20 ms·

Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions

450 points by beardicus 10y ago

jackfrodo 10y ago
Kudos to Project Include for making this decision. This sends a clear signal that there is a growing (or at least increasingly vocalized) segment of the tech community that won't stand for a guy like Thiel to be a "captain" of this industry. I believe in the long run, he's holding us back.
liveoneggs 10y ago
It's right there in the article: > Money is power.
unethical_ban 10y ago
What has Project Include, or Ellen Pao, accomplished? What has YC and its funded projects accomplished?
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  In what way does one accomplishments or lack thereof influence one's ability to take what one sees as an ethical stance on an issue?
- huslage 10y ago
  I'm not sure how that question is in any way relevant.
Overtonwindow 10y ago
Nope. Not Ellen Pao. In my humble opinion she has zero credibility and I don't think she is a voice for the tech community. I mean at all.
- MBCook 10y ago
  So just because she says something it's worthless? Did you bother to see if the point she was making made any sense?
  - Overtonwindow 10y ago
    If it had been anyone else I would have read with more interest and sincerity. I'm not arguing with her message, I'm stating my opinion, that Ellen Pao has zero credibility in the tech community, and should be just as disregarded as Trump.
    - ivraatiems 10y ago
      That's not a serious argument. People you dislike can be right. Hypocrites can be right. Hell, even Trump is right on some issues. That doesn't mean I like him or will vote for him.
    - etjossem 10y ago
      Speak for yourself, not for the tech community.
- jackfrodo 10y ago
  This is the kind of knee-jerk dismissal that made me lose respect for the reddit community. What she's saying resonates with a lot of people, especially marginalized ones, and for that reason alone she's worth hearing out.
  - supergeek133 10y ago
    The problem is one side of that is ALWAYS marginalized, right? The difference is she's pulling support because it's her side this time.
    - jackfrodo 10y ago
      Is one side always marginalized? Maybe in political matters you could frame it that way, but I don't think that's the case in most tech-related discussions. This is the fairly narrow case of discussing diversity in tech.
      - supergeek133 10y ago
        Yeah, that's fair. I guess I was talking in the context of the political article.
  - EdiX 10y ago
    In what way a group of people that has the almost unanimous support of mainstream media, the current government and the (most likely) upcoming government can be called marginalized?
DavidHm 10y ago
What exactly is their relationship with YC? The article is a bit murky. They "invited" YC to contribute, but do not actually say whether YC agreed. Forgive the cynicism, but if it turns out that YC was not contributing in any way to Project Include, this is just empty bluster.
- deleted 10y ago
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dfabulich 10y ago
There is clear precedent for YC taking a political stand by uninviting investors. Only five years ago, Paul Graham was willing to uninvite investors from Demo Day based on their support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/paul-graham-sopa-supporting-companies-no-longer-allowed-at-yc-demo-day/ https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/paul-graham-sopa-supportin... Paul asked, "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?" The obvious answer to that question would be, "their track record as investors could demonstrate that." But no, in 2011, if you supported SOPA, you're out, regardless of your track record. I think it's fair to ask whether, if Peter Thiel is so clueless as to donate $1.25 million to Donald Trump today, after so much of his dirty laundry has come to light and after this has been reflected in the polls, how could he be a good investor? If it was the right decision for SOPA, it's right decision today.
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  I was wondering whether there was precedence for something like this. If there is, then I think YC should distance themselves from Thiel now. I agree with those who say he's a long-term harm to the industry; I do take issue, generally, with dismissing someone over their personal politics, but sometimes those stances create problems in the company that can't be overcome.
  - xupybd 10y ago
    I think you're correct that this might be a case of something the business needs to distance themselves from but they shouldn't try to take the moral high ground and at the same time vilify a man for his political views.
    - ivraatiems 10y ago
      I'm not sure how else they would justify it.
      - xupybd 10y ago
Alex3917 10y ago
> His attacks on Black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim, and Jewish people, on women, and on others are more than just political speech; fueled by hate and encouraging violence, they make each of us feel unsafe. Let's assume that not only is Trump a rapist, but that he's keeping a few women tied up in his basement. Even in this scenario, is this worse than Hillary dramatically increasing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two countries where rape is currently legal? Especially since she did this after receiving 25M+ in donations to the Clinton Foundation from Saudi Arabia, and apparently a 1M dollar check from Qatar for Bill's birthday, so it's hard to even argue that it was out of any sort of realpolitik. Similarly, is Trump making overtly racist statements really worse (with respect to race issues) than Hillary voting to invade Iraq even after Scott Ritter and Hans Blix said that they had no weapons of mass destruction? There's no question that Trump's overt sexism and racism is extraordinary problematic. But, as someone who isn't even a Trump supporter/voter, I'm struggling to understand how people find it so much more objectionable than all of the systemic human rights abuses that have already occurred under Hillary. There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Trump, but the idea that he's so much worse for women and minorities seems to be more of a media creation than based in reality. Even if you assume that something imminently bad is going to happen to minorities if Trump is elected, from an ethical and social justice perspective, if bad things are going to happen that are of our own making, it seems like those bad things should be happening to people within the U.S. rather than abroad. I don't mean to in any way make light of what are extremely serious issues, but in my humble opinion the idea that Trump is automatically more racist because he says racist things is complete bullshit. Maybe he is worse, but I think the situation is far more nuanced than the media would have you believe.
- sparkling 10y ago
  I agree. The key here is: Trump says mean things, Hillary does mean things (and has been doing so for nearly 30 years) Also, the external links in that sentence you quoted are not hard facts. They are up for interpretation. Especially the one about his speech being anti-semitic is nothing but pure nonsense. /edit: downvote me all you want. I'm not even voting for Trump, but the media bias towards Trump is real.
  - 10y ago
sparkling 10y ago
> His attacks on Black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim, and Jewish people, on women, and on others are more than just political speech Oh please. What a fucking joke. You might just make [] I voted for Hillary and fully accept the liberal Silicon Valley virtue signalling circlejerking a checkbox on the next YC application.
yanilkr 10y ago
No matter who you are or what you are trying to succeed in tech industry, How about you make news for accomplishments like Peter Theil?
jimsojim 10y ago
I keep getting back to this thought that a lot of what Peter does is to make a point about contrarianism - that is to stay a consistent contrarian (publicly atleast).
natrius 10y ago
Cleaving off 40% of America is not a recipe for progress. When Trump shows his people how they're getting blacklisted from the economy, that isn't going to make them want to riot less. Our culture of progress has become entirely about excluding dissenters until they submit, and it's not working anymore. We've given up on convincing the people who have all the weapons, and now we're going to start hurting them economically. Good luck, y'all.
- Overtonwindow 10y ago
  Excellent point.
- sigmar 10y ago
  >When Trump shows his people how they're getting blacklisted from the economy, that isn't going to make them want to riot less. How are they getting blacklisted by the economy? Project Include has the right to choose who they associate with.
  - mason240 10y ago
    >Project Include has the right to choose who they associate with. As does anyone else who blacklists.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      That's just nonsensical, and you've defined anything with membership as a "blacklist". What makes a blacklist a blacklist, is the list of "undesirables"; you don't just get to point to any body with membership and define all non-members as "blacklisted".
      - ominous 10y ago
        Why am I blacklisted from using your money? Also, obligatory mention that "blacklist" and "whitelist" are racist terms, and mention of similar spirals of idiocy such as [0] and [1]. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 [1] - https://github.com/antirez/redis/issues/3185 https://github.com/antirez/redis/issues/3185
vowelless 10y ago
> but we draw a line at individuals who fund violence and hate. (removing video as valid concerns were raised) Although, isn't there evidence that more violence has occurred against trump supporters than anyone else? I am not a supporter by any measure (for one, I'm form the middle east), but I'm trying to understand Paos quote.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  >Due to his videos of ACORN workers allegedly aiding a couple in criminal planning, the U.S. Congress voted to freeze funds for the non-profit. The national scandal resulted in the non-profit also losing most private funding before investigations were completed. In March 2010, ACORN was close to bankruptcy and had to close most of its offices.[1] Shortly after, the California State Attorney General's Office and the US Government Accountability Office released their related investigative reports. The Attorney General's Office found that O'Keefe had misrepresented the actions of ACORN workers and that the workers had not committed illegal actions. A preliminary probe by the GAO found that ACORN had managed its federal funds appropriately.[2][3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe Let's be a little more skeptical this time around, shall we?
  - hindsightbias 10y ago
    Particularly ironic since Thiel provided funding to O'Keefe.
  - hiringmanager 10y ago
    The fox, having investigated the crime at the hen house, has determined that no foxes did anything wrong and the allegations that hens were harmed is unsupported.
- deleted 10y ago
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ikeboy 10y ago
Tl;dr >We agree that people shouldn’t be fired for their political views, but
- deleted 10y ago
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- Delmania 10y ago
  The problem is that this election is not about a difference of opinions over the fundamental issues. It's become a spite-driven, rage-fueled, all out fear mongering and hate breeding spectacle. Trump's supporters have, in some cases, started talking open revolt if he doesn't win. On Twitter, there was a hashtag of #RepealThe19th, which essentially said they wanted to disenfranchise women in efforts to ensure Trump is supported. This isn't necessarily new from constituents, but at the very least, the candidates have drawn the line. McCain is reported to have told a woman than Obama is good Christian family man with whom he had fundamental policy disagreements. Trump is threatening to throw Hillary in jail, and is attempting to use her husbands (known) indiscretions as ammunition. Campaigns get vicious, but in this case, Trump is actively feeding the hatred and paranoia.
  - dubrocks 10y ago
    Yet neither Trump nor his worst supporters represent Peter Thiel. Are Democrat voters represented by Hillary's worst supporters?
  - debacle 10y ago
    > It's become a spite-driven, rage-fueled, all out fear mongering and hate breeding spectacle. That happens every time. > Trump's supporters have, in some cases, started talking open revolt if he doesn't win. This also happens every time. > On Twitter, there was a hashtag of #RepealThe19th, which essentially said they wanted to disenfranchise women in efforts to ensure Trump is supported. Eco-terrorists vote too. > Trump is threatening to throw Hillary in jail There's a not-insignificant percentage of the population (potentially a majority) who believe that jail is where she belongs. Being receptive to free speech means being receptive to free speech, full stop. It is a pillar of our country, and regardless of how incendiary you view anyone else, this is a country where the KKK, fundamentalist groups of all flavors, Nazis, etc, are all allowed to exist and that's important.
