7 ms·

Include cuts off Y Combinator because Peter Thiel is a part-time investor there

60 points by satai 10y ago

zitterbewegung 10y ago
Is this a PR stunt by Include? I read ycombinator religiously and I have never heard of this organization?
- codezero 10y ago
  That's too bad. I heard about it quite a while ago. I assume that projects like this just don't get much traction on HN. It was posted to HN 167 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=projectinclude.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=projectinclude.org
- asgardiator 10y ago
  Transparently. Pao ruined Reddit, now she clings to identity politics as her only way out of infamy. Little does she realize how deep she's digging.
  - bhc 10y ago
    >Pao ruined Reddit How?
    - wang_li 10y ago
      By being bad at her job as CEO through having no idea what redditors wanted of the site and by trying to force particular cultural norms. Was reddit ruined? About as much as anything so abstract that it can reinvent itself, back peddle, and change direction at a board meetings notice can be ruined.
      - mwfunk 10y ago
        Again, how?
        velodrome 10y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Pao#Exit_from_Reddit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Pao#Exit_from_Reddit
- gscott 10y ago
  I have just heard of Project Include right now but they just dis-included themselves. Logical thinking would have them ask themselves if in 10 years doing this has a positive or negative impact. I believe that they just made themselves irrelevant for some notoriety.
mc32 10y ago
I get it and obviously it goes without saying that's their prerogative. But it's a little but like not viewing Cosby any more or not listening to Wagner, or not reading Mein Kampf or Das Capital because of what they represent or forgoing drugs because they were developed by [think of something very reprehensible]. Or someone not being friends with me because I don't believe in religion (and therefore deny their belief system). As far as I know, while mr Trump has vilified illegal immigrants, and I may be mistaken, I don't think he wants to curtail legal immigration (with exception of immigrants from volatile places) but I constantly hear that he's against (all) immigration --I believe he's against a _kind_ of immigration, but not all. It's not like Germany or Sweden or Russia or South Africa just let everyone in. They also have policies, except they exclude people in nicer language. To add: I didn't think it would even be necessary for Sam to have to say that Peter would stay with YC. I thought it was overly cautious to do so. But this business is ridiculous. I mean people are seriously wanting to hunt people down over political views... Look, if Trump were to win (or Hillary) it means that more people than not voted them into office and therefore they have the backing of a large constituency. So, we're not just saying the candidate is objectionable but the people (and there are lots on both sides) who are wholly objectionable and irredeemable. Which means our country has gone to the can.
- plandis 10y ago
  Well it depends on what version you believe. I think that first he wanted to ban Muslims, then Muslims from certain places, and then just people from certain places. I really think he actually wants to ban Muslims but he had to walk back a bit from that stance to appease people.
  - mc32 10y ago
    If you were to ask me to divine what he thinks, I think he's areligious and could not care less --but he believes people will kneejerk against a stereotype. I think it's a calculated risk on his part, an unfortunate one. Still, I think he knows enough of them to know many he deals with have more in common with him than he does with Joe the Plummer but Joe and Jill the Plummers are his voters.
koolba 10y ago
I have no clue what "Project Include" is or does, but things like make me want to know even less. It seems like the only hate being advocated is toward people with differing political views. Heck it's getting to the point that an institution that doesn't go out of its way to join the public shame game will probably themselves get shamed!
- internaut 10y ago
  > Heck it's getting to the point that an institution that doesn't go out of its way to join the public shame game will probably themselves get shamed! That is how most totalitarian societies punish their dissenters. Scott Alexander explains it well: "No One Expects The Spanish Inquisition, Especially Not In 21st Century America People in ancient societies thought their societies were obviously great. The imperial Chinese thought nothing could beat imperial China, the medieval Spaniards thought medieval Spain was a singularly impressive example of perfection, and Communist Soviets were pretty big on Soviet Communism. Meanwhile, we think 21st-century Western civilization, with its democracy, secularism, and ethnic tolerance is pretty neat. Since the first three examples now seem laughably wrong, we should be suspicious of the hypothesis that we finally live in the one era whose claim to have gotten political philosophy right is totally justified. But it seems like we have an advantage they don’t. Speak out against the Chinese Empire and you lose your head. Speak out against the King of Spain and you face the Inquisition. Speak out against Comrade Stalin and you get sent to Siberia. The great thing about western liberal democracy is that it has a free marketplace of ideas. Everybody criticizes some aspect of our society. Noam Chomsky made a career of criticizing our society and became rich and famous and got a cushy professorship. So our advantage is that we admit our society’s imperfections, reward those who point them out, and so keep inching