26 ms·

Is billionaire VC Peter Thiel trying to break up Google?

132 points by mudil 9y ago

CalChris 9y ago
I don't remember hearing that he left but Thiel isn't on the YC partner list on either Crunchbase or YC itself. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/y-combinator/current_employees/current_employees_image_list https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/y-combinator/current... http://www.ycombinator.com/people/ http://www.ycombinator.com/people/
- mrschwabe 9y ago
  Maybe he was kicked off the board for 'wrong think' - he certainly was chastised by members of Facebook's board for endorsing & contributing to Donald Trump's Presidential campaign (Trump's victory vindication of said endorsement & contribution). While Thiel was endorsing/investing who would ultimately win - YC's President did the opposite. While Theil's endorsement/investment in Trump was based on principal - I don't know if the same can be said for YC's endorsement of Hillary. At the time, it came as a surprise ie- a prominent tech company claiming to invest in 'hackers' endorsing a candidate who had just been exposed as technically incompetent (and/or corrupt) via thousands of leaked emails. It also came across as contrived. Because those same emails revealed Eric Schmidt's role as technical/marketing/search consultant for Hillary's campaign and so it was not a stretch to assume Eric was leveraging his prominence & connections in tech to solicit endorsements from SV 'leaders'.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Sam Altman himself explicitly said they weren't cutting ties with Thiel after the donation was known and they were pressured to do so. It would be strange to withstand that criticism only to silently do so afterwards.
    - mrschwabe 9y ago
      Yes, it would be strange and also concerning and rather dishonest & contradictory - a little damaging to the integrity of the brand (which IMO has already been tarnished via the gleaming endorsement of Hillary Clinton in late 2016). But perhaps someone has a link to a statement or article from YC on the matter where their position is clarified; I'm sure many of us would love to know.
  - tiles 9y ago
    > a prominent tech company claiming to invest in 'hackers' endorsing a candidate who had just been exposed as technically incompetent Her opponent is wildly incompetent with technology. I'm not sure why you latch onto this idea that Clinton was uniquely bad at IT. Googling comes up with exactly two photos of Trump ever using a computer. He doesn't even have a web browser on his phone [according to this NYT article](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/us/politics/john-kelly-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/us/politics/john-kelly-tr...).
    - mrschwabe 9y ago
      Hillary, as Secretary of State, had an unauthorized email server running from a household bathroom that was being used to transmit classified material (that she lied about). If not technically incompetent, then sure - how about woefully ignorant, deceitful & corrupt and in no position to take lead role of the world's most powerful country. And that is not even taking into account the beef in the leaked emails, for example there are a lot of very curious tidbits in there not limited to the omnimous "I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker"[0] statement by her campaign manager John Podesta. I don't know how any 'hacker' could honestly endorse this person, let alone the president of YC. No personal offense to Sam. I dont' judge people based on political opinion (especially cause an opinion is malleable; it can change and as such people shouldn't be judged based on them) but do like to point out anomalies & contradictions. [0]https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36082 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36082
      - speedplane 9y ago
        > I dont' judge people based on political opinion ... but do like to point out anomalies & contradictions. Everyone has anomalies and contradictions. Chucking substance and just looking for red herrings is the exact opposite of the type of critical analysis people need to do.
        mrschwabe 9y ago
        Fair point, but staying silent isn't a good option either. If everyone chucks substance perhaps at least there are those on the sidelines who can aggregate all of it, dig deeper, critically analyze & and make their own determinations.
ukulele 9y ago
His words haven't matched his actions for quite some time now, with the common theme being whatever is good for Mr. P. Thiel is what he's up to, prior pontifications be damned. Free speech --> Sue a magazine Capitalism rules --> Sue because a company is too powerful For a self proclaimed libertarian, his actions are about as libertarian as a baked potato.
- docdeek 9y ago
  > Free speech --> Sue a magazine Free speech doesn’t mean freedom from being held to account for your speech.
  - oculusthrift 9y ago
    held to account != able to be sued legally. i agree that getting protested is one thug but getting sued and shut down is a legal issue which is contrary to free speech
    - bufferoverflow 9y ago
      No, it's not. Freedom of speech doesn't cover slander/libel. Freedom of speech means government can't put you in a cage for your expressed ideas (with few exceptions, like yelling fire in a theater).
      - dguaraglia 9y ago
        Weird, because in Gawker's case, he didn't have a case for libel or slander. They outed him as gay. I considered their actions despicable, but they didn't lie and that's why he didn't have a case. And that's why he had to use Hulk Hogan to exact revenge, which goes to show that a single guy with too much money can essentially reign unchecked in today's America. That's not good, no matter if you happen to agree politically with said guy with too much money at this particular point in time.