hood_syntax 10y ago
I am disappointed with Thiel's decision to donate money to Donald Trump, but I don't care what Ellen Pao or her organization thinks about it. It's their prerogative, but I laughed at the tagline 'Sometimes hard decisions aren't that hard after all'. I don't believe an attempt to pressure outside parties into severing business ties with someone because of their questionable political judgement should be treated as if it is some sort of noble crusade e.g. > We have hope for YC;... Today it is clear our values are not aligned. And make no mistake, it's either an attempt to pressure YC or a PR play for the organization (possibly both)
- timehastoldme 10y ago
  Or it's a stand against a movement which opposes their moral principles. To Pao (and, to the extent that it matters, me), D. Trump's movement is so vile that any prominent supporters of it waive their right to being tolerated. I am sure you'd agree that doing so would be acceptable if Thiel supported Strom Thurmond, Viktor Orban, or Mao Zedong; it's just a matter of how bad D. Trump is.
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - hood_syntax 10y ago
    > doing so would be acceptable if Thiel supported... I can concede that point.
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    "Strom Thurmond" How about Hillary Clinton's "friend and mentor", a man of "eloquence and nobility" (her actual words) Robert C. Byrd? You know, "KKK Kleagle" Byrd? "Tried to filibuster the 1964 Civil Rights Act" Byrd? "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side. ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." Byrd? Remember him? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryweuBVJMEA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryweuBVJMEA
lhnz 10y ago
How can you distance yourself from Thiel if he has shown no interest in being connected to you? It's never going to be this easy to delegitimise someone when they are widely known as being more credible than yourself. If YC was to pull out it would be a loss for their startups. It should be the founder's choice whether they wish to deprive themselves of Thiel's money or insight to make a political point.
archagon 10y ago
Based on the awful things Trump has said and (apparently) done, it should be blatantly clear to anyone remotely following the election that isn't your usual political rivalry. Pao is right: "this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence." Quite literally at times! (I might give a pass to the people following the party line or acting on incomplete information, but Thiel knows exactly what he's supporting.) And yet, in the previous HN thread on the topic, I see dozens of voices loudly defending the right for Thiel to prop up Trump's demagoguery without consequence. To them, supporting Trump or Clinton is equally bad, even though the things Trump routinely says are downright terrifying[1] and dangerous to the fabric of our country. For the first time in my life, I'm actually expecting to see violence on election day. This fledgeling authoritarian streak within the tech community really disturbs me. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_final_response_to_the_tell_me_why_trump_is_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_f...
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  It's easy to end up at authoritarianism when you combine access to everyone's information, and an inherent belief in your own superiority and ability to "make the world a better place." The real surprise is that we haven't seen more of it.
- maratd 10y ago
  > To them, supporting Trump and Clinton are equally bad No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them. A person should not lose their job, their status on a board, their inclusion in an event, etc. based on who they decide to support politically. That's disgusting and people who support that sort of witch hunt should be ashamed of themselves. I vehemently disagree with his choice of who to support during this election, but I find the calls for his head even more repugnant. That sort of intolerance should have no place in a civil society.
  - archagon 10y ago
    In a normal political climate I would agree, but I have to ask: is there a line? Is there any line? I think most people could imagine a political affiliation that they would want absolutely no association with. If Trump was a bit more murdery like Duterte, would it be OK to disavow his supporters then?
applecore 10y ago
> Because of [Peter Thiel's] continued connection to YC, we are compelled to break off our relationship with YC. What exactly was the relationship between Project Include and YC prior to this?
fatdog 10y ago
The fool's reproach, it is a kingly title. I like how YC let her feel like it was her decision. Well played.
sparkling 10y ago
tl;dr: i am going to push my hurt feelings onto everybody else Grow up Ellen.
n00b101 10y ago
It may be worth noting that Goldman Sachs recently banned all of its partners from donating to the Trump ticket, as of September 1, 2016. They can still donate to Clinton. [1] NOTE: Technically, they banned contributions "to state and local candidates running for office, as well as state or local officials running for federal office." as of September 1, 2016. Since Mike Pence is a sitting state official, it means that Goldman partners can't contribute to the Trump-Pence ticket. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/07/goldman-sachs-donations-trump-clinton_n_11898982.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/07/goldman-sachs-donati...
xupybd 10y ago
Wow, the world is getting way too fractured between left and right. Reading that, the YC folks make out that Trump is a monster and any affiliation with him is evil. Come on, try to understand why people are supporting him. I don't think it's racism and sexism that's driving this, it's the wedge between left and right. Combine that with the two party system and people find themselves with little choice. When you vilify everyone on the other side there is little chance they'll come over to yours.
- jshevek 10y ago
  Thank you for posting this. To my view, partisans on both sides are roughly comparable. Some of their manipulative tactics differ in the specifics, but they are both dishonest and both harmful to society.
- lsh123 10y ago
  Thank you, exactly something I wanted to write.
stronsay 10y ago
I don't get how you can be so cognizant of the problem of misaligned values while at the same time having an unquestionable faith in the value of diversity. How can you avoid cognitive dissonance here, except through a very shallow understanding of diversity that assumes all people or groups of people hold roughly the same values and beliefs and that where they differ, the difference never results in unresolvable incompatibility?
kyrre 10y ago
Has Ellen Pao (and Project Include) spoken out against her husbands alleged Ponzi scheme? His alleged actions seems to be in direct conflict with the values of any wholesome tech company.
- braythwayt 10y ago
  That's a textbook deflection right there, and also a logical fallacy.
- etjossem 10y ago
  Not relevant, and carries the same level of validity as "have you stopped beating your wife?"
mmanfrin 10y ago
There are some exceptionally toxic comments below.
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  Indeed. This may be the thread that gets me to leave HN for good. It feels like being inside a history book. It would be fascinating if it weren't so unsettling.
  - thequickeninger 10y ago
    Yeah like it's the CURRENT YEAR. How can anyone disagree with what i'm thinking in the CURRENT YEAR?? How can anyone disagree with celebrities and politicians in the CURRENT YEAR????!
blfr 10y ago
At Project Include, our mission is to give everyone a fair chance to succeed in the workplace. “Everyone” means all groups to us, but we draw a line at individuals who fund violence and hate. And you denounce... Thiel? Hillary Clinton made material contributions to starting two seemingly random wars in Libya and Syria with hundreds of thousands of victims. That doesn't count as funding violence? What about her supporters which appears to be everyone else.
- HaloZero 10y ago
  Most sitting presidents and secretary of states in the past 50 years have had to call for violence against other nations. It's part of the role and maybe she's made mistakes. But there's a difference between Secretary of State allowing an airstrike and being a owner of a company inciting others to violence.
  - blfr 10y ago
    So she is OK with killing thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands but mean comments are a cause for purges? It's either dishonest or insane. The difference is that one of these doesn't matter.
    - ceejayoz 10y ago
      Trump's comments include a promise to commit war crimes (targeting the families of terror suspects).
  - InclinedPlane 10y ago
    Or, you know, explicitly calling for the commission of war crimes, for the use of torture, for the reintroduction of carpet bombing, and for the directed assassination of the family members of terrorists.
yadongwen 10y ago
> this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence. There are still around 40% people voting for Trump and many donating to him, so you mean they are also advocating hatred and violence? What you believe could be different from others. People can choose different perspectives to see and understand the world. We should encourage different ideas and voices. This post could be downvoted too because I'm supporting and encouraging different voices.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > There are still around 40% people voting for Trump and many donating to him, so you mean they are also advocating hatred and violence? In very many cases, that is quite overtly the case. > What you believe could be different from others. Right. And hatred (racial, misogynistic, and otherwise) and violence are among the areas where those differences can be found within the electorate.
- Delmania 10y ago
  > There are still around 40% people voting for Trump and many donating to him, so you mean they are also advocating hatred and violence? At this point, I'd have to say yes, given Trump's actions the past few days. His supporters are openly committing sedition[1]. If you don't believe and hatred and violence, and you still support him, I'd have to say that's a case of superior orders. The man is intentionally inciting fear and violence. Encouraging different opinions and voices are fine, but there is a limit. When that voice is actively encouraging harm to others based on unfounded allegations, it makes sense to cut it off, as it is not driving the conversation forward. 1- https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/10/15/donald-trump-warnings-conspiracy-rig-election-are-stoking-anger-among-his-followers/LcCY6e0QOcfH8VdeK9UdsM/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/10/15/donald-...
mootothemax 10y ago
Hang on - Thiel thinks women shouldn't have the right to vote, and has written unambiguously as much? How on earth is that not the argument for dropping him? From another angle, how on earth can you trust someone's advice if they truly and honestly think like that? I'm honestly shocked YC can champion women founders while having someone like this involved as a partner. Just shocking. And so, so disappointing.
- yuvadam 10y ago
  > 'the extension of the franchise to women has rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron' https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
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  - hiringmanager 10y ago
    He's saying that women tend not to vote libertarian, not that they shouldn't be allowed to vote. Why misrepresent this (as so many have in this page) when we can all follow the link and read for ourselves? More context: " The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron. In the face of these realities, one would despair if one limited one’s horizon to the world of politics. I do not despair because I no longer believe that politics encompasses all possible futures of our world. In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called “social democracy.” So, he literally says he doesn't despair this.
- exolymph 10y ago
  I dislike Thiel very much and think his politics are utterly wrong, but this: > Thiel thinks women shouldn't have the right to vote, and has written unambiguously as much? Is a vast oversimplification of what he wrote.
CN7R 10y ago
