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Ask HN: POTUS Donald Trump; What this means to Silicon Valley
- dudul 10y agoProbably won't be able to hire all those cheap H1Bs (and that's coming from a former H1B!)
- simple10 10y agoThat Peter Thiel is really good at picking winners and disruption.
- robg 10y agoAnd hopefully to the Supreme Court!
- android521 10y agolet's hope that Peter Thiel can use his influence to do some good and not just for himself.
- jedberg 10y agoWhy would he? He's a hardcore Libertarian. His core philosophy is "do good for myself and the world will be better". The only way he'll help anyone else is if their interests happened to be aligned with his. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the guy (barring recent endorsements) but you have to understand where his philosophical basis is.
- curioussavage 10y agoWhat you are describing is not libertarianism. Sounds like you are implying he follows ayn rands philosophies. Not the same thing
- jedberg 10y agoThat's why I use the capital L libertarian. The Ayn Randian type.
- jnbiche 10y agoAyn Rand explicitly disavowed libertarianism, both big "L" and small "l". Her political/moral philosophy was Objectivism [0]. The primary focus of libertarianism is the promotion of individual liberty and non-aggression, leaving the individual to become as big (or small) of a philanthropist as she/he wishes, and never being viewed as a lesser libertarian because of their altruism, or lack thereof (in fact, many libertarians I know are very generous people). Objectivism, on the other hand, specifically condemns altruism and philanthropy, and deems those who engage in altruism to be "bad" people. This is consistent with how Ayn Rand lived her life. I don't know whether your phrase describing Thiel, "do good for myself and the world will be better", is accurate or not as a description of his personal philosophy (it does make some sense he would follow Rand instead of libertarian philosophy, given his recent activities both political and entreprenerial). But I am quite sure that the phrase is characteristic of Objectivism and not libertarianism (l | L). Please don't confuse Ayn Rand with libertarianism. Many libertarians despise her writings, back then as in now (and she despised libertarians/Libertarians). 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)
- stillworks 10y agoThat is very interesting. There was a recent interview of Jeff Bezos where he was asked to comment about Peter Thiel. He said Peter Thiel is a Contrarian. He then said that Conventional Wisdom is generally right and Contrarians are generally wrong, but when Contrarians are right they are right in a massive massive way !
- cneumuel 10y agoThis reminds me of Nassim Taleb's barbell risk management strategy: Avoid the middle in favor of the extremes. For investments, it means a combination of very conservative plus some high risk investments to win big. He applies it to many other areas, though, including health and politics.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- internaut 10y agoHaving watched and listened to Thiel for several years now, I came up with a pet hypothesis I call 'The Wolfian World' that I feel describes what's going on more accurately than the newspapers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413
- chridal 10y agoYour comment was a very interesting read. A shame that it didn't get any further discussion. I'll give The Book of the New Sun a go. Thanks for your insights.
- internaut 10y agoThanks. You won't regret it. It is a most extraordinary masterwork. That book changed my thinking in ways I find difficult to describe. It was as if the world suddenly developed richer textures. I don't know if he would agree, but I felt it was a very 'Thielian' book. A lot of his ideas and statements came into focus for me when I read it. Together with the recordings I mention it became quite an experience.
- ianai 10y agoIt's also linear extrapolation beyond everyone's individual abilities to react to the immmediate past. That at least is one thing our system enforces: the political cycle forces people to think about the presidency at least once every four years and the senate every two. A long term dip below progress is still possible insofar as the majority of the worlds population live nothing like the lucky minority.
- internaut 10y agoYou're saying that our intrinsic chronocentric thinking prevents us from seeing the danger of the have-nots abruptly encountering a Western lifestyle? That futureshock in large numbers could wind up causing disruption on a scale that would pull us all down?
- sjm 10y agoI'd guess it will be a harder sell to get software developers in Europe, Australia, NZ, etc. to move to the US.
- xupybd 10y agoNZ dev here. Trump getting in doesn't worry me I'd love to work in the US. I think it's all been overblown.
- nathan_f77 10y agoI'm also a dev from NZ, and I worked in the US a few years ago. Honestly it's not all it's cracked up to be, and I wouldn't choose to go back there. Trump didn't factor into that decision, but now it's even less enticing.
- ryanhuff 10y agoIn what city did you work?
