34 ms·
Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's online rant spurs threats to supes, police reports
- silexia 3y agoTan is right... The SF supervisors policies and voting has literally resulted in many deaths.
- infamouscow 3y ago[flagged]
- paulgb 3y agoI don't want to belabor this because Garry has (rightfully) apologized, but I would hope that the standard public figures hold themselves to is “does this elevate the level of discourse”, not just “is it legal to say this”. Things that could not-unreasonably be construed as death threats do not meet that standard.
- infamouscow 3y agoHe did elevate the level of discourse.
- paulgb 3y agoIn that tweet, he did not.
- dgacmu 3y agoWe're generally free from government suppression of speech, but not free from the social consequences of that speech, because we're also all free to choose with whom we associate and in what manner. In other words: Many things are legal and still reprehensible. I can't fix the Internet, but our discourse would likely be improved by people speaking online with the same care they are likely to apply in person. Or perhaps having auto-lockout on your twitter account when you're drunk. ;)
- infamouscow 3y agoWhat social consequences? I must have missed that part of the article. Damaging relationships with people disconnected from reality is a bonus, not a detractor.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoThreats are not always legal. You can argue that it wasn't a threat, but you'd be wrong. Wishes from people in authority are often seen as calls to action by others. Even that's not what he intended, it's would still rightfully be seen as threatening by the target.
- infamouscow 3y agoDid you read TFA? In the US, inciting violence requires actually inciting violence. What was said doesn't meet that threshold.
- BobaFloutist 3y agoIt's fascinating to me the extent to which executives don't consider themselves "public figures" when it comes to potential downsides, but they do in terms of upsides. It feels so obvious to me that the CEO of such a high-profile org should at the very least quickly check public-facing social media posts against someone sensible, if not laundering them all through the experts at their org. But somehow they keep making these mistakes over and over again.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bloopernova 3y agoThe battlecry of the executive: "Rules for thee but none for me"
- bko 3y agoIsn't it the reverse though? If a not notable person tweeted this stuff, it would have blown over and no one would have cared. But since he is notable it becomes a story I think that was the point of the parents "public figures" comment
- aaomidi 3y agoIt's their battlecry, not necessarily in tune with reality.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago> Isn't it the reverse though? If a not notable person tweeted this stuff, it would have blown over and no one would have cared. But since he is notable it becomes a story This is not borne out by historical events. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_You%27ve_Been_Publicly_Shamed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_You%27ve_Been_Publicly_Sham...
- syrgian 3y agoIf a non-notable person tweeted this, they might have lost their livelihood.
- andrejguran 3y ago“Garry Tan is right!” the letter sent to Peskin, Preston and, perhaps, others read. “I wish a slow and painful death for you and your loved ones.” Bizarrely, the letter to Preston and Peskin concluded: “This mail was sent to communicate a political opinion. No threats were intended.”
- intelligencesec 3y agoDoes anyone honestly believe that this was sent by a supporter of Garry Tan?
- bhouston 3y agoI think the tweet from Garry is bad enough.
- roughly 3y agoYyyyyyyes? First day on the internet?
- mlyle 3y agoIs that required? If you're prominent and write something like this, you shouldn't be surprised when people who hate the same people will weaponize it with glee and use it to feel justified in their actions, even if they didn't follow you before.
- UberFly 3y agoFact is nobody but the sender knows. Easily could have been sent for many reasons.
- k8svet 3y agoYour brain is broken.
- benmmurphy 3y agoprobably written by someone who just wants to stir shit and it looks like they succeeded. they got attention from a newspaper, frightened the supe and brought negative attention to Garry Tan.
- idlewords 3y agoThis is why it's important to hold a drink in each hand—so you can't tweet.
- jeffbee 3y agoThis is polymelia erasure.
- idlewords 3y agoGive polymelia a hand!
- shuckles 3y agoStartup bros tried doing that the last decade and got fleeced by Benioff and every nonprofit outfit in town.
- amadeuspagel 3y agoMaybe Benioff is just slightly smarter about politics then getting drunk and posting unhinged rants on twitter.
- shuckles 3y agoThis is like saying Boeing is smarter about politics because they can afford to buy off every ex-staffer in DC.
- amadeuspagel 3y agoThese people all have a lot of money and they all try to use it to influence politics, so if Benioff is so much more successful, maybe there's actually something to learn from him, such as, maybe, not wishing death on people.
- shuckles 3y ago
- Waterluvian 3y ago> “This mail was sent to communicate a political opinion. No threats were intended.” When I was a kid I formed a core memory when I said “no offence, but…” and then said something incredibly offensive and was subsequently and rightfully lit right up by the person. “But I said no offence!” was my response, completely misunderstanding how that phrase even worked. I feel like this is the adult version of that.
- duxup 3y agoI think we're all children, over time we just pickup the desire / will to just use different words sometimes.