I question the integrity of the author who wrote this article, but if people truly have an issue with Peter Thiel donating to the Republican candidate, then just stop giving him money—blacklist him, not YC. However, that's not going to happen anytime soon. Better than disagreeing with someone spending their money, why don't people collectively donate to the other candidate then? That's not the conclusion the author comes to and hence in my opinion this seems to be a company taking advantage of a situation for free PR.
NicolasAlvarino 10y ago
I would not be surprised if Thiel does not care about Trump's policies or character, but only about ending democracy and reducing the role of goverment, thus making the world "safe of capitalism": https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
- deleted 10y ago
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  - thedifference33 10y ago
    Must we pick apart every word in an idea, ignoring the bigger picture? Is it so hard to think an activist billionaire who has thrown his assets around to influence the world his way (not just the Gawker lawsuit), outside anything resembling a democratic process, isn't interested in continuing to do so for his benefit? I should point out too, to some extent I view YC as 'undemocratic'. A small group of people guiding the world as they see fit with their investments that can have large repercussions in the world is hardly a democratic industry. I don't limit this view JUST to YC, but to how our economy works as a whole. So there's that. The problem I have with your simplified summation is that it's high level, press-release like rhetoric. He's a "conservative donor", to sum up your position. Let's see what the conservative side of the country is up to... The conservative side of the country has been anything but conservative with their policies. Including huge deficit spending, waving away climate change almost entirely, attempting to suspend lynch pin principles of our nation (habeas corpus among others), motions toward tearing down social progress gender/race issues, investing heavily in police state (research Chertoff and his nudey scanners), and attacking labor at every turn (Koch bros heavily financing Walker's union busting machine in Wisconsin), and are by far the more "bomb first, ask questions later" segment. Lump Thiel's self-serving headlines in there from the last couple years and yeah, he's not to be trusted, IMO. There's no way to simplify his motivations as "conservative donor". He's as suspect as the rest.
georgemonck 10y ago
this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence. I think some "both-sides-ism" is in order here. From the perspective of the right, the left is also advocating hatred, violence and is also trying to do an end-around to thwart democracy. Consider: - The riots we've had in four different cities, riots that occurred before the facts of the case were even known, and which white people were being specifically targeted for violence -- http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/milwaukee-protests-asian-american-black-lives-matter-214184 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/milwaukee-pro... - Michelle Obama's support of Beyonce's Black Panthers homage at the Super Bowl (if you are unfamiliar with how destructive the Panthers and the movement associated with it were, you can start here https://devinhelton.com/hate-group-history https://devinhelton.com/hate-group-history ) - The left's strategy of "electing a new people" -- favoring mass immigration from Mexico because it will help push liberal policies. This was stated openly in Paul Krugman's "Conscience of a Liberal" and you see articles all the time about it (for example https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/19/the-nra-will-fall-its-inevitable/?utm_term=.20447ffc0ee3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/19/... ) - The continued scapegoating of "white men" and "structural racism" as being the source of problems for minorities, even when you do a deep dive on the statistics and the situations that is clearly not the problem. - Selective enforcement of the law, going after Republican associated people in groups, such as the John Doe investigations in Wisconsin ( http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisonsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisonsins-shame... ), the IRS going after tea party groups, or the adminsitration trumping up charges against Peter Thiel's Palantir company There are serious issues at stake, and a lot of bad behavior on both sides. The only way a two-party system works, is if when one party wins, it doesn't try to punish people who supported the wrong side.
darkengine 10y ago
Some serious absolutism on display in this piece. Thiel isn't supporting a fringe candidate; most of the polls right now have a difference between Trump and Clinton smaller than the margin of error. To make the claim that a candidate backed by around 50% of the country is deplorable enough that we should completely divest from his supporters, is silly.
mlinsey 10y ago
Trump is uniquely dangerous and I would fully endorse YC cutting ties with prominent supporters/backers of his...if that would do anything concrete to reduce Trump's chances of winning the presidency, by even one epsilon. I don't Thiel doing office hours for YC companies gives him any sort of tactical advantage he could parlay into assisting Donald Trump's campaign, though I'm willing to entertain arguments otherwise. It seems more like the argument is that people would like to disassociate with Trump backers as a matter of basic moral principle; that Trump has made himself such a symbol of hatred, racism, xenophobia etc that organizations should shun working with his supporters to send a message that they don't agree with that hatred, racism, and xenophobia. I think that would be quite a reasonable gesture (and I understand why Ellen is trying to do the same thing here). But so is taking public stances against Trump in other forms, including Sam's post re: trump on the YC blog, and his project voteplz.org, a project which, given the lesser likelihood of Democratic-leaning demographic groups to turn out, will probably do orders of magnitude more damage to Trump than Theil's office hours will help him. I'd like to see more of a focus on what the tech industry can do in the next three weeks to stop Donald Trump from being president, and a little less focus on which companies can prove their moral purity by shunning Trump supporters. And if we're really doing the latter, isn't going after Palantir, Founders Fund's LPs+ portfolio companies a much more logical place to start? I really hope (and I mean this earnestly, not saying it to make an argument) for the sake of the broader cause of diversity in the tech industry that Project Include is not planning to disassociate with all the companies on this page: http://foundersfund.com/portfolio/ http://foundersfund.com/portfolio/
- gist 10y ago
  > I would fully endorse YC cutting ties with prominent supporters/backers of his... But why only prominent? And if not where does this go? Do you now ask anyone who does business in any way shape or form (vendors, employees, YC applicants, the cleaning crew etc.) what their political or personal views are and then cut ties with them as a result? Or is the line arbitrary "we know it when we see it". Kind of like a boycott?
- kansface 10y ago
  > Trump is uniquely dangerous ... Not at all unlike the uniquely dangerous threats of the past - terrorism and communism immediately come to mind. I probably haven't paid enough attention to pick up on the uniquely dangerous threats between McCarthyism and the 1% doctrine. I would advocate restraint, not blacklists.
grandalf 10y ago
This would be fine if HRC supporters were also going to be marginalized for advocating the use of drone warfare, warrantless wiretapping, and all the many deeply troubling things about HRC's policy ideas. While I could never bring myself to vote for Trump or HRC, I am profoundly disappointed that anyone would advocate marginalizing Thiel for simply participating in democracy. Thiel's donation is a a drop in the bucket. His personal endorsement will likely influence few people. But the chilling effect of not having the "right" beliefs will effect many. Shame on Ellen Pao for advocating this sort of illiberal thinking.
- alexbeloi 10y ago
  > drone warfare, warrantless wiretapping I find myself in a position that there are things that I dislike about both nominee's policies (in that they are the same or both suck), and things that I exclusively dislike about Trump's policies but not the other way around. Can you give me some examples to balance the scales?
  - lsh123 10y ago
    Vote 3rd party, really
deleted 10y ago
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sctb 10y ago
> The Nazis and white nationalists that have rallied to him are a lost cause. It's important that we avoid deliberately inflammatory statements like this on controversial issues—they serve only to disrupt already-sensitive threads.
- notJim 10y ago
  Which part is inflammatory? Are you saying white nationalists haven't rallied to him, or that they are not a lost cause?
  - sctb 10y ago
    I apologize for having misread your comment as suggesting that all those who rallied to him were Nazis. It was the use of that word that confused me, because I read it as a judgement rather than identifying a group of currently-living individuals in the US.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  And yet, a significant portion of Trump's current support is just that. Should we simply not talk about that fact for fear of inserting the reality of the controversy into a thread? It strikes me as disingenuous at best to try to silence people in the name of civility, when what they're saying is simply the truth.
- sctb 10y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12727511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12727511 and marked it off-topic.
4ad 10y ago
> Diversity and inclusion are hard, especially in tech. Doing them right means agreeing on values No, it means accepting to disagree on values. Pretty much by definition. > calling out bad behavior So creating needless conflict. > and sometimes firing people If people are too different from you, fire them! Great for diversity! I wish these people would have the guts and sincerity to call their agenda what it really is, because diverse, it is not.
- vsl 10y ago
  Thanks for saying this. As a non-American it's incredibly frustrating for me to keep hearing all this diversity BS talk, yet it's always always only skin-shallow attributes and no diversity in things like opinions or politics is ever tolerated... in the name of diversity. Is this some US thing or are there really so many so obvious hypocrites out there?
siegecraft 10y ago
Diversity and inclusion, but only for those people whose politics we agree with? (A rhetorical question, it's always been that way).
- etjossem 10y ago
  By strongly opposing a candidate that promises to do things like deport all Muslims, absolutely. Some political platforms are inherently non-inclusive and Trump's is one of them.
  - vsl 10y ago
    The irony is rich in this one.
    - etjossem 10y ago
      I am completely morally comfortable with the idea of YC opposing a $1.25 million handout to the candidate of mass deportation. "If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper
funkysquid 10y ago
"donating $1.25 million is a lot more than speech" It's somewhat easy to argue that someone should not face professional repercussions for their support of a candidate. It's harder to argue that they should be able to donate 463x what a typical person might (assuming a generous $2.7k not using Super PACs).
- drivingmenuts 10y ago
  Thiel is a billionaire. If the worst things that Trump and his followers have advocated for come to pass, he most likely won't face any consequences that people of lesser means will.
hedgew 10y ago
This obviously wasn't a hard decision for them. In the article she's doing her best to demonize Thiel and Trump without even trying to empathize. It also reads like she's trying to associate this project with big names like YC and Thiel.. but if I'm reading correctly all "Project Include" has done is "actively invite YC to contribute". The cynic in me says that this is a simple political power play and a marketing trick in one. Nothing to do with actually helping people and society, which would involve understanding and sympathy for all sides; even your political enemies.
bluedino 10y ago
I'm not sure what to think about the fact that someone can be 'blacklisted' in tech because their stance on an issue isn't aligned with the majority of the community, or they have voiced an opinion for or against a political candidate.
551199 10y ago