        jpttsn 9y ago
polskibus 9y ago
I wonder why Google in particular and not the others like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon etc. who enjoy similar market power?
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  I would suspect because Peter Thiel is a conservative, and none of those others are bankrolling the Democratic Party nearly as heavily.
  - dagw 9y ago
    I would suspect that looking at his investment portfolio rather than is political statements will give a better clue as to why he is doing what he's doing.
- dasimon 9y ago
  Well, Peter Thiel is on the board of Facebook...
  - mtgx 9y ago
    Surprisingly few people in the tech media seem to be aware of this. But I'm not sure I'm too mad about someone trying to take down Google a notch. My only worry is not that people are starting to believe Silicon Valley companies can do no wrong anymore, but that the government will exploit the situation to force backdoors, censorship, and other stuff like that on them. And we're already seeing that. Feinstein and others are now trying to take advantage of the "hate on tech companies" to push for encryption backdoors by also arguing about how "out of control" tech companies are, which is starting to ring a bell in people's heads. I probably mentioned this a few times in the past few years, but Google and Facebook and others should not be taking advantage of the good will of people to constantly maximize their profits. Eventually that good will is going to run-up, and then they'll be in Uber's situation, where few people defend them anymore. And then they're in trouble, because if the people don't defend them anymore, then the government will have free reign against them. But they've always ignored this, because they've always seen such warnings as only coming from a "vocal minority" so they didn't care. I remember even comments from here post-Snowden, about how Google doesn't care about end-to-end encryption just to gain the trust of a few HNers. But they've forgotten that Chrome built a reputation and a fanbase "on the backs" of people like that. Without people like that preaching how much better Chrome is than Firefox and IE, Chrome may have been relegated to Opera status. Perhaps instead of seeing tech enthusiasts as a "vocal minority", Google should see them as an "army of unpaid PR agents", working every day either to raise them up or bring them down if they start doing nasty stuff. That might change their perspective a bit on how to approach the criticism coming from enthusiasts.
burnte 9y ago
I think we've seen Thiel do this before, indirectly fund opposition to organizations he doesn't like when he can't attack them directly. He's also funded lots of politicians that work quite hard to restrict rights at every level of government, including, frankly, that are rather adamantly against equal rights for gay people. He's a great representation that some people will align themselves with anyone to further their own personal agenda, without respect for how it might affect others. He's personally been outspoken about the "dangers" of multiculturalism, gender and ethnic diversity, although I will give him credit for apologizing about his rape comments. I'm not saying this because I disagree with him politically, I just think he's not a great example of what kind of leaders we want moving forward, and given his behavior in the past, I wouldn't put this past him.
- bufferoverflow 9y ago
  He's quite clear about multiculturalism and diversity - he is criticizing the premise that pushing the people "who look different, but think alike" is not as productive as progressives think. He wants the diversity of ideas, regardless of ethnicities and skin colors.
  - dguaraglia 9y ago
    "I don't think people should all think alike, so I'll attack anyone who disagrees with me". Sound reasoning.
    - bufferoverflow 9y ago
      That's a straw man. He doesn't "attack anyone who disagrees with me".
  - retailbuyout 9y ago
    I mean, if you think you can get max diversity of ideas without also pulling people from different cultures, you’ve been around way too many white men.
    - 9y ago
cromwellian 9y ago
He’s proving as a libertarian how regulatory capture works by trying to engage in it. Perhaps while he’s at it the AG can look into Palintir’s spook contracts and police state contracts.
tanilama 9y ago
Well..Google has as more than legal power to take care of itself, will be interesting.
kyledrake 9y ago
> Thiel, a billionaire libertarian Which thing made him a libertarian: the idea of using a government agency to break up a company, or the stump speech he did for the alt right nationalist?
- vidarh 9y ago
  Right wing libertarianism is ultimately founded not on a belief in liberty, but on a belief on maximum protection of your own property. The push for deregulation etc. is about minimizing government intrusion into what people do with their own property. As such you'll often find right-libertarians holding weird views when harming liberty protects their own property rights.
- _fizz_buzz_ 9y ago
  Thiel calls himself a libertarian: "I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.” " [1]: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - kyledrake 9y ago
    > the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual Ah yes, that core libertarian tenant they all believe in. Can't truly be a libertarian without refusing to accept your own mortality.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mr_spothawk 9y ago
Palantir’s snooping abilities are probably a lot more valuable if Google doesn’t have them