- LudwigNagasena 3y agoIt reminds me of the "in Minecraft" meme (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-minecraft https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-minecraft). Note, the law doesn't work like that: https://kotaku.com/minecraft-death-threat-4chan-pol-shooter-arrested-cops-1850241929 https://kotaku.com/minecraft-death-threat-4chan-pol-shooter-...
- riffic 3y agothere are really strong federal laws about what you can send through the mail.
- Invictus0 3y agoIf the letter wished them a rapid death, would it still be a threat? What if it merely wished them a death of unspecified speed, itself being the natural and ordinary consequence of being alive? Edit: to be clear, this comment was not asking a serious question
- ozmodiar 3y agoI think context matters. I can say "it would be a shame if something happened to you" and that could be pretty clear threat in some contexts and a genuine expression of concern in others. Same for something like "we all die eventually." In the context of a random letter? Yeah just don't, unless you mean to threaten.
- Amezarak 3y agoIt's mentioned in the article that several lawyers were contacted and they all agreed it plainly did not constitute a threat. > But tying this potential legislation to the message Tan communicated to his 408,000 Twitter followers would appear to be a serious legal challenge: Half a dozen lawyers and judges told Mission Local that, however ill-advised, Tan’s comments do not rise to the legal definition of a death threat. Which makes sense. Wishing someone a slow death is akin to saying "go to hell." It is a terrible thing to say and can be said with hate and malice and make you feel very worried but it is not the same thing as "I'm going to kill you."
- cjensen 3y agoIn law, there is a concept of a "True Threat" [1][2]. Political hyperbole is not a true threat; sending a threatening letter whose only purpose is intimidation may be. So Tan's foolish statements are plainly protected speech, and it is sensible for the recipients of the letters to contact police. [1] https://uwm.edu/free-speech-rights-responsibilities/faqs/what-constitutes-a-true-threat/ https://uwm.edu/free-speech-rights-responsibilities/faqs/wha... [2] https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/true-threats/ https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/true-threats/
- seattle_spring 3y ago
- hipadev23 3y agoThey all filed police reports because they felt threatened but have no issue with everyday citizens and tourists in SF enduring far worse than inebriated vitriol.
- squegles 3y agoNot sure why you are downvoted. This is correct. Ordinary citizens have had to put up with so much worse in their day to day lives in SF due to the lack of these supes doing their jobs. I can attest, I have lived in SF over the last 7 years and have seen its decline.
- seadan83 3y agoDownvote be cause it is an unsubstantiated claim, speaks to a state of mind (which implies the ability to mind read, short of that ot is casting a stereotype/assumption), finally, the criticism is "what-about-ism" From a Seattle perspective, the "seattle is dying narrative" has been going on for a decade, despite the city having thr most cranes on its skyline and being a boom city for that time. Which is to say, confirmation bias is a bitch.
- cjensen 3y agoThe problem is that this argument is a logical fallacy. Threats to civic leaders are wrong. Whether or not they are good leaders does not change the wrongness of the threats. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- mardifoufs 3y agoThat's (whatboutism) not a logical fallacy. I meant it can be, but I don't see how it is in this case.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zug_zug 3y agoProbably downvoted for "Two wrongs make a right" fallacy. Basically if A does something bad, an irrational/tribal behavior is to disregard the problem by bringing up an unrelated bad behavior of another party. Two wrongs make two wrongs.
- deburo 3y agoDrunk texting is never good.
- shuckles 3y ago[flagged]
- duxup 3y agoWhat would the "false flag" be here? The letter's sender is unknown... There is no mystery about the owner of the account where the tweet originated.
- shuckles 3y agoIt’s implied the letter sender is a Garry Tan supporter when it very well may be a prog supporter trying to extend a pointless news cycle. Remember this is the town where Die Techie Scum was graffitied on sidewalks by a city grantee featured in a local art museum. None of the involved parties seemed too concerned about that.
- duxup 3y agoI can't imagine anyone false flagging a generic / anonymous "Garry Tan supporter" ... that doesn't make any sense at any level. The tweet itself is the most apparent and damning action. The letter even seems to try to tamp down on the threat, if you were falsifying this whole thing / trying to make a supporter look bad you wouldn't do that. I can't imagine anyone has a lot of interest in making some arbitrary concept of a "supporter" look bad when the tweet exists.
- shuckles 3y agoYou can’t imagine the advantage to having your base read Local Shady Billionaire Cabal Wants To Kill Your Favorite Politicians headlines a month before an important election that will set Democratic Party endorsements for the next few cycles? The tweet is not particularly damning. San Francisco politics is characterized as a knife fight in a phone booth. Much worse things are said all the time without an immediate retraction and apology. This one gets news coverage because certain parties have stooges like Joe at Mission Local (Peskin mouthpiece) and Aldo at S.F. Chronicle (Preston mouthpiece) gassing up non-stories into media events. For example, it was well known that former school board commissioner Allison Collins was a huge bully. Eventually, the Chron placed a piece profiling a former SFUSD employee who literally moved to Mexico to escape the personal targeting she did. And yet this behavior was barely covered and progs got in line to endorse her in the recall campaign. Similarly, Supervisor Walton threatened a black security guard at city hall without everyone clutching pearls about it (he doubled down when probed).