And people with this kind of thinking are considered to be the good guys? SNL writer Chris Kelly "How bout instead of an “I Voted” sticker, everyone who votes Trump gets to wear a scarlet T for the rest of their lives?"[0] Seriously pause to think that. This fabricated outrage created by media & Clinton campaign of Trump's 'alleged' doings is quite concerning. At the same time there are Wikileaks collusion, media enabled terrorism, GOP, and some shady doings of agitating violence by the Democrats shown in today's leak. None reported by the msn[1] [0]http://archive.is/NiRJ4 http://archive.is/NiRJ4 [1]http://regated.com/2016/10/project-veritas-clinton-camp-corruption/ http://regated.com/2016/10/project-veritas-clinton-camp-corr...
- masklinn 10y ago
  > This fabricated outrage created by media & Clinton campaign of Trump's 'alleged' doings is quite concerning. You mean the serial sexual assault which he basically confessed to multiple times unprompted (bus tape, stern show, …), and to which his only defences are a british lunatic (who "confessed" to being a child pimp for british cabinet members at 17) and that his accusers are too ugly for him to assault? Let us get this straight: you think it's necessary to fabricate outrage over a man who believes the issue in being accused of sexual assault is he's accused of sexually assaulting "uggos"?
  - 551199 10y ago
    You mean the time Clinton campaign needed a way to counter Bill's actual sexual assault victims Trump was hammering them on. Wikileaks: 'Democrats prepared fake Trump "grope under the meeting table" Craigslist employment advertisement in May 2016'[0] [0]https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928
    - masklinn 10y ago
      > You mean the time Clinton campaign needed a way to counter Bill's actual sexual assault victims Trump was hammering them on. 1. Trump was not hammering anything, accusing Hillary for Bill's infidelity has never been a hammer over the 20 years it's been used (in fact it's usually backfired). The strategy was flopping as irrelevant even amongst republicans. Reminder: Bill is not running for president. 2. Kenneth Starr's investigation dropped all of these accusations back when it was trying to find anything to pin on him, none of them were credible, the only thing they got in the end was infidelity in a consensual relationship 3. And Trump's bringing up of Bill was only a flippant attempt to direct people away from his Access Hollywood tape. > Wikileaks: 'Democrats prepared fake Trump "grope under the meeting table" Craigslist employment advertisement in May 2016' https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928 Er… so? That reads like a criticism ad prep: > This will be a microsite Which I guess they ended up not having to run since Trump has been providing the quotes directly.
ummjackson 10y ago
Bravo, 100% behind severing ties with YC until they break ties with bigot Peter Thiel. Bigotry != difference of opinion. It's inciting violence and hatred, which is different and very dangerous.
- vsl 10y ago
  No evidence of Thiel inciting anything. Plenty of inciting of hatred against him on display here, though...
bcheung 10y ago
Thiel is both Libertarian and gay. It's unlikely he is supportive of Trump's / Republican's bigotry, but more an issue of practicality since he doesn't like the alternative. I also find it ironic that something called Project Include is upset because someone is supporting a party that a huge percentage of the country is going to vote for. YC had nothing to do with Thiel's donation and you dissociate from them when there are 2 degrees of separation? That is not inclusion.
- aiig 10y ago
  You're clearly not gay or else you'd recognize that Thiel is self-hating, making his support of Trump's bigotry actually well-motivated.
  - bcheung 10y ago
    Sorry, I must be ignorant of some facts. What am I missing? I haven't seen anything from Thiel that would be lead me to believe he is anti-gay. It seems quite the contrary to me. He even said in his Republican speech that he was gay. What do you mean by self-hating? His choice of the Republican party? There's really only 2 choices so you can't really take that to mean he supports everything from the Republican party.
    - aiig 10y ago
      Right -- it's kind of an intuition that's perhaps uniquely available to a gay person. It's an awareness you develop after talking to enough gay men -- some open and free, some repressed and mean. It becomes apparent that those who are most bitter, most mean, and most vindictive, are those who are actually hurting inside the most. It seems to me that these concepts are totally foreign to the SF tech class, which seems to operate in what is perhaps believed to be a fully rational paradigm. But people aren't really that rational. Peter Thiel very likely had a tough childhood, one that made him particularly sensitive to his sexuality. [E.g., not to go there but his vendetta against Gawker has no other explanation. Modern self-accepting gay men would probably say, "ok yeah um that was low but whatever."] My evidence of him being self-hating is not from his political choices, but it's from everything else. It's from the way he speaks, his profound effort to be contrarian (I went through that phase), his peculiar vendetta against Gawker, and, to go there, his apparent lack of a stable partner. If there ever were a gay bachelor, it would be Peter Thiel -- but something is apparently wrong to make that an impossibility. But in general, you might have to concede that your intuition on these issues is not as well developed here as that of a gay man's, who has seen these issues for many years on a deeply personal level.
aaroninsf 10y ago
Denounce and reject Thiel. Do it now. There should be consequences, no matter who you are. Lines must drawn, and this is the clearest articulation I have seen to date as why Thiel must go.
yanilkr 10y ago
Peter Theil had a long term vision for the world where others failed to see such future. I see similar line of reasoning for Peter Theil's support. 1. If you think that business people can govern better than Politicians or want to achieve an environment where it gets easier and acceptable for business leaders to seek political offices, this is a huge step in that direction. China already took this step of inviting people who succeed in business to participate in governance. If Trump can do it, so can every other business person who thinks they are better than Trump. If Trump wins this, I guarantee you next season its going to be more qualified people running for office and if Trump loses, we still would have made progress in that direction. 2. Peter Theil's support for Trump gave him (gay guy) a platform to speak at a republican convention. This is a huge progress for everyone when republicans are standing up for gay people. It makes it easy for other people to reach out and co-operate with each other. 3. Peter Theil getting into politics allows something like a Y-combinator(not the news site but a complete accelerator) for politics possible otherwise it would just be more lawyers running again and again. Just like YC grooms tech leaders, Theil's expertise into this venture could groom next generation governing leaders. What ever your politics are, this is progress.
- wetmore 10y ago
  I think many people here and elsewhere would strongly disagree with the premise in your first point.
nzjrs 10y ago
I'm not an American. I would rather not miss out on his presence as an investor at Demo day because of this ridiculous culture war your country is in and continues to escalate.
marcoperaza 10y ago
Oh the delicious irony. Let's carry out a purge based on political opinions... in the name of diversity!
- hiringmanager 10y ago
  There's a real blind spot for SJWs to this kind of irony. They keep making these exact kinds of errors, over and over again, for instance advocating sexism or racism but thinking its ok because of the particular sex or race they choose to discriminate against.
- arvinjoar 10y ago
  The humanitarian with the guillotine...
masterponomo 10y ago
Looks like Mr. Thiel will have to content himself with being inclusive on his own, or at least not as part of Ms. Pao's exclusionary inclusion organization. Her post made me think of a quote about "all right-thinking people" that I remembered incorrectly as something from (serious) political science, but it turned out to be from Monty Python. Thus discredited, I will not include it here, but will exclude it. Edit: Oh wait, I see that Orwell had a good statement about right-thinking orthodoxy, and Monty Python did an excellent parody of it. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/499753-at-any-given-moment-there-is-an-orthodoxy-a-body http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/499753-at-any-given-moment-t... http://www.montypython.net/scripts/right-think.php http://www.montypython.net/scripts/right-think.php
392c91e8165b 10y ago
Not only does Pao expect everyone she works with to agree with her on her Important Concern, but also she expects the Important Concern to override all other potential considerations that might go into a person's decision on whom to support. That is a lot to ask for. There are after all only 2 effective choices.
gregpardo 10y ago
I wish more companies would cut ties with Ellen. She's a joke. In summary, "I know we support diversity but not the kind of diversity where you support a candidate I don't like."
ominous 10y ago
I am at a loss. Is this the kind of reasoning that would make someone not read Ender's Game due to the opinions [0] of the writer? [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Views_about_homosexuality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Views_about_h...
dredmorbius 10y ago
"Money doesn't talk, it swears." -- Some Nobel Prize dude.
hsod 10y ago
Project Include is disassociating with YC because YC is associated with Peter Thiel who is associated with Donald Trump who advocates hatred and violence. Are we to draw a principle from this? Is PI arguing that dissociation from those who advocate hatred and violence is not only a moral imperative, but transitive? What about all the CEOs of YC companies? Are they obligated to disassociate? If they don't, are we as customers obligated to dissociate from them? If we don't, are the people in our lives obligated to disassociate from us? As far as I can tell, this post contains no explicit generalizable principle for imperative disassociation. Probably because that's a really hard thing to create. What's easy is taking a strong stand on a hyper-specific situation where the bad guys are caricatures and your target audience already agrees with you. It's just not very interesting.
jpetso 10y ago
Excerpt from the current Hacker News top 30: 2. China's Shenzhou 11 blasts off on space station mission (101 points, 3h ago) 7. Quantum computers: 10-fold boost in stability achieved (63 points, 4h ago) 30. Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions (this thread) (348 points, 2h ago) I recognize that the Hacker News ranking algorithm takes more criteria into account than just current number of points and time posted, but this is an instance where a little extra transparency in the ranking model would help to show that this is not an arbitrary moderated downrank.
- notliketherest 10y ago
  I've noticed this for the past few months. Anything touching the current US election, no matter how engaging, is quickly sent off the front page. I'd guess it'd have to do with a quickly growing "Flame war", either by volume of down votes or flags or both.
- sctb 10y ago
  This thread received a large number of user flags and was also heavily penalized by the software flamewar detector, but we've turned that off. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12729270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12729270.
throwaway274739 10y ago
If you support Donald Trump, you are by definition a supporter of racism, mysogny, rape culture and an opponent of equality, freedom, the very values this country was founded. You are dispicable. You sure as hell have no place in any forward looking organization and if YC does not sever ties with Theil immediately, we really need to start seeing prominent business leaders in the valley and beyond begin distancing themselves from YC.
l34ch 10y ago
Funny how these things pan out, I just came across this the other day and thought it was pretty appropriate. https://youtu.be/SqEo107j-uw?t=32m18s https://youtu.be/SqEo107j-uw?t=32m18s
quonn 10y ago
The right way to do this would have been to simply drop the association with YC and give a minimalistic explanation when somebody would ask. But this would not have served the actual purpose which was to attack Thiel (YC is just collateral damage). This should have been done in some blogs posts, possibly on the personal blogs of the participants of this project.
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450 points by beardicus 10y ago

