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I didn't know there was so readily a list of places I'd never want to work. Gonna bookmark this site to make sure I never do business with any of them. The most

I didn't know there was so readily a list of places I'd never want to work. Gonna bookmark this site to make sure I never do business with any of them. The most depressing part is how young they all are; which is of course, because they're easier to manipulate lacking real world experience.

rubidium 5y ago
“ Lada Nuzhna: 22, Kyiv, Ukraine Lada researches and develops biological tools to better visualize and manage biology at the molecular level.” Um this is pretty cool. Don’t know why you’re categorically dismissive.
- ihsw 5y ago
  [dead]
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  I think the concern is that they are taking money from someone with highly debatable/questionable ethics.
  - halpert 5y ago
    Isn’t that true of any public company though? And likely most private ones as well.
    - SavantIdiot 5y ago
      A) On what basis do you claim that all public companies are not ethical? (You said "any", but by definition that means "all".) B) By that logic, isn't all money tainted? And everyone of us? And every thing? This is the starting point of every person's decisions regarding being ethical. How far back do you need to "follow the money" before you consider it "ethical"? That is up to every person. Theil has actively engaged in dubious ethics, I won't belabor them again. With him it is one hop to "dubious", compared to other organizations where you have to make several graph node hops to get to something dubius. This is a personal choice and everyone has to do their own research if they care about it.
      - halpert 5y ago
        I’m not claiming that all public companies are unethical. I’m claiming that all public companies have some unethical investors. That is, the operations of the company directly benefit some unethical actors. This has nothing to do with “money being tainted” in general. Just to be clear, this is what you said that I was responding to: > I think the concern is that they are taking money from someone with highly debatable/questionable ethics. Some investors in almost all public companies have highly debatable ethics.
        SavantIdiot 5y ago
        It's the "Thiel Foundation". It is in his name. But that is why I said it is up to the individual. Some people could care less, other people at least want to know if the board is ethical. I would put in the effort to know if any shady people were on the board of the company I'm taking money from. And if new information came to light after the fact, I would cease taking money. You can't know everything about everything, and not even attempting to be ethical because you don't have all the information without doing any research is, IMHO, cowardly. It's the "if we can't fix this one big thing why bother doing any of these other things" fallacy. But that's just me and my ilk. It's easy to make fun of someone trying to be ethical or who cares, because you can't know everything. That's what trolls do for fun. But I think it takes courage to try to stand for something you believe in. Again, that's just me and my ilk.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
emmett 5y ago
Do you even know what the Thiel Fellowships are? Whatever you think of his politics, he literally gives away money to promising young people to help them realize their dreams...in exchange for no equity. Are you really saying that, because you dislike Thiel, you'd never do business with anyone who accepted free money from him?
- sebastien_b 5y ago
  Personally, knowing what I know about him, I wouldn’t want any of his money. That’s just me personally, and I wouldn’t judge others by what I would do, but many people do.
  - Kranar 5y ago
    - sebastien_b 5y ago
      I fail to see the relevance of your own post as well, and frankly, I don’t see why I’d have to explain myself to you or anyone else, just as I don’t expect any from you.
      - Kranar 5y ago
        The point of my post is that there is nothing particularly significant about claiming that you would refuse to take money from someone who is never going to offer it to you to begin with. It's a completely worthless and trivial statement that comes across as posturing.
        johnny_b_g 5y ago
        As opposed to posting an opinion as a "comment" to try to get that last word?
    - samhw 5y ago
      I mean, it's called a hypothetical. They're pretty common. They can even be used as thought experiments to bring out interesting aspects of moral questions.
vanusa 5y ago
They're young (and some live in foreign countries) and in any case probably have no idea what Thiel is really about. I say give them a chance to repent and rehabilitate. I'd definitely not want to work for a company that takes Thiel's money or has any of his acolytes or close associates on board, though.
- version_five 5y ago
  > They're young (and some live in foreign countries) I don't think it's fair to assume that startup founders who have applied to a Thiel Fellowship did so because of ignorance (or because they are young or "foreign"). This is an amazing opportunity for many people and highly competitive. I even see an upside to companies automatically being able to filter their hiring for people that don't get hung up on this. If someone won't work for a company because a particular VC funded it, I can imagine there a much higher probability of that person causing trouble wherever they end up
  - vanusa 5y ago
    I don't think it's fair to assume that startup founders who have applied to a Thiel Fellowship did so because of ignorance (or because they are young or "foreign"). My assumption is they obviously know he's a "titan of industry" and that's obviously why they applied for the fellowship. They may not know or care about his politics, and (yes, partially due to the fact that the bulk of these events transpired when they were much younger) may not be aware of some of his more loathsome antics. I'm not condemning these people, or saying they're stupid. If anything I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, here. If someone won't work for a company because a particular VC funded it, I can imagine there a much higher probability of that person causing trouble wherever they end up. It's called ethical backbone. It is perfectly acceptable to not want to work for companies that are engaged in any manner of unethical practices. Or for people who are basically unethical and/or toxic. Or for companies they fund. If this kind of stance falls under the rubric of "causing trouble" then well, that's the world you chose to live in.
dang 5y ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." "Please don't fulminate." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html This kind of comment doesn't help, even in the case that you're right. Edit: you've unfortunately been doing this repeatedly. We ban that sort of account, so please stop. We've already had to ask you more than once about this.