- zozbot234 3y agoThis was discussed already https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39162499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39162499 and there's no real news since. It's a dupe.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dgacmu 3y agoThe new part of this article is the physical letters that were sent to some of the people mentioned in the tweet. That hadn't happened when the previously-discussed article was written. (Edited to add: However, an article discussed yesterday in a now-flagged discussion did have the letters: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39199703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39199703 )
- 015a 3y ago> The board’s five Jewish members — Peskin, Ronen, Melgar, Preston and Rafael Mandelman — in October received antisemitic postcards at their homes. Peskin said multiple supervisors have received as many as four more antisemitic letters or postcards since then. Is this recent incident with Garry connected at all with the antisemetic postcards delivered last year? I haven't been following this and thus don't know what Garry's issue with the supervisors is. If not: This is scummy writing to connect his admittedly poor-taste comments to something worse.
- soneca 3y agoDid you stop reading there? It later explains that it has same wording of ”not a threat” used in the letter with Tan’s face. This is how it connects
- 015a 3y agoI did not stop reading. The antisemetic postcards from October are different than the ones the supervisors received with Garry's face and the "this is not a threat" line. Its not clear to me that the ones with Garry's face are anti-semetic; unless they are, due to the nature of his extreme concern with the supervisory board, and that's what I'm trying to zero-in on. Its also naturally possible that the motivations of Garry and the person who sent the postcard are different, but again: I think its scummy to then prescribe antisemetic intent to Garry by connecting the two without elaborating within-the-article on why Garry is so drunkenly distraught. I am not justifying or trivializing how Garry behaved. Its not ok to say what he said. But, its possible for both sides of this to be scummy and horrible; and that possibility is what I want to understand better.
- soneca 3y agoI think you are too eager to decide that the article is scummy. For me, those two paragraphs do not say that Tan was antisemetic in any form. It says that i) some of the same people received an antisemitic hate letters before ii) those antisemetic letters used the same wording than the ones sent using Tan’s face The only implication that I see is that they were likely sent by the same person/group. I see this is very clear in the writing as it is. Zero scummyness in it. And, this connection, in my opinion, very much justifies including the antisemetic letters in the article. It seems a very relevant information.
- paulette449 3y agoThere are many things I appreciate about YC News but being certain that this report will not be censored here is something I truly appreciate about this forum. Thanks @Dang et al.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jeffbee 3y agoThis exact story was already flagged by the community. The HN groupthink is way more powerful than the moderator.
- paulette449 3y agoIndeed. Well, not to take away from the moderation team.
- etc-hosts 3y agowell to be fair, the Mission Local story from 3 days ago about Tan tweeting Tupac lyrics, was posted 3 days ago and flagged 3 days ago. This story's lede is several San Francisco Board Of Supervisors members receiving post cards quoting Garry Tan's words. Different story.
- soneca 3y agoThe same story (different source) was also flagged today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39199703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39199703
- ecf 3y agoIn a lot of ways censorship here is worse than other places due to the weirdly attributed trust given towards HN members who think of themselves as enlightened intellectuals. For example, try to post something pro Apple, or even try to play devils advocate. Your comment will be flagged within minutes.
- malermeister 3y ago[flagged]
- ceejayoz 3y ago> Bizarrely, the letter to Preston and Peskin concluded: “This mail was sent to communicate a political opinion. No threats were intended.” Reminds me of the YouTube videos with "no copyright infringement intended" disclaimers.
- ryandrake 3y agoYea, this is a pretty cool hack. I think I'm going to go get a bumper sticker for my car that says "No speeding intended."
- lapetitejort 3y agoThis is not financial advice I am not a lawyer I'm sorry you were offended
- jprete 3y agoThe first two are at least going to be on reasonable communications.
- giantrobot 3y ago...in Minecraft.[0] [0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-minecraft https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-minecraft
- solfox 3y agoBeing drunk is not an excuse for abuse, so why are we allowing Tan to step away from this because he was drunk? Clearly, Tan would benefit from some introspection and perhaps therapy. We need to hold our leaders to a higher standard of mental health.
- gowld 3y agoObviously the problem is the technology that makes it too easy for a drunk person to be publicly intoxicated and causing trouble. But ignore the fact that most people on this board work for companies that build this technology.