Kudos to Project Include for making this decision. This sends a clear signal that there is a growing (or at least increasingly vocalized) segment of the tech community that won't stand for a guy like Thiel to be a "captain" of this industry. I believe in the long run, he's holding us back.

liveoneggs 10y ago

It's right there in the article: > Money is power.

unethical_ban 10y ago

What has Project Include, or Ellen Pao, accomplished? What has YC and its funded projects accomplished?

ivraatiems 10y ago
In what way does one accomplishments or lack thereof influence one's ability to take what one sees as an ethical stance on an issue?
huslage 10y ago
I'm not sure how that question is in any way relevant.

Overtonwindow 10y ago

Nope. Not Ellen Pao. In my humble opinion she has zero credibility and I don't think she is a voice for the tech community. I mean at all.

MBCook 10y ago
So just because she says something it's worthless? Did you bother to see if the point she was making made any sense?
- Overtonwindow 10y ago
  If it had been anyone else I would have read with more interest and sincerity. I'm not arguing with her message, I'm stating my opinion, that Ellen Pao has zero credibility in the tech community, and should be just as disregarded as Trump.
  - ivraatiems 10y ago
    That's not a serious argument. People you dislike can be right. Hypocrites can be right. Hell, even Trump is right on some issues. That doesn't mean I like him or will vote for him.
  - etjossem 10y ago
    Speak for yourself, not for the tech community.
jackfrodo 10y ago
This is the kind of knee-jerk dismissal that made me lose respect for the reddit community. What she's saying resonates with a lot of people, especially marginalized ones, and for that reason alone she's worth hearing out.
- supergeek133 10y ago
  The problem is one side of that is ALWAYS marginalized, right? The difference is she's pulling support because it's her side this time.
  - jackfrodo 10y ago
    Is one side always marginalized? Maybe in political matters you could frame it that way, but I don't think that's the case in most tech-related discussions. This is the fairly narrow case of discussing diversity in tech.
    - supergeek133 10y ago
      Yeah, that's fair. I guess I was talking in the context of the political article.
- EdiX 10y ago
  In what way a group of people that has the almost unanimous support of mainstream media, the current government and the (most likely) upcoming government can be called marginalized?

DavidHm 10y ago

What exactly is their relationship with YC? The article is a bit murky. They "invited" YC to contribute, but do not actually say whether YC agreed. Forgive the cynicism, but if it turns out that YC was not contributing in any way to Project Include, this is just empty bluster.

deleted 10y ago
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dfabulich 10y ago

There is clear precedent for YC taking a political stand by uninviting investors. Only five years ago, Paul Graham was willing to uninvite investors from Demo Day based on their support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/paul-graham-sopa-supporting-companies-no-longer-allowed-at-yc-demo-day/ https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/paul-graham-sopa-supportin... Paul asked, "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?" The obvious answer to that question would be, "their track record as investors could demonstrate that." But no, in 2011, if you supported SOPA, you're out, regardless of your track record. I think it's fair to ask whether, if Peter Thiel is so clueless as to donate $1.25 million to Donald Trump today, after so much of his dirty laundry has come to light and after this has been reflected in the polls, how could he be a good investor? If it was the right decision for SOPA, it's right decision today.

ivraatiems 10y ago
I was wondering whether there was precedence for something like this. If there is, then I think YC should distance themselves from Thiel now. I agree with those who say he's a long-term harm to the industry; I do take issue, generally, with dismissing someone over their personal politics, but sometimes those stances create problems in the company that can't be overcome.
- xupybd 10y ago
  I think you're correct that this might be a case of something the business needs to distance themselves from but they shouldn't try to take the moral high ground and at the same time vilify a man for his political views.
  - ivraatiems 10y ago
    I'm not sure how else they would justify it.
    - xupybd 10y ago

Alex3917 10y ago

> His attacks on Black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim, and Jewish people, on women, and on others are more than just political speech; fueled by hate and encouraging violence, they make each of us feel unsafe. Let's assume that not only is Trump a rapist, but that he's keeping a few women tied up in his basement. Even in this scenario, is this worse than Hillary dramatically increasing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two countries where rape is currently legal? Especially since she did this after receiving 25M+ in donations to the Clinton Foundation from Saudi Arabia, and apparently a 1M dollar check from Qatar for Bill's birthday, so it's hard to even argue that it was out of any sort of realpolitik. Similarly, is Trump making overtly racist statements really worse (with respect to race issues) than Hillary voting to invade Iraq even after Scott Ritter and Hans Blix said that they had no weapons of mass destruction? There's no question that Trump's overt sexism and racism is extraordinary problematic. But, as someone who isn't even a Trump supporter/voter, I'm struggling to understand how people find it so much more objectionable than all of the systemic human rights abuses that have already occurred under Hillary. There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Trump, but the idea that he's so much worse for women and minorities seems to be more of a media creation than based in reality. Even if you assume that something imminently bad is going to happen to minorities if Trump is elected, from an ethical and social justice perspective, if bad things are going to happen that are of our own making, it seems like those bad things should be happening to people within the U.S. rather than abroad. I don't mean to in any way make light of what are extremely serious issues, but in my humble opinion the idea that Trump is automatically more racist because he says racist things is complete bullshit. Maybe he is worse, but I think the situation is far more nuanced than the media would have you believe.

sparkling 10y ago
I agree. The key here is: Trump says mean things, Hillary does mean things (and has been doing so for nearly 30 years) Also, the external links in that sentence you quoted are not hard facts. They are up for interpretation. Especially the one about his speech being anti-semitic is nothing but pure nonsense. /edit: downvote me all you want. I'm not even voting for Trump, but the media bias towards Trump is real.
- 10y ago

sparkling 10y ago

> His attacks on Black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim, and Jewish people, on women, and on others are more than just political speech Oh please. What a fucking joke. You might just make [] I voted for Hillary and fully accept the liberal Silicon Valley virtue signalling circlejerking a checkbox on the next YC application.

yanilkr 10y ago

No matter who you are or what you are trying to succeed in tech industry, How about you make news for accomplishments like Peter Theil?

jimsojim 10y ago

I keep getting back to this thought that a lot of what Peter does is to make a point about contrarianism - that is to stay a consistent contrarian (publicly atleast).

natrius 10y ago

Cleaving off 40% of America is not a recipe for progress. When Trump shows his people how they're getting blacklisted from the economy, that isn't going to make them want to riot less. Our culture of progress has become entirely about excluding dissenters until they submit, and it's not working anymore. We've given up on convincing the people who have all the weapons, and now we're going to start hurting them economically. Good luck, y'all.

Overtonwindow 10y ago
Excellent point.
sigmar 10y ago
>When Trump shows his people how they're getting blacklisted from the economy, that isn't going to make them want to riot less. How are they getting blacklisted by the economy? Project Include has the right to choose who they associate with.
- mason240 10y ago
  >Project Include has the right to choose who they associate with. As does anyone else who blacklists.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    That's just nonsensical, and you've defined anything with membership as a "blacklist". What makes a blacklist a blacklist, is the list of "undesirables"; you don't just get to point to any body with membership and define all non-members as "blacklisted".
    - ominous 10y ago
      Why am I blacklisted from using your money? Also, obligatory mention that "blacklist" and "whitelist" are racist terms, and mention of similar spirals of idiocy such as [0] and [1]. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646 [1] - https://github.com/antirez/redis/issues/3185 https://github.com/antirez/redis/issues/3185

vowelless 10y ago

> but we draw a line at individuals who fund violence and hate. (removing video as valid concerns were raised) Although, isn't there evidence that more violence has occurred against trump supporters than anyone else? I am not a supporter by any measure (for one, I'm form the middle east), but I'm trying to understand Paos quote.

ikeboy 10y ago
>Due to his videos of ACORN workers allegedly aiding a couple in criminal planning, the U.S. Congress voted to freeze funds for the non-profit. The national scandal resulted in the non-profit also losing most private funding before investigations were completed. In March 2010, ACORN was close to bankruptcy and had to close most of its offices.[1] Shortly after, the California State Attorney General's Office and the US Government Accountability Office released their related investigative reports. The Attorney General's Office found that O'Keefe had misrepresented the actions of ACORN workers and that the workers had not committed illegal actions. A preliminary probe by the GAO found that ACORN had managed its federal funds appropriately.[2][3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe Let's be a little more skeptical this time around, shall we?
- hindsightbias 10y ago
  Particularly ironic since Thiel provided funding to O'Keefe.
- hiringmanager 10y ago
  The fox, having investigated the crime at the hen house, has determined that no foxes did anything wrong and the allegations that hens were harmed is unsupported.
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ikeboy 10y ago

Tl;dr >We agree that people shouldn’t be fired for their political views, but

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Delmania 10y ago
The problem is that this election is not about a difference of opinions over the fundamental issues. It's become a spite-driven, rage-fueled, all out fear mongering and hate breeding spectacle. Trump's supporters have, in some cases, started talking open revolt if he doesn't win. On Twitter, there was a hashtag of #RepealThe19th, which essentially said they wanted to disenfranchise women in efforts to ensure Trump is supported. This isn't necessarily new from constituents, but at the very least, the candidates have drawn the line. McCain is reported to have told a woman than Obama is good Christian family man with whom he had fundamental policy disagreements. Trump is threatening to throw Hillary in jail, and is attempting to use her husbands (known) indiscretions as ammunition. Campaigns get vicious, but in this case, Trump is actively feeding the hatred and paranoia.
- dubrocks 10y ago
  Yet neither Trump nor his worst supporters represent Peter Thiel. Are Democrat voters represented by Hillary's worst supporters?
- debacle 10y ago
  > It's become a spite-driven, rage-fueled, all out fear mongering and hate breeding spectacle. That happens every time. > Trump's supporters have, in some cases, started talking open revolt if he doesn't win. This also happens every time. > On Twitter, there was a hashtag of #RepealThe19th, which essentially said they wanted to disenfranchise women in efforts to ensure Trump is supported. Eco-terrorists vote too. > Trump is threatening to throw Hillary in jail There's a not-insignificant percentage of the population (potentially a majority) who believe that jail is where she belongs. Being receptive to free speech means being receptive to free speech, full stop. It is a pillar of our country, and regardless of how incendiary you view anyone else, this is a country where the KKK, fundamentalist groups of all flavors, Nazis, etc, are all allowed to exist and that's important.