132 points by mudil 9y ago

I don't remember hearing that he left but Thiel isn't on the YC partner list on either Crunchbase or YC itself. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/y-combinator/current_employees/current_employees_image_list https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/y-combinator/current... http://www.ycombinator.com/people/ http://www.ycombinator.com/people/

mrschwabe 9y ago
Maybe he was kicked off the board for 'wrong think' - he certainly was chastised by members of Facebook's board for endorsing & contributing to Donald Trump's Presidential campaign (Trump's victory vindication of said endorsement & contribution). While Thiel was endorsing/investing who would ultimately win - YC's President did the opposite. While Theil's endorsement/investment in Trump was based on principal - I don't know if the same can be said for YC's endorsement of Hillary. At the time, it came as a surprise ie- a prominent tech company claiming to invest in 'hackers' endorsing a candidate who had just been exposed as technically incompetent (and/or corrupt) via thousands of leaked emails. It also came across as contrived. Because those same emails revealed Eric Schmidt's role as technical/marketing/search consultant for Hillary's campaign and so it was not a stretch to assume Eric was leveraging his prominence & connections in tech to solicit endorsements from SV 'leaders'.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Sam Altman himself explicitly said they weren't cutting ties with Thiel after the donation was known and they were pressured to do so. It would be strange to withstand that criticism only to silently do so afterwards.
  - mrschwabe 9y ago
    Yes, it would be strange and also concerning and rather dishonest & contradictory - a little damaging to the integrity of the brand (which IMO has already been tarnished via the gleaming endorsement of Hillary Clinton in late 2016). But perhaps someone has a link to a statement or article from YC on the matter where their position is clarified; I'm sure many of us would love to know.
- tiles 9y ago
  > a prominent tech company claiming to invest in 'hackers' endorsing a candidate who had just been exposed as technically incompetent Her opponent is wildly incompetent with technology. I'm not sure why you latch onto this idea that Clinton was uniquely bad at IT. Googling comes up with exactly two photos of Trump ever using a computer. He doesn't even have a web browser on his phone [according to this NYT article](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/us/politics/john-kelly-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/us/politics/john-kelly-tr...).
  - mrschwabe 9y ago
    Hillary, as Secretary of State, had an unauthorized email server running from a household bathroom that was being used to transmit classified material (that she lied about). If not technically incompetent, then sure - how about woefully ignorant, deceitful & corrupt and in no position to take lead role of the world's most powerful country. And that is not even taking into account the beef in the leaked emails, for example there are a lot of very curious tidbits in there not limited to the omnimous "I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker"[0] statement by her campaign manager John Podesta. I don't know how any 'hacker' could honestly endorse this person, let alone the president of YC. No personal offense to Sam. I dont' judge people based on political opinion (especially cause an opinion is malleable; it can change and as such people shouldn't be judged based on them) but do like to point out anomalies & contradictions. [0]https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36082 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36082
    - speedplane 9y ago
      > I dont' judge people based on political opinion ... but do like to point out anomalies & contradictions. Everyone has anomalies and contradictions. Chucking substance and just looking for red herrings is the exact opposite of the type of critical analysis people need to do.
      - mrschwabe 9y ago
        Fair point, but staying silent isn't a good option either. If everyone chucks substance perhaps at least there are those on the sidelines who can aggregate all of it, dig deeper, critically analyze & and make their own determinations.

ukulele 9y ago

His words haven't matched his actions for quite some time now, with the common theme being whatever is good for Mr. P. Thiel is what he's up to, prior pontifications be damned. Free speech --> Sue a magazine Capitalism rules --> Sue because a company is too powerful For a self proclaimed libertarian, his actions are about as libertarian as a baked potato.

docdeek 9y ago
> Free speech --> Sue a magazine Free speech doesn’t mean freedom from being held to account for your speech.
- oculusthrift 9y ago
  held to account != able to be sued legally. i agree that getting protested is one thug but getting sued and shut down is a legal issue which is contrary to free speech
  - bufferoverflow 9y ago
    No, it's not. Freedom of speech doesn't cover slander/libel. Freedom of speech means government can't put you in a cage for your expressed ideas (with few exceptions, like yelling fire in a theater).
    - dguaraglia 9y ago
      Weird, because in Gawker's case, he didn't have a case for libel or slander. They outed him as gay. I considered their actions despicable, but they didn't lie and that's why he didn't have a case. And that's why he had to use Hulk Hogan to exact revenge, which goes to show that a single guy with too much money can essentially reign unchecked in today's America. That's not good, no matter if you happen to agree politically with said guy with too much money at this particular point in time.
      - jpttsn 9y ago

polskibus 9y ago

I wonder why Google in particular and not the others like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon etc. who enjoy similar market power?