closer and closer to this ideal of perfect government. Okay, back up. Suppose you went back to Stalinist Russia and you said “You know, people just don’t respect Comrade Stalin enough. There isn’t enough Stalinism in this country! I say we need two Stalins! No, fifty Stalins!” Congratulations. You have found a way to criticize the government in Stalinist Russia and totally get away with it. Who knows, you might even get that cushy professorship. If you “criticize” society by telling it to keep doing exactly what it’s doing only much much more so, society recognizes you as an ally and rewards you for being a “bold iconoclast” or “having brave and revolutionary new ideas” or whatever. It’s only when you tell them something they actually don’t want to hear that you get in trouble. Western society has been moving gradually further to the left for the past several hundred years at least. It went from divine right of kings to constutitional monarchy to libertarian democracy to federal democracy to New Deal democracy through the civil rights movement to social democracy to ???. If you catch up to society as it’s pushing leftward and say “Hey guys, I think we should go leftward even faster! Two times faster! No, fifty times faster!”, society will call you a bold revolutionary iconoclast and give you a professorship. If you start suggesting maybe it should switch directions and move the direction opposite the one the engine is pointed, then you might have a bad time. Try it. Mention that you think we should undo something that’s been done over the past century or two. Maybe reverse women’s right to vote. Go back to sterilizing the disabled and feeble-minded. If you really need convincing, suggest re-implementing segregation, or how about slavery? See how far freedom of speech gets you. In America, it will get you fired from your job and ostracized by nearly everyone. Depending on how loudly you do it, people may picket your house, or throw things at you, or commit violence against you which is then excused by the judiciary because obviously they were provoked. Despite the iconic image of the dissident sent to Siberia, this is how the Soviets dealt with most of their iconoclasts too."
NhanH 10y ago
I did a quick search, turn out Include might not just be a fringe organization (ie. this isn't a lame attempt at PR). > "Project Include is an open community working toward providing meaningful diversity and inclusion solutions for tech companies... focusing our efforts on CEOs and management of early to mid-stage tech startups" Post by one of the founder Ellen Pao (of Reddit fame): https://medium.com/projectinclude/peter-thiel-yc-and-hard-decisions-2b91bab83764 https://medium.com/projectinclude/peter-thiel-yc-and-hard-de... As a side note: I chuckled when going through the team list here: http://projectinclude.org/team http://projectinclude.org/team .
- hendzen 10y ago
  Why did you chuckle?
  - NhanH 10y ago
    There are roughly 50% male in the world. It's a diversity project. I'm not making a judgement, but it does feel a slight sense of irony seeing the listing on that page.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Because they're only inclusive of women.
  - barnassey 10y ago
    Due to the fact that most of the team of project include is white. Same as any org that describes itself as inclusive.
    - lifeformed 10y ago
      I only count 2 white people?
      - quirkafleeg 10y ago
        You had the advantage of actually bothering to look at the team before passing comment on it though.
Canada 10y ago
s/Include/Exclude/g
ipatriot 10y ago
I am 100% in favor of Sam Altman's decision for the following reasons: 1. Trump is offensive, racist, sexist and a terrible human being all around. I am Mexican, and I hate his guts and everything about him. However, I believe in what Voltaire once smartly said "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I do not agree at all with Peter Thiel's decision to support Trump in the RNC or with money, but I defend his right to express himself. 2. Sam Altman and Paul Graham have done a lot to defeat Trump and elect Hillary as president. One of their part time partners supports Trump, that is not indicative of YC's political view. 3. Peter Thiel is a business man, and investor therefore that is what I focus on, his book which is fantastic and his work on facebook, can't judge him unfairly on everything, just because he supports Trump. He has a brilliant business mind and that is why he is a part time partner at YC and that is in the arena he should be judged. I am strongly in favor of free speech. Peter should be scrutinized and debated, not fired. Sam Altman does not deserve any nonsense because of this.
- hyperbovine 10y ago
  I agree with you, that is the defense Sam Altman ought to have mounted, to the extent he owed anyone an explanation in the first place. Instead, he is paraphrased as having delivered this head-scratcher: "Y Combinator president Sam Altman says that he is wary of terminating the group's association with someone merely for supporting one of the two major parties' presidential candidates, and he says that Thiel has endorsed Trump, but has not explicitly endorsed Trump's racist or sexist point of view -- a narrow distinction." Sam Altman appears to agree with many republican members of congress that you can endorse someone with endorsing their views. Which, I'm sorry, is just a totally bogus and lawyerly excuse whose only function is to explain away bad behavior.
  - geofft 10y ago