hood_syntax 10y ago

I am disappointed with Thiel's decision to donate money to Donald Trump, but I don't care what Ellen Pao or her organization thinks about it. It's their prerogative, but I laughed at the tagline 'Sometimes hard decisions aren't that hard after all'. I don't believe an attempt to pressure outside parties into severing business ties with someone because of their questionable political judgement should be treated as if it is some sort of noble crusade e.g. > We have hope for YC;... Today it is clear our values are not aligned. And make no mistake, it's either an attempt to pressure YC or a PR play for the organization (possibly both)

timehastoldme 10y ago
Or it's a stand against a movement which opposes their moral principles. To Pao (and, to the extent that it matters, me), D. Trump's movement is so vile that any prominent supporters of it waive their right to being tolerated. I am sure you'd agree that doing so would be acceptable if Thiel supported Strom Thurmond, Viktor Orban, or Mao Zedong; it's just a matter of how bad D. Trump is.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- hood_syntax 10y ago
  > doing so would be acceptable if Thiel supported... I can concede that point.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  "Strom Thurmond" How about Hillary Clinton's "friend and mentor", a man of "eloquence and nobility" (her actual words) Robert C. Byrd? You know, "KKK Kleagle" Byrd? "Tried to filibuster the 1964 Civil Rights Act" Byrd? "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side. ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." Byrd? Remember him? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryweuBVJMEA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryweuBVJMEA

lhnz 10y ago

How can you distance yourself from Thiel if he has shown no interest in being connected to you? It's never going to be this easy to delegitimise someone when they are widely known as being more credible than yourself. If YC was to pull out it would be a loss for their startups. It should be the founder's choice whether they wish to deprive themselves of Thiel's money or insight to make a political point.

archagon 10y ago

Based on the awful things Trump has said and (apparently) done, it should be blatantly clear to anyone remotely following the election that isn't your usual political rivalry. Pao is right: "this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence." Quite literally at times! (I might give a pass to the people following the party line or acting on incomplete information, but Thiel knows exactly what he's supporting.) And yet, in the previous HN thread on the topic, I see dozens of voices loudly defending the right for Thiel to prop up Trump's demagoguery without consequence. To them, supporting Trump or Clinton is equally bad, even though the things Trump routinely says are downright terrifying[1] and dangerous to the fabric of our country. For the first time in my life, I'm actually expecting to see violence on election day. This fledgeling authoritarian streak within the tech community really disturbs me. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_final_response_to_the_tell_me_why_trump_is_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_f...

ivraatiems 10y ago
It's easy to end up at authoritarianism when you combine access to everyone's information, and an inherent belief in your own superiority and ability to "make the world a better place." The real surprise is that we haven't seen more of it.
maratd 10y ago
> To them, supporting Trump and Clinton are equally bad No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them. A person should not lose their job, their status on a board, their inclusion in an event, etc. based on who they decide to support politically. That's disgusting and people who support that sort of witch hunt should be ashamed of themselves. I vehemently disagree with his choice of who to support during this election, but I find the calls for his head even more repugnant. That sort of intolerance should have no place in a civil society.
- archagon 10y ago
  In a normal political climate I would agree, but I have to ask: is there a line? Is there any line? I think most people could imagine a political affiliation that they would want absolutely no association with. If Trump was a bit more murdery like Duterte, would it be OK to disavow his supporters then?

applecore 10y ago

> Because of [Peter Thiel's] continued connection to YC, we are compelled to break off our relationship with YC. What exactly was the relationship between Project Include and YC prior to this?

fatdog 10y ago

The fool's reproach, it is a kingly title. I like how YC let her feel like it was her decision. Well played.

sparkling 10y ago

tl;dr: i am going to push my hurt feelings onto everybody else Grow up Ellen.

n00b101 10y ago

It may be worth noting that Goldman Sachs recently banned all of its partners from donating to the Trump ticket, as of September 1, 2016. They can still donate to Clinton. [1] NOTE: Technically, they banned contributions "to state and local candidates running for office, as well as state or local officials running for federal office." as of September 1, 2016. Since Mike Pence is a sitting state official, it means that Goldman partners can't contribute to the Trump-Pence ticket. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/07/goldman-sachs-donations-trump-clinton_n_11898982.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/07/goldman-sachs-donati...

xupybd 10y ago

Wow, the world is getting way too fractured between left and right. Reading that, the YC folks make out that Trump is a monster and any affiliation with him is evil. Come on, try to understand why people are supporting him. I don't think it's racism and sexism that's driving this, it's the wedge between left and right. Combine that with the two party system and people find themselves with little choice. When you vilify everyone on the other side there is little chance they'll come over to yours.

jshevek 10y ago
Thank you for posting this. To my view, partisans on both sides are roughly comparable. Some of their manipulative tactics differ in the specifics, but they are both dishonest and both harmful to society.
lsh123 10y ago
Thank you, exactly something I wanted to write.

stronsay 10y ago

I don't get how you can be so cognizant of the problem of misaligned values while at the same time having an unquestionable faith in the value of diversity. How can you avoid cognitive dissonance here, except through a very shallow understanding of diversity that assumes all people or groups of people hold roughly the same values and beliefs and that where they differ, the difference never results in unresolvable incompatibility?

kyrre 10y ago

Has Ellen Pao (and Project Include) spoken out against her husbands alleged Ponzi scheme? His alleged actions seems to be in direct conflict with the values of any wholesome tech company.

braythwayt 10y ago
That's a textbook deflection right there, and also a logical fallacy.
etjossem 10y ago
Not relevant, and carries the same level of validity as "have you stopped beating your wife?"

mmanfrin 10y ago

There are some exceptionally toxic comments below.

InclinedPlane 10y ago
Indeed. This may be the thread that gets me to leave HN for good. It feels like being inside a history book. It would be fascinating if it weren't so unsettling.
- thequickeninger 10y ago
  Yeah like it's the CURRENT YEAR. How can anyone disagree with what i'm thinking in the CURRENT YEAR?? How can anyone disagree with celebrities and politicians in the CURRENT YEAR????!

blfr 10y ago

At Project Include, our mission is to give everyone a fair chance to succeed in the workplace. “Everyone” means all groups to us, but we draw a line at individuals who fund violence and hate. And you denounce... Thiel? Hillary Clinton made material contributions to starting two seemingly random wars in Libya and Syria with hundreds of thousands of victims. That doesn't count as funding violence? What about her supporters which appears to be everyone else.

HaloZero 10y ago
Most sitting presidents and secretary of states in the past 50 years have had to call for violence against other nations. It's part of the role and maybe she's made mistakes. But there's a difference between Secretary of State allowing an airstrike and being a owner of a company inciting others to violence.
- blfr 10y ago
  So she is OK with killing thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands but mean comments are a cause for purges? It's either dishonest or insane. The difference is that one of these doesn't matter.
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    Trump's comments include a promise to commit war crimes (targeting the families of terror suspects).
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  Or, you know, explicitly calling for the commission of war crimes, for the use of torture, for the reintroduction of carpet bombing, and for the directed assassination of the family members of terrorists.

yadongwen 10y ago

> this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence. There are still around 40% people voting for Trump and many donating to him, so you mean they are also advocating hatred and violence? What you believe could be different from others. People can choose different perspectives to see and understand the world. We should encourage different ideas and voices. This post could be downvoted too because I'm supporting and encouraging different voices.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> There are still around 40% people voting for Trump and many donating to him, so you mean they are also advocating hatred and violence? In very many cases, that is quite overtly the case. > What you believe could be different from others. Right. And hatred (racial, misogynistic, and otherwise) and violence are among the areas where those differences can be found within the electorate.
Delmania 10y ago
> There are still around 40% people voting for Trump and many donating to him, so you mean they are also advocating hatred and violence? At this point, I'd have to say yes, given Trump's actions the past few days. His supporters are openly committing sedition[1]. If you don't believe and hatred and violence, and you still support him, I'd have to say that's a case of superior orders. The man is intentionally inciting fear and violence. Encouraging different opinions and voices are fine, but there is a limit. When that voice is actively encouraging harm to others based on unfounded allegations, it makes sense to cut it off, as it is not driving the conversation forward. 1- https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/10/15/donald-trump-warnings-conspiracy-rig-election-are-stoking-anger-among-his-followers/LcCY6e0QOcfH8VdeK9UdsM/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/10/15/donald-...

mootothemax 10y ago

Hang on - Thiel thinks women shouldn't have the right to vote, and has written unambiguously as much? How on earth is that not the argument for dropping him? From another angle, how on earth can you trust someone's advice if they truly and honestly think like that? I'm honestly shocked YC can champion women founders while having someone like this involved as a partner. Just shocking. And so, so disappointing.

yuvadam 10y ago
> 'the extension of the franchise to women has rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron' https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- hiringmanager 10y ago
  He's saying that women tend not to vote libertarian, not that they shouldn't be allowed to vote. Why misrepresent this (as so many have in this page) when we can all follow the link and read for ourselves? More context: " The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron. In the face of these realities, one would despair if one limited one’s horizon to the world of politics. I do not despair because I no longer believe that politics encompasses all possible futures of our world. In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called “social democracy.” So, he literally says he doesn't despair this.
exolymph 10y ago
I dislike Thiel very much and think his politics are utterly wrong, but this: > Thiel thinks women shouldn't have the right to vote, and has written unambiguously as much? Is a vast oversimplification of what he wrote.