- iancmceachern 3y agoI dont agree. So because some un-self-aware rich a hole says something offensive we should censor, restrict the free speech of the general populous? It's not the enablement of communication that's the problem here. It's a simple case of fault. He is as fault for his actions, not social media.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoPresumably GP is not suggesting censorship but rather that we pause and zoom out before condemning someone for saying something dumb on the internet while drunk.
- Zak 3y agoI have my objects to Twitter, but that isn't one of them. Here, someone in a position of power demonstrated poor judgment and self-control in a way that damages his reputation and that of his company, but does not harm anyone beyond that.
- at_a_remove 3y agoI wouldn't mind making him endure those cringy pre-recorded videos HR makes you sit through every X number of years about professionalism in the workplace, filled with staged and stock photography, amateur hour voice-overs, and fourth grade level personal interaction.
- muglug 3y agoIf I did this I'd be out of a job.
- gmerc 3y agoEvery lower level employee in a company would be out of a job
- concordDance 3y agoIs that actually how it works these days? That any unhinged social media rant results in a firing?
- iancmceachern 3y agoYes. Ive had several corporate trainings from several big big companies where they explicitly say so. I had one training even state outright that if you were seen on social media wearing company swag and doing something like flipping the bird or anything even mildly offensive that was grounds for dismissal.
- akavi 3y agoIf I did this, I wouldn't be out of a job. Which of us is right? Maybe both (corporate culture can be pretty heterogeneous). Hard to say, regardless
- infamouscow 3y agoI work for an anarcho-capitalist. If anything, I'd be shamed for not being more vituperative. These snakes don't deserve anything except your maximum contempt.
- timr 3y agoThis article is emblematic of everything wrong with "journalism" today. Regardless of what Garry wrote on Twitter (which I'm not defending), he didn't send the letters in question, which are the core of the incident. So some lunatic prints out a tweet and mails it to politicians at their home addresses, and the "journalist" spends a couple thousand words focusing on the tweet, and how the guy who wrote the tweet is rich. Also, featuring the price of his liquor bottles (prominent in the first article about this by the same writer) is indicative of the level of pettiness involved. Maybe there's an actual story here, but this isn't it, and it's not clear that the story is more than "someone said something regrettable on Twitter".
- Tarragon 3y ago"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_turbulent_priest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur... Stochastic terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism
- concordDance 3y agoI doubt this CEO had any intent to actually cause harm to these people, which is often what's implied by stochastic terrorism.
- klyrs 3y agoYeah, he merely quoted a diss track that famously escalated a previous grudge to murder. Who could ascribe anything but jovial intent to that? Why should somebody as famous as Gary Tan expect to have unhinged followers who could be inspired to act?
- jmull 3y agoSeems like he was hoping to get his twitter followers to harass them in a manner similar to the way he did -- otherwise why tweet it? Probably receiving death threats causes a lot of real anxiety (not just the PC snowflake kind). That's a lot better than an actual assassination, but it's not nothing either.
- andy99 3y agoI was happy to see the story caught that it was Tupac song lyrics, which I see also was picked up in the previous HN discussion. While it's not really laudable behavior, quoting some lyrics that in almost 30 years hindsight are pretty silly is not quite as threatening as people make out. Probably better to stay off social media when drinking all the same.
- ryandrake 3y agoI don't understand why the fact that his words happen to be song lyrics somehow softens the blow. If I wrote to my government representative "go hang yourself with a barbed wire" I'd expect it to be taken seriously as a threat. It doesn't matter that the Gravediggaz originally wrote the lyric.
- andy99 3y agoIf you said "I'm the Rza-rector, be my sacrifice" though? I think the fact that it's lyrics can make a big difference to the assumed intent. It's a young guy quoting an angry poem vs an actual threat.
- bcrosby95 3y agoThat's obviously not a threat. Just like saying "go fuck yourself" isn't a threat of rape. "Die slow" is pretty ambiguous though.
- __derek__ 3y agoThere's a Key and Peele sketch in this vein: Rap Album Confessions.[1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14WE3A0PwVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14WE3A0PwVs
- selimthegrim 3y ago"It was a concept album"
- andrew_ 3y agobecause this only matters if you somehow benefit from it; either with virtue points on the internet, or political points in the media.
- kmlx 3y ago“San Francisco supervisors”, in case anyone else wonders what’s a “supervisor”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Board_of_Supervisors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Board_of_Super...
- averageRoyalty 3y agoThank you, I've read three articles so far and none have explained this. Supervisor is such a generic term, it's difficult to research without knowing what it is. So basically, he said fuck the council and he hopes they die a slow death. Not very nice, but also not usually a contraversial opinion? Lots of people dislike their councils.
- ajb 3y agoThanks! So they are the legislature of San Francisco city/county, and there are only 11 of them, so it's quite a significant position.