    Yeah. Free speech is one thing, but actively supporting ridiculous viewpoints is another thing entirely, and can't be defended in the name of supporting free speech. Specifically, this is how Trump became a major party candidate. He was a media personality who waded into a made-up political controversy (the whole birther thing). There wasn't a shred of evidence for one side of that discussion, yet people insisted on giving that side a "fair" hearing. Then he became a fringe candidate, and nobody wanted to call him out on his idiocy and fascism, because hey, free speech. Then he became a major party candidate, and you can't break your association with supporters of a major party candidate. Then he says Obama was obviously born in the US but he was happy to have caused the conversation. Of course he was happy to have caused the conversation! It gave him a legitimacy he never should have had in the first place, and he just played that game repeatedly. Peter Thiel will have plenty of millions to donate to Trump whether or not he's a YC partner. His right to speech (verbal, written, or monetary) is in no danger. But the speech question here is whether YC will continue saying that support of Trump is a reasonable position. And if they continue saying so, it will be hypocritical (although one is free to say as many hypocritical things as one wishes) to regret his presidency.
asgardiator 10y ago
Pao can tolerate anyone... except people she deems intolerable. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything... "Project Include" is evocative of "Ministry of Truth": a name crafted to narrate reality. I'm consistently amused by how little self-awareness identity politicians exhibit.
- mherdeg 10y ago
  Yeah, I found that blog post really thought provoking. I think the core idea was that "it is a virtue to tolerate the outgroup" often means, in American middle-class culture, "if you are on Team Republican, do not stop associating with members of Team Democrat, no matter how much your friends and media tell you all those people are evil idiots" and vice versa. This is an interesting normative take on what you might call the "filter bubble moral panic" of the 2000s, a growing fear that people who don't agree with each other are experiencing totally separate and disconnected realities. The thing everyone's afraid of seems to be that in this new world, democracy will effectively become impossible because the ruling majority party will always be ignorant of (or totally unsympathetic to) the interests of the minority. Is the risk overblown? I dunno; how actually bad is a government shutdown, a half-year delay in Zika containment funding, etc.? Hard to say if these times are really worse and if "ignoring the other team" is really to blame. Some other content in this vein that was interesting reading: * The Shadow University -- a 1999 nonfiction book of essays about how, at American universities, concepts like "academic freedom" and "the marketplace of ideas" have entered a tension with other concepts (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060977728 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060977728) * The Five Geek Social Fallacies -- a 2003 essay influential among some software-as-a-lifestyle people I know, which argues most memorably that is is a popular fallacy to believe "ostracizers are evil", http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html
harry8 10y ago
I'd be happy to defend Theil's right to say what he likes. Happy just as long as I don't have to have anything whatever to do with him. Just sayin'
InYan 10y ago
And here these politics! I'm sick of this sh*t...
BinaryIdiot 10y ago
I don't understand this culture. So people hate Trump, that's not a shocker. But many would have taken Thiel's advice without a problem a few weeks / months ago. Now, because he wants to donate to a candidate many find reprehensible, it's time to throw away the person Peter Thiel? Can he no longer give good startup advice because he supports Trump today? Is he no longer "redeem-able" to the point where we need to ruin him and whatever he's a part of? Hate Trump all you want. But if you're going to pretend you're inclusive don't go around throwing people away because you don't like their views. That makes you an exclusive organization. Learn from those who do not share the same opinions. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that" - Martin Luther King Jr
- fatbird 10y ago
  Nothing about a general commitment to being inclusive requires one to be uncritically inclusive, or to treat tolerance as some kind of macho posturing where you demonstrate that you're welcoming of the most obnoxious other you can find. But the make sure that the hidden premise is fleshed out: groups promoting inclusivity are promoting inclusivity for groups considered less powerful, less included, less accepted than is the norm. It's about elevating those who need it. Peter Thiel isn't powerless and doesn't need help getting what he wants.
- solipsism 10y ago
  It's pretty funny you post an MLKJr quote. Have you never heard of the Montgomery Bus Boycott? The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest.
- narrator 10y ago
  Thiel has enough money that people will politely make excuses for him because they need his money. Left, right or Trump, it's all about the money folks. The money people pick people with the right ideology to run things and it all trickles down though the company culture. Everyone would change what they believed in 5 minutes if it came down from on high and their job was on the line. Heck, most people are living paycheck to paycheck and very close to living out of their car. They'll jump and down like a chicken to keep their job if need be.
khrm 10y ago
What's normal view of people about Brendan_Eich? Should he have been removed? 1. If you believe, he should have been. Then Peter Thiel should also be removed. 2. If you believe he shouldn't have been, then Peter Thiel can stay. I have included this test to just weed out hypocritical thinking.