- nathan_f77 10y agoI was in San Francisco. Admittedly, that's a very unique situation. But I was shocked to see so many homeless people, and that the streets were so dirty. I was shocked to hear so many reports of gun violence coming from Oakland. There is just so much hopelessness in America. I had a really bad experience with health care. In New Zealand, I never had to think twice about visiting the ER or hospital, where it's free, very high quality, and there's no long waits. In the US, a few trips to the ER including x-rays cost me something like ten thousand dollars, even after health insurance. My startup's plan might have not been great, but I understand why so many Americans go bankrupt from medical debt. I have a friend who went through cancer, which ended up costing millions of dollars. His family would have literally lost their home without the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits lifetime limits. Having said that, I do like most things about San Francisco. There's some great food, great people, and so many things to do. It's a great place to live if you are wealthy. I wouldn't go back there as an employee or a startup founder, but maybe one day as an investor.
- joshkpeterson 10y agoWe're potentially entering a period that's volatile in ways we haven't seen in the US in our lifetimes. People in SV need to be working to minimize Trump's power starting tomorrow.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ne0n 10y agoShouldn't we be talking about this shit before the election? It's not like California had anything to do with Trump, but still.
- hal9000xp 10y agoI actually think there is a possibility that it could be easier to get into US as highly skilled migrant under Trump presidency because of his anti-immigrant polities. If he raises a minimum income bar for H1B to 150K and keep the same cap, then it would be much less qualified applicants for H1B visas and therefore there would not be cap overflow with annoying lottery process. Of course, I can't predict what Trump is going to do. He can also reduce cap significantly (which would be very stupid move). Let's admit current H1B requirements are stupid. For example, requirement to have bachelor degree instead of high salary. There are lots and lots very mediocre developers and almost all of them have degree. On the other hand, there are pretty strong developers who do not have degree (i.e. smart drop-outs). P.S. I like this article: http://paulgraham.com/95.html http://paulgraham.com/95.html
- tomp 10y ago> which would be very stupid move Why? Because the salaries of US-based programmers would rise? Because companies would be more motivated to train locals instead of importing foreigners?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rubber_duck 10y ago>Because the salaries of US-based programmers would rise? Because companies would be more motivated to train locals instead of importing foreigners? Or it just speeds up outsourcing.
- janoc 10y agoExactly. Salaries in western Europe are about half of US salaries, if you go to the East, while still within EU, a programmer could be paid as little as $15-20k/year. If you go even more to the East - Ukraine, Russia, China, India, etc. you can get very highly qualified people for even less, happy to work on a project for you. Software is one of the easiest things to outsource/offshore, unlike manufacturing or services. So protectionism is only going to end up harming US in this regard. Of course, that doesn't mean that the H1B "indentured servitude" system for importing cheap foreign workers shouldn't be fixed. But imposing minimal salary is not the way to do it, IMO.
- edblarney 10y agoI predict that not that much will change WRT valley issues. His bombastic statements were populist, I don't see anything on the policy agenda that seems it will hit the Valley in any meaningful way. Even if there are some trade-barbs with China ... the Valley doesn't export much there ...
- aaronblohowiak 10y agowe import quite a bit from China, so tariffs would be painful.
- edblarney 10y ago+ We are outsourced there but we are the customers in that equation. The Chinese will not make things more difficult for American buyers - they are in a very pernicious situation as it is. + As for tariffs: the thing is - we are already in a trade war. China can sell in the US at will. China blocks tons of American companies from selling to China. American exports to China are almost nothing. The Chinese are already 'attacking' and have little to retaliate with. Also - manufacturers are already moving many things out of China etc. and the gov knows it. Tariffs may pinch a little bit, but if they do - they would be offset by a commensurate uptick in American manufacturing. The only thing the Chinese could do would be to block 'Pizza Hut' and possibly Apple, which would suck. Because of the trade imbalance, the Americans can do far, far more damage than the other way around. China does hold massive US reserves, and could play some tricks, but it's not going to get to that, moreover, the Fed is ready to mop up any liquidity if the Chinese step out of bounds. China has been playing a great hand of poker against the West - dividing and conquering - US and EU leaders all kow towing to China, and if they speak up getting slapped down for 'fear of losing access' to China. But we don't have access ... and we're never going to get it. Why would they give us access? It will take some leadership to re-establish proper trade relations, and even though I don't like Trump at all - if he gets more aggressive with China it would be almost surely a 'good thing'. The area I would worry about is military i.e. South China sea etc.. I see a lot of Obamacare being repealed, a tougher stance on illegal immigration coming for sure. I don't think that will hit the Valley very hard.
- anc84 10y agoNo one can reliably predict what it means.
- manav 10y agoI think he will be fine for the H1B and and other skilled immigrant programs. Lower corporate taxes would be good, but I don't think it will be realistic. However, some kind of deal for tax repatriation for large multinationals might be possible. This could bring a lot of money back into the country by the likes of Apple and others. Tariffs might have some impact as well depending on the type of company/labor and source countries affected (China/Mexico).