rubidium 5y ago

“ Lada Nuzhna: 22, Kyiv, Ukraine Lada researches and develops biological tools to better visualize and manage biology at the molecular level.” Um this is pretty cool. Don’t know why you’re categorically dismissive.

ihsw 5y ago
[dead]
SavantIdiot 5y ago
I think the concern is that they are taking money from someone with highly debatable/questionable ethics.
- halpert 5y ago
  Isn’t that true of any public company though? And likely most private ones as well.
  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    A) On what basis do you claim that all public companies are not ethical? (You said "any", but by definition that means "all".) B) By that logic, isn't all money tainted? And everyone of us? And every thing? This is the starting point of every person's decisions regarding being ethical. How far back do you need to "follow the money" before you consider it "ethical"? That is up to every person. Theil has actively engaged in dubious ethics, I won't belabor them again. With him it is one hop to "dubious", compared to other organizations where you have to make several graph node hops to get to something dubius. This is a personal choice and everyone has to do their own research if they care about it.
    - halpert 5y ago
      I’m not claiming that all public companies are unethical. I’m claiming that all public companies have some unethical investors. That is, the operations of the company directly benefit some unethical actors. This has nothing to do with “money being tainted” in general. Just to be clear, this is what you said that I was responding to: > I think the concern is that they are taking money from someone with highly debatable/questionable ethics. Some investors in almost all public companies have highly debatable ethics.
      - SavantIdiot 5y ago
        It's the "Thiel Foundation". It is in his name. But that is why I said it is up to the individual. Some people could care less, other people at least want to know if the board is ethical. I would put in the effort to know if any shady people were on the board of the company I'm taking money from. And if new information came to light after the fact, I would cease taking money. You can't know everything about everything, and not even attempting to be ethical because you don't have all the information without doing any research is, IMHO, cowardly. It's the "if we can't fix this one big thing why bother doing any of these other things" fallacy. But that's just me and my ilk. It's easy to make fun of someone trying to be ethical or who cares, because you can't know everything. That's what trolls do for fun. But I think it takes courage to try to stand for something you believe in. Again, that's just me and my ilk.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

emmett 5y ago

Do you even know what the Thiel Fellowships are? Whatever you think of his politics, he literally gives away money to promising young people to help them realize their dreams...in exchange for no equity. Are you really saying that, because you dislike Thiel, you'd never do business with anyone who accepted free money from him?

sebastien_b 5y ago
Personally, knowing what I know about him, I wouldn’t want any of his money. That’s just me personally, and I wouldn’t judge others by what I would do, but many people do.
- Kranar 5y ago
  - sebastien_b 5y ago
    I fail to see the relevance of your own post as well, and frankly, I don’t see why I’d have to explain myself to you or anyone else, just as I don’t expect any from you.
    - Kranar 5y ago
      The point of my post is that there is nothing particularly significant about claiming that you would refuse to take money from someone who is never going to offer it to you to begin with. It's a completely worthless and trivial statement that comes across as posturing.
      - johnny_b_g 5y ago
        As opposed to posting an opinion as a "comment" to try to get that last word?
  - samhw 5y ago
    I mean, it's called a hypothetical. They're pretty common. They can even be used as thought experiments to bring out interesting aspects of moral questions.

vanusa 5y ago

They're young (and some live in foreign countries) and in any case probably have no idea what Thiel is really about. I say give them a chance to repent and rehabilitate. I'd definitely not want to work for a company that takes Thiel's money or has any of his acolytes or close associates on board, though.

version_five 5y ago
> They're young (and some live in foreign countries) I don't think it's fair to assume that startup founders who have applied to a Thiel Fellowship did so because of ignorance (or because they are young or "foreign"). This is an amazing opportunity for many people and highly competitive. I even see an upside to companies automatically being able to filter their hiring for people that don't get hung up on this. If someone won't work for a company because a particular VC funded it, I can imagine there a much higher probability of that person causing trouble wherever they end up
- vanusa 5y ago
  I don't think it's fair to assume that startup founders who have applied to a Thiel Fellowship did so because of ignorance (or because they are young or "foreign"). My assumption is they obviously know he's a "titan of industry" and that's obviously why they applied for the fellowship. They may not know or care about his politics, and (yes, partially due to the fact that the bulk of these events transpired when they were much younger) may not be aware of some of his more loathsome antics. I'm not condemning these people, or saying they're stupid. If anything I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, here. If someone won't work for a company because a particular VC funded it, I can imagine there a much higher probability of that person causing trouble wherever they end up. It's called ethical backbone. It is perfectly acceptable to not want to work for companies that are engaged in any manner of unethical practices. Or for people who are basically unethical and/or toxic. Or for companies they fund. If this kind of stance falls under the rubric of "causing trouble" then well, that's the world you chose to live in.

dang 5y ago

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." "Please don't fulminate." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html This kind of comment doesn't help, even in the case that you're right. Edit: you've unfortunately been doing this repeatedly. We ban that sort of account, so please stop. We've already had to ask you more than once about this.