- wang_li 10y ago
  It's not a very good test, Eich and Thiel are more or less on the same hemisphere of the political globe.
- matt4077 10y ago
  I'd say yes and yes. But it's less obvious with Eich. You need to balance two ideas: everyone's (legal) speech should not just be protected from government intrusion but also from certain threads by private institutions/people. The "certain" above is the problem, because it's hard to define: you cannot and must not isolate people from all consequences of their speech. Sometimes those consequences even come in the form of speech themselves (or something the Supremes would consider "speech"). I must have the right not to invite my mother-in-law to christmas when I just don't want to listen to her racist rants again all night. On the other hand, there are some disproportional reaction that could create a problem for democracy. Lets say the top three mobile provides colluded to deny doing business with anyone donating to the green party. That's dangerous because those donations are probably not important enough for the individuals to stop using a phone, yet collectively they're enormously important for that democracy-thing we have going. Similarly with employment: it cannot be right to fire a regular employee for their private opinions, as long as the employee does everything reasonable to keep them from interfering with life at the office. Eich and Thiel are different in that their employment isn't quite as "regular". Firstly, "firing" is a lesser threat to them, because they have above-average chances of getting a different job (Eich), or the financial impact would be insignificant (Thiel). Secondly, their position in leadership makes their private actions more relevant to their businesses.
gozur88 10y ago
Is Project Include a business or political organization? It's hard to tell from their web site.
loso 10y ago
I don't get why people are up in arms in here. It's YC prerogative to keep working with Thiel, it's project Include prerogative to cut them off because of it. I always believe in voting with your dollar. If something bothers you bad enough, don't attend, purchase, or anything else that you feel will support the company/person. Trump is my personal line in the sand. Not the Republican party but Trump in particular. But I will only pull back my dollars if a company is actively publicly supporting him. As long as you are voting with your dollar and not trying to get someone banned by the government or put in jail then I say have it. Why be uncomfortable in what your dollars are being used to support?
- fatbird 10y ago
  As I get older, I care less about arguing on the Internet or organizing boycotts or pressure groups. I feel like the only meaningful act I can make is to vote with my feet or my wallet. So, Project Include: go for it. Don't want to have associations with Thiel and Trump? Walk away from YC. You're in charge of what you do. If others whine about how your exit somehow threatens their freedom of speech, then they clearly don't understand freedom of speech.
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  They are not voting against Thiel but against YC, which itself is not voting against Thiel. So in your analogy you would have to ban the whole Republican party, because Trump is its candidate.
  - loso 10y ago
    It wouldn't be ban, its more I'm not giving money or working with the Republican party because Trump is your candidate.
cperciva 10y ago
My mother always told me that if someone tries to tell you who you can have as friends, they're not really your friend either. So, "Project Include": You're not my friend.
nickff 10y ago
I don't understand Pao's thinking here; she trusted Thiel until he reached a different conclusion from her? If she pointed out a flaw in his methodology, or found a heretofore hidden inconsistency in his personal philosophy, I would understand, but she just doesn't like what he's doing. If you believe in or rely on someone, it shouldn't only be when you happen to agree with them on the issues of the day; this is not how you behave if you trust someone.
- matt4077 10y ago
  That argument seems to prove too much, namely that you could never stop listening to an advisor after having listened to them once. I've also found a "hidden" inconsistency in his "philosophy": he claims to be a moral actor, and yet he founded Paypal. And – you know – gives millions to Trump.
  - nickff 10y ago
    Your philosophy does not consist of a few case-specific conclusions; for example, deciding that you want to spend your evening watching a movie alone tells me very little about how much you value interpersonal relationships. I did not say that examining patterns of behavior was useless, but that you shouldn't dismiss people just because you disagree with them. For example, you shouldn't get a divorce just because your significant other gave you a piece of unwanted advice or criticism.
conanbatt 10y ago
While I undersatnd the obvious debate of "free speech" or "tolerance towards intolerance" and such things, why would do this, and why do this now? I can see the appeal of a publicity stunt, but is this some sort of play we cannot see? Why would Include actually care about this at all. Why wouldnt investors in the INclude group be any happy with this decision.
allendoerfer 10y ago
Reading the article and the comments in this thread makes you realize that Trump is the logical conclusion for a society so divided that people refuse to work even with their theoretical team mates if they refuse to renounce themselves strongly enough from the other team.
AvenueIngres 10y ago
Wow. This is the end of YC as we know it. They can't possibly recover from this. RIP YC.