- iancmceachern 3y agoYes, and they also are famously in silos. They each advocate for their own districts only, and so it's often a battle between districts for resources, etc. It's actually a pretty dysfunctional system from what I've seen attending local government meetings and trying to get basic simple things done in my community
- etc-hosts 3y agoOver 95 percent of San Francisco's budget is directly controlled by the Mayor's office. The Mayor's office in San Francisco is incredibly powerful. Supervisors mostly sit through the monthly televised Board Of Supervisors meeting, where concerned citizens and community activists along with the utterly deranged voice their concerns.
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago> concerned citizens and community activists along with the utterly deranged I thought I saw a Venn diagram for XKCD ...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tptacek 3y agoThis post isn't going to get flagged (or at least not as quickly) because it mentions YC itself, and YC is kid-gloves about moderating posts about YC. But this is a deeply stupid story with a lede that basically says "I'm unfamiliar with even the most most famous 90s hip-hop". Tan, like many, many, many Internet commenters before him, was quoting Tupac's Hit 'Em Up, which, unless you think Tupac was literally calling out hits on Chino XL, was not intended to be a true threat at the time, and certainly couldn't reasonably be taken as one today. People come up with all sorts of cringey rationalizations for how this is anything more than someone on Twitter faceplanting a dad joke (sorry, but 2Pac is now dad music, I don't make the rules). That's because the rationalizations are more narratively interesting, which is a pretentious way of saying "fun", and fun beats reason every single time. EFfective local politics? Definitely not. But then, if you oppose what Tan is about in SF, that's a good thing, not a bad thing. This is an off-topic dupe story and by rights it shouldn't be on the front page, but, whatever.
- zht 3y agosorry what? you think given the context between Biggie and Tupac, where both artists were later violently murdered, Hit'em up, which was one of the rap beef songs of all time, did not include any genuine threats of violence? I'm not saying that Garry Tan was threatening to, as in the original song, shoot up the supes with AKs, or shoot them in the back with the Mac, or cut their young ass up, leave them in pieces, or snatch their ugly ass off the streets, or get their caps peeled, but I think it would be very strange to rationalize that particular Tupac song as one that was not threatening murder
- tptacek 3y agoThat is correct.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bambax 3y ago(For the record, I'm not American but frequent HN often; I have never heard of this song and while the name "Tupac" rings a distant bell, I didn't know if it was a person or a place.)
- clpmsf 3y agoSeems like whenever tech people get rich enough they become completely obsessed with politics.
- WhyCause 3y agoI think it's more that once you get rich, the political machine becomes obsessed with you and your donations. That attention can be kind of addictive.
- solfox 3y agoFeels very egoic to me.
- micromacrofoot 3y agoThey're like dragons guarding their piles of gold
- mjmsmith 3y agoThat ladder isn't going to pull itself up.
- concordDance 3y agoNo, just the ones you are likely to hear about on the news. Take a look at the top 10 richest Americans, most spend very little time on politics and you'll often struggle to even find out their opinions of the issues of the day.
- theGnuMe 3y agoHa! That is so not true. Musk, Koch, Griffin, Bloomberg, Gates.
- concordDance 3y agoI couldn't even tell you whether Gates currently votes Republican or Democrat, let alone his position on zoning or trans rights. I think the word "obsessed" would definitely be inapplicable.
- willvarfar 3y ago> favoring moderate causes and candidates and targeting progressives for us non-americans, can someone please explain what general political aims the 'moderate' and 'progressive' parties represent? And where are they on the republican democrat spectrum?
- habitue 3y agoThe article goes out of its way to avoid naming the cause which is: housing! More affordable homes! Valuing people over historic buildings and neighborhood character! You know, the kind of stuff that actually should be considered progressive
- willvarfar 3y agoso the progressives want more affordable homes, and the moderates don't?
- jacobolus 3y agoEveryone claims to wants more affordable homes, there's just a disagreement about how to best achieve it, and a certain amount of money spent on obfuscation and practically counterproductive policies (arguably on all sides); property owners are a major political force on all sides of SF politics, and some of them want to keep prices high. The "progressives" generally want to limit gentrification, prevent renters from being evicted, and add more subsidized housing. The "moderates" generally want to make it easier to build more housing of any type. You could broadly characterize the two groups as "default skeptical" vs. "default supportive" of real estate developers. But housing is only one point of disagreement (albeit one of the most significant), plenty of people have more nuanced positions than this, and these camps are not entirely uniform across issues. Other points of recent disagreement include Covid lockdowns, what the school board should focus on, how hard prosecutors should go after police misconduct vs. minor crime, responses to the homeless, how much power the board of supervisors should have vs. the mayor's office, ...
- 3y ago
- janosett 3y agoCounterproductive, and makes Garry Tan look like a real asshole. Now people will have sympathy for the Supervisors whereas a thoughtful criticism could have put real problems with their leadership on display.