- tomdell 10y agoData requests of Silicon Valley companies by the government may increase. The list of people deemed "suspect" and spied on by the government using private data may grow and the people spied on may become, on average, browner and more Muslim.
- partycoder 10y agoI think for the most part, Pence would be the most experienced in the Trump/Pence duo. I would look into Pence's government style.
- weihaw 10y agoPence is the VP which constitutionally has next to no power (Lookup VP John Nance) President-elect Trump will be running the executive via his cabinet appointments. It'll be Governor Christie, who's running the transition and finding those cabinet appointments, that you should be pinning your hopes on.
- kibibu 10y agoYeee-es, but then would you say Cheney had no power?
- DasIch 10y agoThe only difference between Trump and Pence is that Pence is more qualified to execute the horrible promises they've made.
- imh 10y agoComplete uninformed speculation: The stock market doesn't seem to like him. If that continues, the big markets may be less appealing as investments, interest rates may stay low, and so VC may be a (relatively) more appealing place to throw money. That would fuel money towards more startups, but it's a wildly uneducated guess.
- phmagic 10y agoI think the market will self correct shortly.
- SkyMarshal 10y agoWith the GOP controlling both Congress and the Presidency, and a luddite POTUS, encryption, digital privacy, and net neutrality are all in danger.
- spiderfarmer 10y agoThe US will be moving backwards in a lot of areas.
- phmagic 10y agoMany would rejoice in the fact that is actually moving. Backwards and forwards to many in this election is a matter of opinion.
- spiderfarmer 10y agoIn countries outside of the US, the opinion seems to be almost unanimously that the US is moving backwards. From what I hear, people expect the US to be: - A lot less friendly place for women, people of color and other minorities. - Preferring hateful rhetoric. - Dismissing scientific facts. - Bankrupting the less fortunate that need healthcare. - Enlarging the divide between rich and poor, via tax cuts for the rich. - Less friendly to fellow NATO members, trade partners, neighbors. I don't know how anyone can read this and see this as a progression.
- dreta 10y agoHow are these things in danger NOW? Did you sleep through the whole Snowden incident, and everything Assange published in the past decade? Trump can’t take away what you don’t already have.
- SkyMarshal 10y agoWe've certainly lost some of these things, but we're about to lose all the rest.
- id122015 10y agoWhy would I move to US/Silicon Valley ? Is it because Donald Trump won ? But what will change about taxes and freedom ?
- memossy 10y agoI don't think there will be significant negative drag to Silicon Valley as anti-immigrant policies won't apply to skilled migrants. Ultimately Trump is a chauvinist and economic with the truth sure, but that just makes him a New York businessman. He is no ideologue and as long as he doesn't kick off a trade war things should level out quite quickly as I note here: https://governmentsandmarkets.com/trump-the-morning-after-the-night-before-a6c711ae64e9#.ajb1p4y85 https://governmentsandmarkets.com/trump-the-morning-after-th... We can also actually expect more support for startups as these are acknowledged job creators. Where the danger comes is in enforcement of anti-monopoly statutes for larger companies, although healthcare monopolies are likely first on the plate.
- grandalf 10y agoIt probably means very little. A president does not really have the power to make significant change. It happens with collusion from congress and apathy from the public. The Silicon Valley outcry about Trump was mostly a social signal intended to make people seem enlightened -- how enlightened does one really have to be to be disappointed a presidential candidate makes rude/racist remarks?
- andygates 10y agoWith the same party wearing all three hats, the chance of change is increased.
- humanrebar 10y agoI seriously doubt the republicans and Trump will be on the same page much. Plus the democrats are slightly stronger in the senate, so the filibuster should slow many changes down a bit.
- threatofrain 10y agoI'd be surprised if strategic redistricting doesn't happen within 4 years.
- jedberg 10y agoThe only policy position he really made clear that would affect SV was that he said he would find a way to severely punish Apple for making their devices in China. Whether he follows through and has congressional support is to be seen.
- panic 10y agoIf Obamacare is repealed, I'll have to stop working independently and go back to a "real" job to be able to afford health insurance.
- Jach 10y agoPeter Thiel has his ear, predict based on what you would think Thiel would suggest. My guesses, not that I have a great model of Thiel's mind, are less regulation but more data collection, probably not much change w.r.t H1B.
- yurikokoko 10y agoSrsly, if you want a highly skilled worker who is paid >$100k in the States, you got to have them start working here early when they are not that sophisticated and maybe is paid $70k or so. if I start my career in my home country I wouldn't give sh*t about working in the States after a few years when I'm already successful.