4 ms·

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 Tr

by 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.

by mlinsey 10y ago

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.