad for him because I think he'd rather not recognize it as such either. But Graham's own writing spells out what makes his relationship with Thiel different than that of a relationship between employers and employees. If he can discriminate against mothers with young children, he cannot claim that the unfairness of discrimination prevents him from severing ties with Thiel.
- tacticus 10y ago
  The current chief of the Australian army has a great line on this. "The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. that goes for all of us, but especially those, who by their rank, have a leadership role."

atom-morgan 10y ago

I'd say that your kind of mentality which is very common within our industry sends a shameful message about our industry.

frakkingcylons 10y ago

I think Graham's point is sound. How is making a donation not an instance of political expression?

idlewords 10y ago
It's a public political act. I'm asking Graham to do the same thing—publicly express an opinion.

3princip 10y ago

It's disgraceful that you would suggest someone be punished for a political opinion. What's worse is that Clinton is a pathological liar supporting neocon policies which will likely lead to more conflict. This whole anti-Trump atmosphere is very 1984.

cancan 10y ago

As another immigrant to this country, I agree with idlewords. Trump is not a regular candidate but someone who has openly argued for bigotry, war crimes, violence against journalists and other groups as well as jailing opponents. He's not out to make some policy changes; he's openly arguing for throwing out the regime of this country. Now, I don't think he'd be able to do that but at best, he's so callous and lacking of judgement that he'd be utterly manipulated by people, inside and outside US, to do so. Trump and Hillary are not on any sort of comparable level; Trump is utterly out of what's acceptable political behavior. And I haven't even come to his personality; which I would argue in a civilized society would be enough to distance yourself with. So Thiel's actions must be considered in this regard. He's not some poor, misinformed person. He's not someone who is so ravaged by the economy that he's judgement compromised. He should not be prone to demagogues putting the blame on immigrants. The only explanation I can come up with is that he's arguing for Trump because he's arguing the current political system must be fully debased and must be replaced with something else. That could be an argument but if you are supporting Trump, the only thing that can replace it with is a form of authoritarianism tinged with racism, bigotry and outright hatred. It's just disingenuous for me to see PG, who while I rarely agree with his views on most things outside of tech, ignore this. He's said that Thiel's actions are a blind spot and it would be a slippery slope to "punish" Thiel for his political stance. Firstly; calling this a "blind spot" is being naive at best; misleading at worst. Thiel has contributed millions, spoke at a keynote. And he's obviously smart and thoughtful. This is not just some guy being tricked. And no one is calling for a punishment. YC, by way of taking Thiel's money, is now supporting financially (I assume Thiel invested in YC to make money), this person. This isn't firing someone, which is a different kind of relationship where you involve someone's livelihood. What idlewords (and others like me) are asking for is just a statement of disapproval of Thiel's actions. Just like Zuckerberg did when Marc A. spoke about the wonders of colonization for Indians (and even then he had the decency of apologizing for his callousness) or when Musk withdrew from FWD.US when he realized there were fossil fuel companies on board as well. This isn't hard.

johndavi 10y ago

Public statements made under duress (however weak the duress) or after the political calculus is done are worth their weight in tweets. Any silence -- which has been anything but in Graham's back and forth with Hansson -- is already indelible. This is really just a lame, Valley-lensed Pascalian wager. Say nothing and maintain a flatline with YC applicants (who care mostly for YC demo day flow) and the notoriously humorless Thiel; say something and enjoy only the satisfaction of having demonstrated (Apple-like) courage of conviction -- while risking whatever havoc Thiel wishes to wreak upon you.

timehastoldme 10y ago

Right there with you. I'd like to know your perspective of the explicit amorality of the SV "quirky-elite", especially the YC-Facebook nexus. To me, Altman, Zuckerberg, and Thiel all very obviously have ulterior scifi motives (live forever, solve the question they think underlies existence, etc) predicated upon a sort of über anthropic principle, i.e., "I'm one in a million so there is a special underlying meaning to my life." I'm only guessing this from afar. Do you think I'm on base with this, or is their issue just hubris?

idlewords 10y ago
I think of it as "AI cosplay". They imagine how an ultimate superintelligence would behave, trying to pull the hidden levers of power in the world to achieve their ends, and then try to emulate it. At the heart is a very undemocratic belief that the most capable people should 'hack' the world to their own ends, and the rest of us will catch up.

roguecoder 10y ago

I know that after this, I won't work at any YC company, as well as any place Peter Thiel is involved in any way. The organization get to decide which reputation hit they want to take, but no option is neutral in the face of a racist, sexual-assaulting demagogue.

t27 10y ago

Why aren't you going behind mark zuckerberg as well? Thiel is not only an influential investor, but also has a board seat there, and he probably has a bigger share in facebook than he has in YC right?