- gerash 3y agoGarry Tan is already doing the "thoughtful criticism" https://growsf.org/ https://growsf.org/ Ranting on Twitter should not be a crime IMO
- Apocryphon 3y agoThere are legal crimes, and then there are social faux pas that gets one convicted in the court of public opinion.
- jeffbee 3y agoWearing white shoes in October is a faux pas. Putting lemon and milk in your tea is a faux pas. Wishing your political opponents death is a threat.
- KingOfCoders 3y agoStanding on a podium shouting "A,B and C should die!" to your audience should be a crime, and luckily is in many countries.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jjulius 3y ago>Garry Tan is already doing the "thoughtful criticism" https://growsf.org/ https://growsf.org/ The act of providing "thoughtful criticism" doesn't make it OK to tell people you wish them dead. >Ranting on Twitter should not be a crime IMO I don't really see anyone saying that it should be. People are welcome to rant on Twitter, just as people are welcome to take issue with said rant, and then form an opinion of that person based on the words they chose to post.
- habitue 3y agoClearly this was reprehensible behavior by Tan, but this article is a mess. It's conflating unrelated white supremacist threats and Tan's comments, and doesn't really go into why Tan doesn't like Preston, leaving the reader to conclude "maybe it's something to do with racism? Or maybe because he's a socialist and it's discrimination?" (Hint: Dean Preston is notorious for blocking new housing, while being nominally progressive) This doesn't excuse Tan's comments in any way, but it seemed like the author just threw the kitchen sink into the article
- benzible 3y agoThe threat cited Tan's threatening tweet - certainly not "unrelated". > Stochastic terrorism refers to political or media figures publicly demonizing a person or group in such a way that it inspires supporters of the figures to commit a violent act against the target of the speech. Unlike incitement to terrorism, this is accomplished by using indirect, vague, or coded language that allows the instigator to plausibly disclaim responsibility for the resulting violence. Global trends point to increasing violent rhetoric and political violence, including more evidence of stochastic terrorism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- m3kw9 3y agoIt smells like someone that hates Gary Tan who is sorta savvy want to reverse uno his arse by doing this, can tell by being so obvious by even going lengths to picture the tweet.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thiago_fm 3y agoY... ikes! It's about time Y Combinator has executives who aren't so busy with politics. It gives the whole incubator, startup scene, etc, a bad name. The good ol' days are over. I still have in my mind Y Combinator of Paul Graham (a man wise with his words), but given that we've already had even Sam Altman in control of it. I'm guessing YC nowadays is not that different from private equity/VCs like A16z, which enjoy having their fingers on everything. Typically, it is stuff they don't know much about and look plain stupid. I hope PG can bring the good ol' days back someday, when it was about entrepreneurship, having people laser-focused on building disruptive companies.
- tootie 3y agoThe actual tweet was a few days ago. I can't believe he wasn't instantly fired. I know firing a CEO is a bit complicated, but this should have warranted a quick response. Has YC even issued a statement? Has Tan apologized?
- thiago_fm 3y agoNo idea, I have a similar thought. But I'm not from America, where people are free to say whatever stupid thing they want, no matter how high stakes their job is.
- maeil 3y agoNo repercussions for violent threats to innocent people when made by higherups in SV tech is par for the course nowadays. Take OpenAI's Head of Research (quite the public role given they're a research company) openly calling for genocide in Gaza, asking to "finish them", "More! No mercy!" including civilians, over a series of 80 deranged tweets. [1] Zero repercussions, still happily heading research at a company whose supposed objective is developing AGI for the benefit of mankind. Also very quickly scrubbed off of HN [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39124666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39124666 [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20231226171217/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38773385 https://web.archive.org/web/20231226171217/https://news.ycom...
- 3y ago
- softwaredoug 3y agoFrom https://missionlocal.org/2024/01/garry-tan-death-wish-sf-supervisors/ https://missionlocal.org/2024/01/garry-tan-death-wish-sf-sup... He hasn’t liked it when the threats were the other way: > In the past, Tan has not been receptive to jokes about him: When commenting on San Francisco community organizer Julian La Rosa, who had said that “millionaires and landlords should be guillotined,” Tan seemed to take the jest deadly seriously. > “This is not a joke,” he posted. “This guy wants to guillotine people.” > “This kind of stuff should have zero place in San Francisco politics,” he later said.
- p_j_w 3y agoRich techbros being hypocrites? I'm utterly shocked!
- shuckles 3y agoJulian never apologized for his tweet whereas Garry did, so it’s kind of a false equivalence.
- sh34r 3y agoI'm more inclined to think Garry Tan is a sadist, not a hypocrite. He said "die slow." There's few methods of killing that are faster than the guillotine. Garry clearly believes only ISIS-approved execution methods belong in SF politics.
- ramesh31 3y agoIs anyone helping Garry? He's very obviously going through something.