60 points by satai 10y ago

zitterbewegung 10y ago

Is this a PR stunt by Include? I read ycombinator religiously and I have never heard of this organization?

codezero 10y ago
That's too bad. I heard about it quite a while ago. I assume that projects like this just don't get much traction on HN. It was posted to HN 167 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=projectinclude.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=projectinclude.org
asgardiator 10y ago
Transparently. Pao ruined Reddit, now she clings to identity politics as her only way out of infamy. Little does she realize how deep she's digging.
- bhc 10y ago
  >Pao ruined Reddit How?
  - wang_li 10y ago
    By being bad at her job as CEO through having no idea what redditors wanted of the site and by trying to force particular cultural norms. Was reddit ruined? About as much as anything so abstract that it can reinvent itself, back peddle, and change direction at a board meetings notice can be ruined.
    - mwfunk 10y ago
      Again, how?
      - velodrome 10y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Pao#Exit_from_Reddit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Pao#Exit_from_Reddit
gscott 10y ago
I have just heard of Project Include right now but they just dis-included themselves. Logical thinking would have them ask themselves if in 10 years doing this has a positive or negative impact. I believe that they just made themselves irrelevant for some notoriety.

mc32 10y ago

I get it and obviously it goes without saying that's their prerogative. But it's a little but like not viewing Cosby any more or not listening to Wagner, or not reading Mein Kampf or Das Capital because of what they represent or forgoing drugs because they were developed by [think of something very reprehensible]. Or someone not being friends with me because I don't believe in religion (and therefore deny their belief system). As far as I know, while mr Trump has vilified illegal immigrants, and I may be mistaken, I don't think he wants to curtail legal immigration (with exception of immigrants from volatile places) but I constantly hear that he's against (all) immigration --I believe he's against a _kind_ of immigration, but not all. It's not like Germany or Sweden or Russia or South Africa just let everyone in. They also have policies, except they exclude people in nicer language. To add: I didn't think it would even be necessary for Sam to have to say that Peter would stay with YC. I thought it was overly cautious to do so. But this business is ridiculous. I mean people are seriously wanting to hunt people down over political views... Look, if Trump were to win (or Hillary) it means that more people than not voted them into office and therefore they have the backing of a large constituency. So, we're not just saying the candidate is objectionable but the people (and there are lots on both sides) who are wholly objectionable and irredeemable. Which means our country has gone to the can.

plandis 10y ago
Well it depends on what version you believe. I think that first he wanted to ban Muslims, then Muslims from certain places, and then just people from certain places. I really think he actually wants to ban Muslims but he had to walk back a bit from that stance to appease people.
- mc32 10y ago
  If you were to ask me to divine what he thinks, I think he's areligious and could not care less --but he believes people will kneejerk against a stereotype. I think it's a calculated risk on his part, an unfortunate one. Still, I think he knows enough of them to know many he deals with have more in common with him than he does with Joe the Plummer but Joe and Jill the Plummers are his voters.

koolba 10y ago

I have no clue what "Project Include" is or does, but things like make me want to know even less. It seems like the only hate being advocated is toward people with differing political views. Heck it's getting to the point that an institution that doesn't go out of its way to join the public shame game will probably themselves get shamed!