CN7R 10y ago

I question the integrity of the author who wrote this article, but if people truly have an issue with Peter Thiel donating to the Republican candidate, then just stop giving him money—blacklist him, not YC. However, that's not going to happen anytime soon. Better than disagreeing with someone spending their money, why don't people collectively donate to the other candidate then? That's not the conclusion the author comes to and hence in my opinion this seems to be a company taking advantage of a situation for free PR.

NicolasAlvarino 10y ago

I would not be surprised if Thiel does not care about Trump's policies or character, but only about ending democracy and reducing the role of goverment, thus making the world "safe of capitalism": https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
- thedifference33 10y ago
  Must we pick apart every word in an idea, ignoring the bigger picture? Is it so hard to think an activist billionaire who has thrown his assets around to influence the world his way (not just the Gawker lawsuit), outside anything resembling a democratic process, isn't interested in continuing to do so for his benefit? I should point out too, to some extent I view YC as 'undemocratic'. A small group of people guiding the world as they see fit with their investments that can have large repercussions in the world is hardly a democratic industry. I don't limit this view JUST to YC, but to how our economy works as a whole. So there's that. The problem I have with your simplified summation is that it's high level, press-release like rhetoric. He's a "conservative donor", to sum up your position. Let's see what the conservative side of the country is up to... The conservative side of the country has been anything but conservative with their policies. Including huge deficit spending, waving away climate change almost entirely, attempting to suspend lynch pin principles of our nation (habeas corpus among others), motions toward tearing down social progress gender/race issues, investing heavily in police state (research Chertoff and his nudey scanners), and attacking labor at every turn (Koch bros heavily financing Walker's union busting machine in Wisconsin), and are by far the more "bomb first, ask questions later" segment. Lump Thiel's self-serving headlines in there from the last couple years and yeah, he's not to be trusted, IMO. There's no way to simplify his motivations as "conservative donor". He's as suspect as the rest.

georgemonck 10y ago

this isn’t a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence. I think some "both-sides-ism" is in order here. From the perspective of the right, the left is also advocating hatred, violence and is also trying to do an end-around to thwart democracy. Consider: - The riots we've had in four different cities, riots that occurred before the facts of the case were even known, and which white people were being specifically targeted for violence -- http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/milwaukee-protests-asian-american-black-lives-matter-214184 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/milwaukee-pro... - Michelle Obama's support of Beyonce's Black Panthers homage at the Super Bowl (if you are unfamiliar with how destructive the Panthers and the movement associated with it were, you can start here https://devinhelton.com/hate-group-history https://devinhelton.com/hate-group-history ) - The left's strategy of "electing a new people" -- favoring mass immigration from Mexico because it will help push liberal policies. This was stated openly in Paul Krugman's "Conscience of a Liberal" and you see articles all the time about it (for example https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/19/the-nra-will-fall-its-inevitable/?utm_term=.20447ffc0ee3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/19/... ) - The continued scapegoating of "white men" and "structural racism" as being the source of problems for minorities, even when you do a deep dive on the statistics and the situations that is clearly not the problem. - Selective enforcement of the law, going after Republican associated people in groups, such as the John Doe investigations in Wisconsin ( http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisonsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisonsins-shame... ), the IRS going after tea party groups, or the adminsitration trumping up charges against Peter Thiel's Palantir company There are serious issues at stake, and a lot of bad behavior on both sides. The only way a two-party system works, is if when one party wins, it doesn't try to punish people who supported the wrong side.

darkengine 10y ago

Some serious absolutism on display in this piece. Thiel isn't supporting a fringe candidate; most of the polls right now have a difference between Trump and Clinton smaller than the margin of error. To make the claim that a candidate backed by around 50% of the country is deplorable enough that we should completely divest from his supporters, is silly.

mlinsey 10y ago

Trump is uniquely dangerous and I would fully endorse YC cutting ties with prominent supporters/backers of his...if that would do anything concrete to reduce Trump's chances of winning the presidency, by even one epsilon. I don't Thiel doing office hours for YC companies gives him any sort of tactical advantage he could parlay into assisting Donald Trump's campaign, though I'm willing to entertain arguments otherwise. It seems more like the argument is that people would like to disassociate with Trump backers as a matter of basic moral principle; that Trump has made himself such a symbol of hatred, racism, xenophobia etc that organizations should shun working with his supporters to send a message that they don't agree with that hatred, racism, and xenophobia. I think that would be quite a reasonable gesture (and I understand why Ellen is trying to do the same thing here). But so is taking public stances against Trump in other forms, including Sam's post re: trump on the YC blog, and his project voteplz.org, a project which, given the lesser likelihood of Democratic-leaning demographic groups to turn out, will probably do orders of magnitude more damage to Trump than Theil's office hours will help him. I'd like to see more of a focus on what the tech industry can do in the next three weeks to stop Donald Trump from being president, and a little less focus on which companies can prove their moral purity by shunning Trump supporters. And if we're really doing the latter, isn't going after Palantir, Founders Fund's LPs+ portfolio companies a much more logical place to start? I really hope (and I mean this earnestly, not saying it to make an argument) for the sake of the broader cause of diversity in the tech industry that Project Include is not planning to disassociate with all the companies on this page: http://foundersfund.com/portfolio/ http://foundersfund.com/portfolio/

gist 10y ago
> I would fully endorse YC cutting ties with prominent supporters/backers of his... But why only prominent? And if not where does this go? Do you now ask anyone who does business in any way shape or form (vendors, employees, YC applicants, the cleaning crew etc.) what their political or personal views are and then cut ties with them as a result? Or is the line arbitrary "we know it when we see it". Kind of like a boycott?
kansface 10y ago
> Trump is uniquely dangerous ... Not at all unlike the uniquely dangerous threats of the past - terrorism and communism immediately come to mind. I probably haven't paid enough attention to pick up on the uniquely dangerous threats between McCarthyism and the 1% doctrine. I would advocate restraint, not blacklists.

grandalf 10y ago

This would be fine if HRC supporters were also going to be marginalized for advocating the use of drone warfare, warrantless wiretapping, and all the many deeply troubling things about HRC's policy ideas. While I could never bring myself to vote for Trump or HRC, I am profoundly disappointed that anyone would advocate marginalizing Thiel for simply participating in democracy. Thiel's donation is a a drop in the bucket. His personal endorsement will likely influence few people. But the chilling effect of not having the "right" beliefs will effect many. Shame on Ellen Pao for advocating this sort of illiberal thinking.

alexbeloi 10y ago
> drone warfare, warrantless wiretapping I find myself in a position that there are things that I dislike about both nominee's policies (in that they are the same or both suck), and things that I exclusively dislike about Trump's policies but not the other way around. Can you give me some examples to balance the scales?
- lsh123 10y ago
  Vote 3rd party, really

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

sctb 10y ago

> The Nazis and white nationalists that have rallied to him are a lost cause. It's important that we avoid deliberately inflammatory statements like this on controversial issues—they serve only to disrupt already-sensitive threads.

notJim 10y ago
Which part is inflammatory? Are you saying white nationalists haven't rallied to him, or that they are not a lost cause?
- sctb 10y ago
  I apologize for having misread your comment as suggesting that all those who rallied to him were Nazis. It was the use of that word that confused me, because I read it as a judgement rather than identifying a group of currently-living individuals in the US.
M_Grey 10y ago
And yet, a significant portion of Trump's current support is just that. Should we simply not talk about that fact for fear of inserting the reality of the controversy into a thread? It strikes me as disingenuous at best to try to silence people in the name of civility, when what they're saying is simply the truth.
sctb 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12727511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12727511 and marked it off-topic.

4ad 10y ago

> Diversity and inclusion are hard, especially in tech. Doing them right means agreeing on values No, it means accepting to disagree on values. Pretty much by definition. > calling out bad behavior So creating needless conflict. > and sometimes firing people If people are too different from you, fire them! Great for diversity! I wish these people would have the guts and sincerity to call their agenda what it really is, because diverse, it is not.

vsl 10y ago
Thanks for saying this. As a non-American it's incredibly frustrating for me to keep hearing all this diversity BS talk, yet it's always always only skin-shallow attributes and no diversity in things like opinions or politics is ever tolerated... in the name of diversity. Is this some US thing or are there really so many so obvious hypocrites out there?

siegecraft 10y ago

Diversity and inclusion, but only for those people whose politics we agree with? (A rhetorical question, it's always been that way).

etjossem 10y ago
By strongly opposing a candidate that promises to do things like deport all Muslims, absolutely. Some political platforms are inherently non-inclusive and Trump's is one of them.
- vsl 10y ago
  The irony is rich in this one.
  - etjossem 10y ago
    I am completely morally comfortable with the idea of YC opposing a $1.25 million handout to the candidate of mass deportation. "If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper

funkysquid 10y ago

"donating $1.25 million is a lot more than speech" It's somewhat easy to argue that someone should not face professional repercussions for their support of a candidate. It's harder to argue that they should be able to donate 463x what a typical person might (assuming a generous $2.7k not using Super PACs).

drivingmenuts 10y ago
Thiel is a billionaire. If the worst things that Trump and his followers have advocated for come to pass, he most likely won't face any consequences that people of lesser means will.

hedgew 10y ago

This obviously wasn't a hard decision for them. In the article she's doing her best to demonize Thiel and Trump without even trying to empathize. It also reads like she's trying to associate this project with big names like YC and Thiel.. but if I'm reading correctly all "Project Include" has done is "actively invite YC to contribute". The cynic in me says that this is a simple political power play and a marketing trick in one. Nothing to do with actually helping people and society, which would involve understanding and sympathy for all sides; even your political enemies.

bluedino 10y ago

I'm not sure what to think about the fact that someone can be 'blacklisted' in tech because their stance on an issue isn't aligned with the majority of the community, or they have voiced an opinion for or against a political candidate.