- riffic 3y agois this the dude that is known for blocking a lot of randos on Twitter? edit: ah yeah he is lol: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32641557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32641557
- laidoffamazon 3y agoI love Hit 'em Up, and I really dislike the supervisors in question. But man, doing this is at best cringe, and at worst extremely unprofessional
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ilamont 3y agoThe deleted tweet is really bad, and can't be brushed off with "sorry, the booze made me do it." "If you are with [progressive supes] then FU too" makes me wonder how employees, YC applicants, and others are treated if they are so aligned or appear to be. A laptop sticker or T-shirt with one of these names on it would be noticed, not to mention social media posts or "following" status. YC portrays itself as a meritocracy and striving to find the right or the best founders. If the top officer is filled with such resentment, I don't see how that doesn't cloud the YC environment and the types of founders who are invited to participate.
- because_789 3y ago“Drunken words are sober thoughts.”
- malermeister 3y agoIn vino veritas.
- pyb 3y agoYC shouldn't become a no-go zone for anyone who leans "progressive".
- tw04 3y agoThe number of people trying to defend what is, at best, extremely childish behavior is fascinating to me. Would you really go up to your city counselor in real life and tell them you wish death on them and their family, and pretend it's OK because it's an obscure reference to 90s rap (mind you the rap song WAS an actual death threat)? Do you think you'd be met with laughter? Do you actually consider that socially acceptable behavior? If you dislike their politics, so be it - donate to campaigns or personally run against them. Write a letter explaining how you'd like them to vote.. But the amount of absolute crass behavior people allow "because it's the internet" is mind boggling.
- zeroCalories 3y agoThis isn't your neighbor, you don't owe politicians any kindness.
- bdcravens 3y agoYes, but death threats are a crime, so we owe it to everyone, including ourselves, to not stoop to that level.
- antognini 3y agoJust to add some nuance here, Tan's comments weren't a death threat in the legal sense (or at least don't constitue a crime). It is perfectly legal (if inadvisable) to say something along the lines of "Politician X should die a slow painful death." It only becomes a crime if it is a highly specific threat. E.g. "I am going to shoot Politician X on Tuesday evening after they leave City Hall."
- JohnFen 3y agoJust because it's legal doesn't mean it's not wrong. I mean, he can legally say it for sure, and I wouldn't argue that the law should prevent him from that. But once said, everyone else has every right to condemn him for it.
- 3y ago
- StayTrue 3y agoAny statement from the YC partnership?
- sgt 3y agoGarry Tan needs to go. This is not CEO behavior.
- danans 3y ago> This is not CEO behavior Prescriptively, you are right, but descriptively, for a particular subset of Silicon Valley CEOs, it seems pretty on-character.
- replwoacause 3y agoWhich is one reason why so many people hate SV. This kind of behavior is just terrible. How do we have so many manbabies getting in charge of things?
- Gibbon1 3y ago30 years ago a guy that worked as an international translator said to me, if people only knew how their political and business leaders act when they don't think anyone important is watching. They are all terrible people. Another friend deals with the Hollywood and Television elites; most of them are human trash. They can act nice when it suits them. And they'll happily be ruthless, vindictive and petty otherwise. The nice thing now is ordinary people to get to see this.
- danans 3y ago> How do we have so many manbabies getting in charge of things? > 30 years ago a guy that worked as an international translator said to me, if people only knew how their political and business leaders act when they don't think anyone important is watching. > The nice thing now is ordinary people to get to see this. Ordinary people like you and me are inherently no more virtuous and have said things that we would be ashamed of if seen publicly. The difference is that we, unlike the Tans and Musks of the world, don't have a reality-distortion-field of wealth - and even worse: adulation - that makes us feel we can express our worst and ugliest impulses. Our mistake is in raising business leaders to demigod status in the first place. We shouldn't then be surprised when that goes to their heads.
- gerash 3y agoAre these "journalist" being paid by our tax dollars from these corrupt/insane officials?
- etc-hosts 3y agoGathering money to hire people to write the news in San Francisco is pretty hard. Mission Local is a non profit org in SF that has done really great work. Many of their articles focus on corruption in the city government, for example https://missionlocal.org/2022/08/nuru-sentenced/ https://missionlocal.org/2022/08/nuru-sentenced/ You can see their funders here: https://missionlocal.org/our-donors/ https://missionlocal.org/our-donors/
- justinzollars 3y agoI recently lost another friend to Fentanyl. The policy of SF sups actually kills people, like my friend. The policy of Leftist supervisors who defend huge open air drug markets can be directly linked to thousands of deaths in San Francisco and tens of thousands in the Bay Area. This is an example of caring more about what people say than what people actually do. For a generation who is so proud of itself, Millennials, your results suck. Where are your accomplishments?
