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I'd like to challenge this. If you go into a startup and say "I'm a communist," many of them are going to be pretty skeptical of your ideas. You will find your

I'd like to challenge this. If you go into a startup and say "I'm a communist," many of them are going to be pretty skeptical of your ideas. You will find yourself in a lot of awkward conversations if you make this a thing you want to talk about. If you pitch a VC and throw in "btw, I'm a communist," or they find your online writings about being a communist, you aren't getting a check. If you apply for upper management at Google and you say "I want to overthrow capitalism because I'm a communist," you're going to have a really, really hard time. I don't think it's arguable that communists are actively operating in America and causing capitalists to have longer jail sentences or killing them when they wouldn't kill communists. So, no, I don't think communism is a threat whereas anti-semitism and racism are immediate threats. I don't think that we need to jail all people who are racist, but I think it's just fine to not talk to them or to yell at them or even to fire if they feel the need to express their beliefs in a way that gets in my business or stops me or my team from doing our work.

vidarh 9y ago
> If you pitch a VC and throw in "btw, I'm a communist," or they find your online writings about being a communist, you aren't getting a check. A friend of mine has had half a dozen startups funded in the Bay Area, and most of the books on show in his living room is Marx, Engels and Trotsky. He now runs a VC fund. One of the first things he told me when I met him was that he used to be a member of a communist party. If you make a big deal of it in contexts where it would seem weird, like as part of a pitch, then yeah, because it'll make them question why. But the Bay Area is quite more tolerant of left wing views than the rest of the US. That's not to say it will not affect you - said VC above did tell me he once lost a job over it, but the one time he knows of it was an "outsider" not someone from the Bay Area that prevented him from getting hired.

vidarh 9y ago

> If you pitch a VC and throw in "btw, I'm a communist," or they find your online writings about being a communist, you aren't getting a check. A friend of mine has had half a dozen startups funded in the Bay Area, and most of the books on show in his living room is Marx, Engels and Trotsky. He now runs a VC fund. One of the first things he told me when I met him was that he used to be a member of a communist party. If you make a big deal of it in contexts where it would seem weird, like as part of a pitch, then yeah, because it'll make them question why. But the Bay Area is quite more tolerant of left wing views than the rest of the US. That's not to say it will not affect you - said VC above did tell me he once lost a job over it, but the one time he knows of it was an "outsider" not someone from the Bay Area that prevented him from getting hired.