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
I would suspect because Peter Thiel is a conservative, and none of those others are bankrolling the Democratic Party nearly as heavily.
- dagw 9y ago
  I would suspect that looking at his investment portfolio rather than is political statements will give a better clue as to why he is doing what he's doing.
dasimon 9y ago
Well, Peter Thiel is on the board of Facebook...
- mtgx 9y ago
  Surprisingly few people in the tech media seem to be aware of this. But I'm not sure I'm too mad about someone trying to take down Google a notch. My only worry is not that people are starting to believe Silicon Valley companies can do no wrong anymore, but that the government will exploit the situation to force backdoors, censorship, and other stuff like that on them. And we're already seeing that. Feinstein and others are now trying to take advantage of the "hate on tech companies" to push for encryption backdoors by also arguing about how "out of control" tech companies are, which is starting to ring a bell in people's heads. I probably mentioned this a few times in the past few years, but Google and Facebook and others should not be taking advantage of the good will of people to constantly maximize their profits. Eventually that good will is going to run-up, and then they'll be in Uber's situation, where few people defend them anymore. And then they're in trouble, because if the people don't defend them anymore, then the government will have free reign against them. But they've always ignored this, because they've always seen such warnings as only coming from a "vocal minority" so they didn't care. I remember even comments from here post-Snowden, about how Google doesn't care about end-to-end encryption just to gain the trust of a few HNers. But they've forgotten that Chrome built a reputation and a fanbase "on the backs" of people like that. Without people like that preaching how much better Chrome is than Firefox and IE, Chrome may have been relegated to Opera status. Perhaps instead of seeing tech enthusiasts as a "vocal minority", Google should see them as an "army of unpaid PR agents", working every day either to raise them up or bring them down if they start doing nasty stuff. That might change their perspective a bit on how to approach the criticism coming from enthusiasts.

burnte 9y ago

I think we've seen Thiel do this before, indirectly fund opposition to organizations he doesn't like when he can't attack them directly. He's also funded lots of politicians that work quite hard to restrict rights at every level of government, including, frankly, that are rather adamantly against equal rights for gay people. He's a great representation that some people will align themselves with anyone to further their own personal agenda, without respect for how it might affect others. He's personally been outspoken about the "dangers" of multiculturalism, gender and ethnic diversity, although I will give him credit for apologizing about his rape comments. I'm not saying this because I disagree with him politically, I just think he's not a great example of what kind of leaders we want moving forward, and given his behavior in the past, I wouldn't put this past him.

bufferoverflow 9y ago
He's quite clear about multiculturalism and diversity - he is criticizing the premise that pushing the people "who look different, but think alike" is not as productive as progressives think. He wants the diversity of ideas, regardless of ethnicities and skin colors.
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  "I don't think people should all think alike, so I'll attack anyone who disagrees with me". Sound reasoning.
  - bufferoverflow 9y ago
    That's a straw man. He doesn't "attack anyone who disagrees with me".
- retailbuyout 9y ago
  I mean, if you think you can get max diversity of ideas without also pulling people from different cultures, you’ve been around way too many white men.
  - 9y ago

cromwellian 9y ago

He’s proving as a libertarian how regulatory capture works by trying to engage in it. Perhaps while he’s at it the AG can look into Palintir’s spook contracts and police state contracts.

tanilama 9y ago

Well..Google has as more than legal power to take care of itself, will be interesting.

kyledrake 9y ago

> Thiel, a billionaire libertarian Which thing made him a libertarian: the idea of using a government agency to break up a company, or the stump speech he did for the alt right nationalist?

vidarh 9y ago
Right wing libertarianism is ultimately founded not on a belief in liberty, but on a belief on maximum protection of your own property. The push for deregulation etc. is about minimizing government intrusion into what people do with their own property. As such you'll often find right-libertarians holding weird views when harming liberty protects their own property rights.
_fizz_buzz_ 9y ago
Thiel calls himself a libertarian: "I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.” " [1]: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kyledrake 9y ago
  > the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual Ah yes, that core libertarian tenant they all believe in. Can't truly be a libertarian without refusing to accept your own mortality.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

mr_spothawk 9y ago

Palantir’s snooping abilities are probably a lot more valuable if Google doesn’t have them