internaut 10y ago
> Heck it's getting to the point that an institution that doesn't go out of its way to join the public shame game will probably themselves get shamed! That is how most totalitarian societies punish their dissenters. Scott Alexander explains it well: "No One Expects The Spanish Inquisition, Especially Not In 21st Century America People in ancient societies thought their societies were obviously great. The imperial Chinese thought nothing could beat imperial China, the medieval Spaniards thought medieval Spain was a singularly impressive example of perfection, and Communist Soviets were pretty big on Soviet Communism. Meanwhile, we think 21st-century Western civilization, with its democracy, secularism, and ethnic tolerance is pretty neat. Since the first three examples now seem laughably wrong, we should be suspicious of the hypothesis that we finally live in the one era whose claim to have gotten political philosophy right is totally justified. But it seems like we have an advantage they don’t. Speak out against the Chinese Empire and you lose your head. Speak out against the King of Spain and you face the Inquisition. Speak out against Comrade Stalin and you get sent to Siberia. The great thing about western liberal democracy is that it has a free marketplace of ideas. Everybody criticizes some aspect of our society. Noam Chomsky made a career of criticizing our society and became rich and famous and got a cushy professorship. So our advantage is that we admit our society’s imperfections, reward those who point them out, and so keep inching closer and closer to this ideal of perfect government. Okay, back up. Suppose you went back to Stalinist Russia and you said “You know, people just don’t respect Comrade Stalin enough. There isn’t enough Stalinism in this country! I say we need two Stalins! No, fifty Stalins!” Congratulations. You have found a way to criticize the government in Stalinist Russia and totally get away with it. Who knows, you might even get that cushy professorship. If you “criticize” society by telling it to keep doing exactly what it’s doing only much much more so, society recognizes you as an ally and rewards you for being a “bold iconoclast” or “having brave and revolutionary new ideas” or whatever. It’s only when you tell them something they actually don’t want to hear that you get in trouble. Western society has been moving gradually further to the left for the past several hundred years at least. It went from divine right of kings to constutitional monarchy to libertarian democracy to federal democracy to New Deal democracy through the civil rights movement to social democracy to ???. If you catch up to society as it’s pushing leftward and say “Hey guys, I think we should go leftward even faster! Two times faster! No, fifty times faster!”, society will call you a bold revolutionary iconoclast and give you a professorship. If you start suggesting maybe it should switch directions and move the direction opposite the one the engine is pointed, then you might have a bad time. Try it. Mention that you think we should undo something that’s been done over the past century or two. Maybe reverse women’s right to vote. Go back to sterilizing the disabled and feeble-minded. If you really need convincing, suggest re-implementing segregation, or how about slavery? See how far freedom of speech gets you. In America, it will get you fired from your job and ostracized by nearly everyone. Depending on how loudly you do it, people may picket your house, or throw things at you, or commit violence against you which is then excused by the judiciary because obviously they were provoked. Despite the iconic image of the dissident sent to Siberia, this is how the Soviets dealt with most of their iconoclasts too."

NhanH 10y ago

I did a quick search, turn out Include might not just be a fringe organization (ie. this isn't a lame attempt at PR). > "Project Include is an open community working toward providing meaningful diversity and inclusion solutions for tech companies... focusing our efforts on CEOs and management of early to mid-stage tech startups" Post by one of the founder Ellen Pao (of Reddit fame): https://medium.com/projectinclude/peter-thiel-yc-and-hard-decisions-2b91bab83764 https://medium.com/projectinclude/peter-thiel-yc-and-hard-de... As a side note: I chuckled when going through the team list here: http://projectinclude.org/team http://projectinclude.org/team .

hendzen 10y ago
Why did you chuckle?
- NhanH 10y ago
  There are roughly 50% male in the world. It's a diversity project. I'm not making a judgement, but it does feel a slight sense of irony seeing the listing on that page.
- flukus 10y ago
  Because they're only inclusive of women.
- barnassey 10y ago
  Due to the fact that most of the team of project include is white. Same as any org that describes itself as inclusive.
  - lifeformed 10y ago
    I only count 2 white people?
    - quirkafleeg 10y ago
      You had the advantage of actually bothering to look at the team before passing comment on it though.

Canada 10y ago

s/Include/Exclude/g

ipatriot 10y ago

I am 100% in favor of Sam Altman's decision for the following reasons: 1. Trump is offensive, racist, sexist and a terrible human being all around. I am Mexican, and I hate his guts and everything about him. However, I believe in what Voltaire once smartly said "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I do not agree at all with Peter Thiel's decision to support Trump in the RNC or with money, but I defend his right to express himself. 2. Sam Altman and Paul Graham have done a lot to defeat Trump and elect Hillary as president. One of their part time partners supports Trump, that is not indicative of YC's political view. 3. Peter Thiel is a business man, and investor therefore that is what I focus on, his book which is fantastic and his work on facebook, can't judge him unfairly on everything, just because he supports Trump. He has a brilliant business mind and that is why he is a part time partner at YC and that is in the arena he should be judged. I am strongly in favor of free speech. Peter should be scrutinized and debated, not fired. Sam Altman does not deserve any nonsense because of this.

