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I think these things have a corrupting influence on the principles of the company over time: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html https://z

I think these things have a corrupting influence on the principles of the company over time: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html It's better to figure out an exit (imo) than continue to capitulate on these kinds of things, particularly in a country that is hostile to foreign companies and IP (and particularly if one of your company values is the privacy of your users). --- >>Peter Thiel: Well I think, again those aren’t the only two possibilities, I don’t think they created very much, I think a lot of it was just handed over from the west so it wasn’t even stolen. You know, I criticized Google a few years ago for refusing to work on its AI technology on Project Maven with the U.S. military, but working with Chinese universities and Chinese researchers. And since everything in China is a civilian- military fusion, Google was effectively working with the Chinese military, not with the American military. And there was sort of this question, “Why Google was doing this?” And one of the things that I was sort of told by some of the insiders at Google was they figured they might as well give the technology out through the front door, because if they didn’t give it – it would get stolen anyway. >>Peter Thiel: I had a set of conversations with some of the Google people in the deep mind AI technology, “is your AI being used to run the concentration camps in Xinjiang?” and “Well, We don’t know and don’t ask any questions.” You have this almost magical thinking that by pretending that everything is fine, that’s how you engage and have a conversation. And you make the world better. And it’s some combination of wishful thinking. It’s useful idiots, you know, it’s CCP fifth columnist collaborators. So it’s some super position of all these things. But I think if you think of it ideologically or in terms of human rights or something like that, I’m tempted to say it’s just profoundly racist. It’s like saying that because they look different, they’re not white people, they don’t have the same rights. It’s something super wrong. But I don’t quite know how you unlock that. https://nixonseminar.com/2021/04/the-nixon-seminar-april-6-2021-transcript/ https://nixonseminar.com/2021/04/the-nixon-seminar-april-6-2...

kelnos 5y ago
Not disagreeing with what Thiel is saying here, but it's pretty hypocritical for him to be criticizing here considering he's the co-founder of Palantir, a company that feeds some tasty tasty morsels to the surveillance state and military-industrial complex.
- gonehome 5y ago
  I can’t go into it, but this is a misunderstanding of what Palantir does.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    I can't go into it, but ...
- brandall10 5y ago
  It seems he's drawing a distinction at domestic vs. foreign actors. The criticism at Google here is against working to enable the US military vs. what is a thin veil of enabling the Chinese military hiding behind a veil.
  - gonehome 5y ago
    It’s also about a defense of the west and western liberalism over China and the CCP authoritarianism. It’s Google leadership capitulating to the (imo naive) politics of its workforce to not work with the USG, while continuing to support the governments of adversaries (because largely American politics ignores the plight of people in places like KSA and China under a weak kind of moral relativism).
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  Pointing out someone else's hypocrisy isn't an inconsistency. If someone says doing business with a military is unacceptable and then proceeds to do business with a military, they're a hypocrite. That's still true even if the person telling you this does business with a military.
  - Eelongate 5y ago
    > "If someone says doing business with a military is unacceptable" Thiel hasn't even done that. His position seems to be that American companies should work with the US Military, but shouldn't work with the Chinese military. Such a position is certainly partisan, but it isn't hypocritical.

kelnos 5y ago

Not disagreeing with what Thiel is saying here, but it's pretty hypocritical for him to be criticizing here considering he's the co-founder of Palantir, a company that feeds some tasty tasty morsels to the surveillance state and military-industrial complex.

gonehome 5y ago
I can’t go into it, but this is a misunderstanding of what Palantir does.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  I can't go into it, but ...
brandall10 5y ago
It seems he's drawing a distinction at domestic vs. foreign actors. The criticism at Google here is against working to enable the US military vs. what is a thin veil of enabling the Chinese military hiding behind a veil.
- gonehome 5y ago
  It’s also about a defense of the west and western liberalism over China and the CCP authoritarianism. It’s Google leadership capitulating to the (imo naive) politics of its workforce to not work with the USG, while continuing to support the governments of adversaries (because largely American politics ignores the plight of people in places like KSA and China under a weak kind of moral relativism).
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
Pointing out someone else's hypocrisy isn't an inconsistency. If someone says doing business with a military is unacceptable and then proceeds to do business with a military, they're a hypocrite. That's still true even if the person telling you this does business with a military.
- Eelongate 5y ago
  > "If someone says doing business with a military is unacceptable" Thiel hasn't even done that. His position seems to be that American companies should work with the US Military, but shouldn't work with the Chinese military. Such a position is certainly partisan, but it isn't hypocritical.