tptacek 10y ago
There's a bunch of responses here: * It would be weird to suggest that Zuckerberg gets a free pass from the likes of DHH and Maciej Ceglowski. * Zuckerberg's affiliation with Thiel is less voluntary than Graham and Altman's. Fb took on Thiel before the Trump election, and they're bound together by contract. * Attacking Facebook for not taking a stand against Trump would probably be counterproductive, because it would play into the false Trump narrative that the media elites are conspiring against him when in reality it's simply human decency creating all his public adversaries.
idlewords 10y ago
I agree, and I've called them out, too. But I'm trying to tilt at one windmill at a time. Paul Graham (to his credit) at least answers my emails, while I have no hope of reaching anyone at Facebook.
- t27 10y ago
  So, basically, you're only targeting YC because they respond/reply to you? Also, Thiel is the biggest shareholder in Palantir, you should also start a movement for all anti-Trump employees/stakeholders of palantir to quit as well? Also it doesn't seem fair to target YC even though their supposed "crime" is pretty small compared to facebook or palantir, does the fact that pg and sama have been vocal about their stance against Trump differentiate them? Had they not said anything about their political views(much like zuck and many other important people in the valley), would you still have pressed them to disavow Thiel?

smsm42 10y ago

What is disgraceful is trying to ensure there is only one acceptable point of view, and preclude people from trying to support other points of view under threat of public boycott, being fired, deemed unemployable, etc. This is ultimately what you fight is for - so that nobody would be able to speak in support candidate you don't like or policy you don't like or idea you don't like because if he does, he will be run out of his job and made into a pariah. You (taken broadly, not as you personally but as a community of people making similar demands) are not only trying to ruin Thiel, you are trying to make not participating in ruining him as dangerous as being Thiel. And, I assume, not participating in ruining those that didn't participate too. This is not how marketplace of ideas supposed to work. This is how a totalitarian state is supposed to work.

whorleater 10y ago
This false dichotomy of "Thiel is making a political statement and expressing his beliefs, he shouldn't be punished/bullied/ruined/etc for it, less we start moving down the slope of totalitarianism" is intellectually dishonest. It paints Thiel as this everyman who is simply expressing his rights, while the truth could be no further than this story. Peter Thiel is an influential person. He has created and helped build some of the richest companies in the world, an extremely impressive effort. However, his success, intentionally or not, has catapulted him into a leadership role for many in the tech industry, and an advisor for many more. As a result, we should hold him to a higher standard, because he has so much more sway and influence than your every day person. When Thiel made this contribution he crossed the line of neutrality, moving from expressing his speech into an action. Whether this action is a good one or not is debatable, but to pretend that it is not an action is incorrect. We should allow everyone to express their freedom of speech. We should definitely criticize those who perform actions we deem harmful, since to act as a bystander comes close to being complacent with the action.
- smsm42 10y ago
  > This false dichotomy of "Thiel is making a political statement and expressing his beliefs, he shouldn't be punished/bullied/ruined/etc for it, less we start moving down the slope of totalitarianism" is intellectually dishonest. It's not a false dichotomy, for two reasons. First is it's not a dichotomy - you need two things for it, and you have here just one claim - that Thiel should not be ruined for expressing support for Trump. Also, it is not false - it is completely true, he should not, otherwise we are on the way to totalitarian unity of opinion, where dissent is not tolerated. > Peter Thiel is an influential person. So is it ok to support people you don't like, but only if you are not influential? Once a person is influential, and their opinions actually does matter, they must agree with you or it is beyond the acceptable normal? It looks like for you only acceptable opposition is a weak and inefficient one. Having strong and influential opposition is something you are not willing to tolerate, but powerless and useless dissent is completely OK. It's a step away from not tolerating any dissent at all, but very small and largely meaningless step. > When Thiel made this contribution he crossed the line of neutrality, moving from expressing his speech into an action. Thiel does not owe anybody any obligation to be neutral, and of course he is not. Of course he did it in support of Trump, and it's completely normal. "Speech" does not mean only literally producing acoustical vibration with your mouth, it is a much broader term and has been for centuries. It means a multitude of actions done in support of political point or candidate you prefer, including donating money to the causes you prefer. His expression of his political opinion is not some fault you can tolerate, but only if he hides it well and it doesn't matter. It's a basic right any person of a democratic country is entitled to, and it is a right that millions of persons exercise proudly every day. Thiel is one of them, and there's absolutely nothing exceptional in what he did or is doing. The only difference is that he is doing it in support of the cause you oppose. That may be unpleasant for you - as is a row of millionaires and billionaires routinely supporting the causes I hate is for me - but it's in no way abnormal or unheard of or beyond what is normally done in US politics. > but to pretend that it is not an action is incorrect. Of course it's an action. Nobody ever claimed otherwise, including me. What I said is claiming his action somehow is exceptional is completely false, and trying to get him and everybody he associates with ostracized for the fact he did it betrays intolerance to opposing opinions which can develop into a full blown totalitarian mindset if left unchecked. > We should definitely criticize those who perform actions we deem harmful, Criticizing him and demanding his peers to ostracize him is different.

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