hyperbovine 10y ago
I agree with you, that is the defense Sam Altman ought to have mounted, to the extent he owed anyone an explanation in the first place. Instead, he is paraphrased as having delivered this head-scratcher: "Y Combinator president Sam Altman says that he is wary of terminating the group's association with someone merely for supporting one of the two major parties' presidential candidates, and he says that Thiel has endorsed Trump, but has not explicitly endorsed Trump's racist or sexist point of view -- a narrow distinction." Sam Altman appears to agree with many republican members of congress that you can endorse someone with endorsing their views. Which, I'm sorry, is just a totally bogus and lawyerly excuse whose only function is to explain away bad behavior.
- geofft 10y ago
  Yeah. Free speech is one thing, but actively supporting ridiculous viewpoints is another thing entirely, and can't be defended in the name of supporting free speech. Specifically, this is how Trump became a major party candidate. He was a media personality who waded into a made-up political controversy (the whole birther thing). There wasn't a shred of evidence for one side of that discussion, yet people insisted on giving that side a "fair" hearing. Then he became a fringe candidate, and nobody wanted to call him out on his idiocy and fascism, because hey, free speech. Then he became a major party candidate, and you can't break your association with supporters of a major party candidate. Then he says Obama was obviously born in the US but he was happy to have caused the conversation. Of course he was happy to have caused the conversation! It gave him a legitimacy he never should have had in the first place, and he just played that game repeatedly. Peter Thiel will have plenty of millions to donate to Trump whether or not he's a YC partner. His right to speech (verbal, written, or monetary) is in no danger. But the speech question here is whether YC will continue saying that support of Trump is a reasonable position. And if they continue saying so, it will be hypocritical (although one is free to say as many hypocritical things as one wishes) to regret his presidency.

asgardiator 10y ago

Pao can tolerate anyone... except people she deems intolerable. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything... "Project Include" is evocative of "Ministry of Truth": a name crafted to narrate reality. I'm consistently amused by how little self-awareness identity politicians exhibit.

mherdeg 10y ago
Yeah, I found that blog post really thought provoking. I think the core idea was that "it is a virtue to tolerate the outgroup" often means, in American middle-class culture, "if you are on Team Republican, do not stop associating with members of Team Democrat, no matter how much your friends and media tell you all those people are evil idiots" and vice versa. This is an interesting normative take on what you might call the "filter bubble moral panic" of the 2000s, a growing fear that people who don't agree with each other are experiencing totally separate and disconnected realities. The thing everyone's afraid of seems to be that in this new world, democracy will effectively become impossible because the ruling majority party will always be ignorant of (or totally unsympathetic to) the interests of the minority. Is the risk overblown? I dunno; how actually bad is a government shutdown, a half-year delay in Zika containment funding, etc.? Hard to say if these times are really worse and if "ignoring the other team" is really to blame. Some other content in this vein that was interesting reading: * The Shadow University -- a 1999 nonfiction book of essays about how, at American universities, concepts like "academic freedom" and "the marketplace of ideas" have entered a tension with other concepts (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060977728 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060977728) * The Five Geek Social Fallacies -- a 2003 essay influential among some software-as-a-lifestyle people I know, which argues most memorably that is is a popular fallacy to believe "ostracizers are evil", http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

harry8 10y ago

I'd be happy to defend Theil's right to say what he likes. Happy just as long as I don't have to have anything whatever to do with him. Just sayin'

InYan 10y ago

And here these politics! I'm sick of this sh*t...

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

I don't understand this culture. So people hate Trump, that's not a shocker. But many would have taken Thiel's advice without a problem a few weeks / months ago. Now, because he wants to donate to a candidate many find reprehensible, it's time to throw away the person Peter Thiel? Can he no longer give good startup advice because he supports Trump today? Is he no longer "redeem-able" to the point where we need to ruin him and whatever he's a part of? Hate Trump all you want. But if you're going to pretend you're inclusive don't go around throwing people away because you don't like their views. That makes you an exclusive organization. Learn from those who do not share the same opinions. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that" - Martin Luther King Jr

fatbird 10y ago
Nothing about a general commitment to being inclusive requires one to be uncritically inclusive, or to treat tolerance as some kind of macho posturing where you demonstrate that you're welcoming of the most obnoxious other you can find. But the make sure that the hidden premise is fleshed out: groups promoting inclusivity are promoting inclusivity for groups considered less powerful, less included, less accepted than is the norm. It's about elevating those who need it. Peter Thiel isn't powerless and doesn't need help getting what he wants.
solipsism 10y ago
It's pretty funny you post an MLKJr quote. Have you never heard of the Montgomery Bus Boycott? The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest.
narrator 10y ago
Thiel has enough money that people will politely make excuses for him because they need his money. Left, right or Trump, it's all about the money folks. The money people pick people with the right ideology to run things and it all trickles down though the company culture. Everyone would change what they believed in 5 minutes if it came down from on high and their job was on the line. Heck, most people are living paycheck to paycheck and very close to living out of their car. They'll jump and down like a chicken to keep their job if need be.

khrm 10y ago

What's normal view of people about Brendan_Eich? Should he have been removed? 1. If you believe, he should have been. Then Peter Thiel should also be removed. 2. If you believe he shouldn't have been, then Peter Thiel can stay. I have included this test to just weed out hypocritical thinking.

