5 ms·
Is this the first time ycombinator.com has funded a group involved in politics?
by wnevets 10y ago
Is this the first time ycombinator.com has funded a group involved in politics?
- CydeWeys 10y agoThe ACLU is involved in protecting civil liberties, not politics.
- wnevets 10y agoOne man's "protecting civil liberties" is another man's politics.
- afandian 10y agoAnd another man's "funding startups" is another man's politics.
- justin66 10y agoIn fairness, they are an advocacy group whose activities include political lobbying. No idea how accurate these figures are, but: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000031473 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00003147...
- sp332 10y agoThis confuses me, but "only donations to the 501(c)(3) foundation are tax deductible, and only the 501(c)(4) group can engage in unlimited political lobbying. The two organizations share office space and employees." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union
- chimeracoder 10y agoAn organization can be simultaneously a 501(c)3 and a 501(c)4 - often this is managed by having two separate legal entities with a mutual relationship, but it's possible for the same organization to be classified both ways. Separately, a 501(c)3 is allowed to engage in lobbying - they are just subject to restrictions on how much time and money than can spend (last I checked, it's up to 10% of time and 10% of money).
- mikeyouse 10y agoThis is all correct -- Notably, you can't spend 501(c)(3) dollars on (c)(4) activities. All of those employees that work for both entities have to accurately record their time and expenses the (c)(3) must charge the (c)(4) for any support that they give it. It's a big pain in the ass but worth it to keep the IRS off your case.
- wut42 10y agoDirectly yes, but indirectly an YC partner (Peter Thiel) has funded Trump.
- sillysaurus3 10y agoFrom http://blog.samaltman.com/the-2016-election http://blog.samaltman.com/the-2016-election "Peter is a part-time partner at YC, meaning he spends a small fraction of his time advising YC companies, does not have a vote in how YC is run, and in his case waives the equity part-time partners normally get."
- maxerickson 10y agoHow do you classify, say, reddit?
- sillysaurus3 10y agoReddit is a startup in the sense of http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html The ACLU probably isn't, and I think the parent's question is whether YC has funded any other companies of the same type.
- maxerickson 10y agoNo, they asked about funding organizations involved in politics. I wondered if they believed reddit to be apolitical, not whether they believed it fit some definition of some other concept.
- jrockway 10y agoI think the ACLU is going to experience a lot of growth over the next four years.
- iamabraham 10y agoThey haven't been a startup in really long time.
- wnevets 10y agoreddit has political post on their website but I wouldn't say reddit itself is involved in politics.
- jMyles 10y agoLooking through last year's class, it's fairly easy to see a political bent to 50% of the groups or more. Increasingly - and assuringly IMO - it's difficult to coherently distinguish "groups involved in politics" from other groups (ie, there is no other type of group).
- gadders 10y agoYC/Sam A hosted a fund raiser for the Democratic party/Obama [1] [1] https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/20/president-obama-will-headline-dnc-fundraiser-hosted-by-ycs-sam-altman-and-yahoos-marissa-mayer/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/20/president-obama-will-headl...
- anigbrowl 10y agoDepends. Lots of people consider the EFF to be a political organization, but it has always enjoyed major social privileges here. Not sure about the specific financial relationships and don't feel like investing hours in compiling that information, but I'd be quite surprised if YC hadn't supported the EFF financially, directly or indirectly.