551199 10y ago

And people with this kind of thinking are considered to be the good guys? SNL writer Chris Kelly "How bout instead of an “I Voted” sticker, everyone who votes Trump gets to wear a scarlet T for the rest of their lives?"[0] Seriously pause to think that. This fabricated outrage created by media & Clinton campaign of Trump's 'alleged' doings is quite concerning. At the same time there are Wikileaks collusion, media enabled terrorism, GOP, and some shady doings of agitating violence by the Democrats shown in today's leak. None reported by the msn[1] [0]http://archive.is/NiRJ4 http://archive.is/NiRJ4 [1]http://regated.com/2016/10/project-veritas-clinton-camp-corruption/ http://regated.com/2016/10/project-veritas-clinton-camp-corr...

masklinn 10y ago
> This fabricated outrage created by media & Clinton campaign of Trump's 'alleged' doings is quite concerning. You mean the serial sexual assault which he basically confessed to multiple times unprompted (bus tape, stern show, …), and to which his only defences are a british lunatic (who "confessed" to being a child pimp for british cabinet members at 17) and that his accusers are too ugly for him to assault? Let us get this straight: you think it's necessary to fabricate outrage over a man who believes the issue in being accused of sexual assault is he's accused of sexually assaulting "uggos"?
- 551199 10y ago
  You mean the time Clinton campaign needed a way to counter Bill's actual sexual assault victims Trump was hammering them on. Wikileaks: 'Democrats prepared fake Trump "grope under the meeting table" Craigslist employment advertisement in May 2016'[0] [0]https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928
  - masklinn 10y ago
    > You mean the time Clinton campaign needed a way to counter Bill's actual sexual assault victims Trump was hammering them on. 1. Trump was not hammering anything, accusing Hillary for Bill's infidelity has never been a hammer over the 20 years it's been used (in fact it's usually backfired). The strategy was flopping as irrelevant even amongst republicans. Reminder: Bill is not running for president. 2. Kenneth Starr's investigation dropped all of these accusations back when it was trying to find anything to pin on him, none of them were credible, the only thing they got in the end was infidelity in a consensual relationship 3. And Trump's bringing up of Bill was only a flippant attempt to direct people away from his Access Hollywood tape. > Wikileaks: 'Democrats prepared fake Trump "grope under the meeting table" Craigslist employment advertisement in May 2016' https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928 Er… so? That reads like a criticism ad prep: > This will be a microsite Which I guess they ended up not having to run since Trump has been providing the quotes directly.

ummjackson 10y ago

Bravo, 100% behind severing ties with YC until they break ties with bigot Peter Thiel. Bigotry != difference of opinion. It's inciting violence and hatred, which is different and very dangerous.

vsl 10y ago
No evidence of Thiel inciting anything. Plenty of inciting of hatred against him on display here, though...

bcheung 10y ago

Thiel is both Libertarian and gay. It's unlikely he is supportive of Trump's / Republican's bigotry, but more an issue of practicality since he doesn't like the alternative. I also find it ironic that something called Project Include is upset because someone is supporting a party that a huge percentage of the country is going to vote for. YC had nothing to do with Thiel's donation and you dissociate from them when there are 2 degrees of separation? That is not inclusion.

aiig 10y ago
You're clearly not gay or else you'd recognize that Thiel is self-hating, making his support of Trump's bigotry actually well-motivated.
- bcheung 10y ago
  Sorry, I must be ignorant of some facts. What am I missing? I haven't seen anything from Thiel that would be lead me to believe he is anti-gay. It seems quite the contrary to me. He even said in his Republican speech that he was gay. What do you mean by self-hating? His choice of the Republican party? There's really only 2 choices so you can't really take that to mean he supports everything from the Republican party.
  - aiig 10y ago
    Right -- it's kind of an intuition that's perhaps uniquely available to a gay person. It's an awareness you develop after talking to enough gay men -- some open and free, some repressed and mean. It becomes apparent that those who are most bitter, most mean, and most vindictive, are those who are actually hurting inside the most. It seems to me that these concepts are totally foreign to the SF tech class, which seems to operate in what is perhaps believed to be a fully rational paradigm. But people aren't really that rational. Peter Thiel very likely had a tough childhood, one that made him particularly sensitive to his sexuality. [E.g., not to go there but his vendetta against Gawker has no other explanation. Modern self-accepting gay men would probably say, "ok yeah um that was low but whatever."] My evidence of him being self-hating is not from his political choices, but it's from everything else. It's from the way he speaks, his profound effort to be contrarian (I went through that phase), his peculiar vendetta against Gawker, and, to go there, his apparent lack of a stable partner. If there ever were a gay bachelor, it would be Peter Thiel -- but something is apparently wrong to make that an impossibility. But in general, you might have to concede that your intuition on these issues is not as well developed here as that of a gay man's, who has seen these issues for many years on a deeply personal level.

aaroninsf 10y ago

Denounce and reject Thiel. Do it now. There should be consequences, no matter who you are. Lines must drawn, and this is the clearest articulation I have seen to date as why Thiel must go.

yanilkr 10y ago

Peter Theil had a long term vision for the world where others failed to see such future. I see similar line of reasoning for Peter Theil's support. 1. If you think that business people can govern better than Politicians or want to achieve an environment where it gets easier and acceptable for business leaders to seek political offices, this is a huge step in that direction. China already took this step of inviting people who succeed in business to participate in governance. If Trump can do it, so can every other business person who thinks they are better than Trump. If Trump wins this, I guarantee you next season its going to be more qualified people running for office and if Trump loses, we still would have made progress in that direction. 2. Peter Theil's support for Trump gave him (gay guy) a platform to speak at a republican convention. This is a huge progress for everyone when republicans are standing up for gay people. It makes it easy for other people to reach out and co-operate with each other. 3. Peter Theil getting into politics allows something like a Y-combinator(not the news site but a complete accelerator) for politics possible otherwise it would just be more lawyers running again and again. Just like YC grooms tech leaders, Theil's expertise into this venture could groom next generation governing leaders. What ever your politics are, this is progress.

wetmore 10y ago
I think many people here and elsewhere would strongly disagree with the premise in your first point.

nzjrs 10y ago

I'm not an American. I would rather not miss out on his presence as an investor at Demo day because of this ridiculous culture war your country is in and continues to escalate.

marcoperaza 10y ago

Oh the delicious irony. Let's carry out a purge based on political opinions... in the name of diversity!

hiringmanager 10y ago
There's a real blind spot for SJWs to this kind of irony. They keep making these exact kinds of errors, over and over again, for instance advocating sexism or racism but thinking its ok because of the particular sex or race they choose to discriminate against.
arvinjoar 10y ago
The humanitarian with the guillotine...

masterponomo 10y ago

Looks like Mr. Thiel will have to content himself with being inclusive on his own, or at least not as part of Ms. Pao's exclusionary inclusion organization. Her post made me think of a quote about "all right-thinking people" that I remembered incorrectly as something from (serious) political science, but it turned out to be from Monty Python. Thus discredited, I will not include it here, but will exclude it. Edit: Oh wait, I see that Orwell had a good statement about right-thinking orthodoxy, and Monty Python did an excellent parody of it. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/499753-at-any-given-moment-there-is-an-orthodoxy-a-body http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/499753-at-any-given-moment-t... http://www.montypython.net/scripts/right-think.php http://www.montypython.net/scripts/right-think.php

392c91e8165b 10y ago

Not only does Pao expect everyone she works with to agree with her on her Important Concern, but also she expects the Important Concern to override all other potential considerations that might go into a person's decision on whom to support. That is a lot to ask for. There are after all only 2 effective choices.

gregpardo 10y ago

I wish more companies would cut ties with Ellen. She's a joke. In summary, "I know we support diversity but not the kind of diversity where you support a candidate I don't like."

ominous 10y ago

I am at a loss. Is this the kind of reasoning that would make someone not read Ender's Game due to the opinions [0] of the writer? [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Views_about_homosexuality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Views_about_h...

dredmorbius 10y ago

"Money doesn't talk, it swears." -- Some Nobel Prize dude.

hsod 10y ago

Project Include is disassociating with YC because YC is associated with Peter Thiel who is associated with Donald Trump who advocates hatred and violence. Are we to draw a principle from this? Is PI arguing that dissociation from those who advocate hatred and violence is not only a moral imperative, but transitive? What about all the CEOs of YC companies? Are they obligated to disassociate? If they don't, are we as customers obligated to dissociate from them? If we don't, are the people in our lives obligated to disassociate from us? As far as I can tell, this post contains no explicit generalizable principle for imperative disassociation. Probably because that's a really hard thing to create. What's easy is taking a strong stand on a hyper-specific situation where the bad guys are caricatures and your target audience already agrees with you. It's just not very interesting.

jpetso 10y ago

Excerpt from the current Hacker News top 30: 2. China's Shenzhou 11 blasts off on space station mission (101 points, 3h ago) 7. Quantum computers: 10-fold boost in stability achieved (63 points, 4h ago) 30. Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions (this thread) (348 points, 2h ago) I recognize that the Hacker News ranking algorithm takes more criteria into account than just current number of points and time posted, but this is an instance where a little extra transparency in the ranking model would help to show that this is not an arbitrary moderated downrank.

notliketherest 10y ago
I've noticed this for the past few months. Anything touching the current US election, no matter how engaging, is quickly sent off the front page. I'd guess it'd have to do with a quickly growing "Flame war", either by volume of down votes or flags or both.
sctb 10y ago
This thread received a large number of user flags and was also heavily penalized by the software flamewar detector, but we've turned that off. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12729270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12729270.

throwaway274739 10y ago

If you support Donald Trump, you are by definition a supporter of racism, mysogny, rape culture and an opponent of equality, freedom, the very values this country was founded. You are dispicable. You sure as hell have no place in any forward looking organization and if YC does not sever ties with Theil immediately, we really need to start seeing prominent business leaders in the valley and beyond begin distancing themselves from YC.

l34ch 10y ago

Funny how these things pan out, I just came across this the other day and thought it was pretty appropriate. https://youtu.be/SqEo107j-uw?t=32m18s https://youtu.be/SqEo107j-uw?t=32m18s

quonn 10y ago

The right way to do this would have been to simply drop the association with YC and give a minimalistic explanation when somebody would ask. But this would not have served the actual purpose which was to attack Thiel (YC is just collateral damage). This should have been done in some blogs posts, possibly on the personal blogs of the participants of this project.

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