wang_li 10y ago
It's not a very good test, Eich and Thiel are more or less on the same hemisphere of the political globe.
matt4077 10y ago
I'd say yes and yes. But it's less obvious with Eich. You need to balance two ideas: everyone's (legal) speech should not just be protected from government intrusion but also from certain threads by private institutions/people. The "certain" above is the problem, because it's hard to define: you cannot and must not isolate people from all consequences of their speech. Sometimes those consequences even come in the form of speech themselves (or something the Supremes would consider "speech"). I must have the right not to invite my mother-in-law to christmas when I just don't want to listen to her racist rants again all night. On the other hand, there are some disproportional reaction that could create a problem for democracy. Lets say the top three mobile provides colluded to deny doing business with anyone donating to the green party. That's dangerous because those donations are probably not important enough for the individuals to stop using a phone, yet collectively they're enormously important for that democracy-thing we have going. Similarly with employment: it cannot be right to fire a regular employee for their private opinions, as long as the employee does everything reasonable to keep them from interfering with life at the office. Eich and Thiel are different in that their employment isn't quite as "regular". Firstly, "firing" is a lesser threat to them, because they have above-average chances of getting a different job (Eich), or the financial impact would be insignificant (Thiel). Secondly, their position in leadership makes their private actions more relevant to their businesses.

gozur88 10y ago

Is Project Include a business or political organization? It's hard to tell from their web site.

loso 10y ago

I don't get why people are up in arms in here. It's YC prerogative to keep working with Thiel, it's project Include prerogative to cut them off because of it. I always believe in voting with your dollar. If something bothers you bad enough, don't attend, purchase, or anything else that you feel will support the company/person. Trump is my personal line in the sand. Not the Republican party but Trump in particular. But I will only pull back my dollars if a company is actively publicly supporting him. As long as you are voting with your dollar and not trying to get someone banned by the government or put in jail then I say have it. Why be uncomfortable in what your dollars are being used to support?

fatbird 10y ago
As I get older, I care less about arguing on the Internet or organizing boycotts or pressure groups. I feel like the only meaningful act I can make is to vote with my feet or my wallet. So, Project Include: go for it. Don't want to have associations with Thiel and Trump? Walk away from YC. You're in charge of what you do. If others whine about how your exit somehow threatens their freedom of speech, then they clearly don't understand freedom of speech.
allendoerfer 10y ago
They are not voting against Thiel but against YC, which itself is not voting against Thiel. So in your analogy you would have to ban the whole Republican party, because Trump is its candidate.
- loso 10y ago
  It wouldn't be ban, its more I'm not giving money or working with the Republican party because Trump is your candidate.

cperciva 10y ago

My mother always told me that if someone tries to tell you who you can have as friends, they're not really your friend either. So, "Project Include": You're not my friend.

nickff 10y ago

I don't understand Pao's thinking here; she trusted Thiel until he reached a different conclusion from her? If she pointed out a flaw in his methodology, or found a heretofore hidden inconsistency in his personal philosophy, I would understand, but she just doesn't like what he's doing. If you believe in or rely on someone, it shouldn't only be when you happen to agree with them on the issues of the day; this is not how you behave if you trust someone.

matt4077 10y ago
That argument seems to prove too much, namely that you could never stop listening to an advisor after having listened to them once. I've also found a "hidden" inconsistency in his "philosophy": he claims to be a moral actor, and yet he founded Paypal. And – you know – gives millions to Trump.
- nickff 10y ago
  Your philosophy does not consist of a few case-specific conclusions; for example, deciding that you want to spend your evening watching a movie alone tells me very little about how much you value interpersonal relationships. I did not say that examining patterns of behavior was useless, but that you shouldn't dismiss people just because you disagree with them. For example, you shouldn't get a divorce just because your significant other gave you a piece of unwanted advice or criticism.

conanbatt 10y ago

While I undersatnd the obvious debate of "free speech" or "tolerance towards intolerance" and such things, why would do this, and why do this now? I can see the appeal of a publicity stunt, but is this some sort of play we cannot see? Why would Include actually care about this at all. Why wouldnt investors in the INclude group be any happy with this decision.

allendoerfer 10y ago

Reading the article and the comments in this thread makes you realize that Trump is the logical conclusion for a society so divided that people refuse to work even with their theoretical team mates if they refuse to renounce themselves strongly enough from the other team.

AvenueIngres 10y ago

Wow. This is the end of YC as we know it. They can't possibly recover from this. RIP YC.