- danso 3y agoVirtually every supervisor on the current board appears to be Gen X https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Board_of_Supervisors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Board_of_Super...
- tru3_power 3y agoLmao someone was listening to too much 2pac and drinking. Literally right out of “Hit Em Up”. Don’t think he was being serious, but still not a good look for a CEO.
- micromacrofoot 3y agoIf you wouldn't say it to someone's face, don't post it on social media.
- BWStearns 3y agoTo quote the late great Norm Macdonald, this might strike some viewers as harsh...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zeroCalories 3y agoYeah man, housing advocates are totally known for being violent extremists, unlike the sups in SF. These people are snakes.
- hoistbypetard 3y agoWhen I saw "supes" in the headline I thought it meant superintendants, as in people in charge of a school system. Here it means members of the county board of supervisors. If you live in a place where that's not a thing, it's very similar to a city council or county commissioners in many other US places.
- jeffbee 3y agoThe City and County of San Francisco has a unique unitary government, where the citizens in my experience think of the supervisors as city supervisors, not county supervisors, even if both or either might be technically accurate.
- sdsd 3y agoFunny, I thought of superheroes, because they're called "supes" in The Boys. I was confused whether this was a joke announcing a new season of The Boys. I clicked the article just to clarify what supes meant lol
- jackmott42 3y agoWhat a terrible human being, why would anyone want to be involved with Y Combinator or any of their companies that would put up with this sort of behavior?
- LgLasagnaModel 3y agoFor Christ’s sake, the guy spells Garry with two ‘r’s, did y’all expect that he would NOT turn out to be a lunatic???
- crowcroft 3y agoRegardless of whether you agree/disagree/whatever is this the kind of volatility you want on the cap table?
- KingOfCoders 3y agoDo you want to work for a company where this kind of volatility is an investor?
- romafirst3 3y agoWell at least he’s not promoting genocide in Gaza …oh
- ashconnor 3y agoDid anyone else get blocked on Twitter by Garry for liking a tweet critical of his San Francisco housing policies?
- idle_zealot 3y agoWhat am I missing here? "Die slow" is certainly in poor taste, but it is not a death threat nor is it a call for violence. It seems clear to me that it expresses a wish for the target to die slowly (and presumably painfully or uncomfortably) when they do end up dying. It's childish and mean spirited, but it's clearly not a threat. I'm more afraid of the chilling effect that punishing this sort of harmless speech has than I am of allowing it to continue through inaction.
- kvonhorn 3y agoThe "die slow" in this case is a reference to an actual death threat made in a song from the 90s. > it's clearly not a threat No, it's not a threat, it just _references_ a famous death threat, one that Tan regrets that we didn't get when he initially tweeted it.
- throwawaymaths 3y agoFirst tell me you've never wished a person dead aloud, not even once. I've probably done it two or three times. I've wished people dead quietly, maybe about 10 times. Never actually killed anyone. One person I wished dead, did die (of leukemia), probably, unfortunately, slow and painfully. Here's someone I would right now, wish a slow and painful death, publically. Vladimir Putin. come after me with an accusation of a death threat.
- rideontime 3y agoI’ve never wished a person dead aloud, not even once :)
- throwawaymaths 3y agoeasy to start. Wish vladimir putin dead.
- lookitsnicholas 3y agohave never had that wish at all personally, tbh
- buildsjets 3y agoLock him up.
- COGlory 3y agoI can't believe the lengths people here are going to trying to defend his behavior. There's a reason influential people shouldn't be publicly calling for others to die in pain. Coincidental rap lyrics or not. Someone might just take you up on it. It's extremely irresponsible and dangerous.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoAre rappers not influential people?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- daveguy 3y agoWhy would Y Combinator keep an employee on board -- any employee -- who posted desires on Twitter for a group of people to die a slow death? The politics of it are irrelevant.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- redder23 3y ago[flagged]
- Glyptodon 3y agoIt should be unacceptable for someone in a leadership position to act so dangerously juvenile, but it is the era of Trump. Speaking your mind can be done in ways that aren't basically death wishes.
- tsol 3y agoHe's always been a very strange person. Blocks everyone who disagree, insults freely. I'm surprised it's taken this long honestly
- caskstrength 3y agoHe is fabulously wealthy and his private stash is... Macallan 18?! It seems no amount of money can substitute nonexistent personality and improve poor taste...
- galacticstone 3y agoWTF? That's the CEO of Hacker News?
- refurb 3y agoThis is a tech VC going up against season politicians. Did you notice the article tries to mix up Tan’s letter with “antisemitic” letters also received? Those are irrelevant, but very politically savvy to try and equate the two. Gary stepped on his own dick with this move. If you want to beat them, you need to play the game better than they do.
- ynx 3y agoI feel like if I said "die slow, motherfuckers" here, that'd be justified grounds for a ban. It's really, really fucking stupid to do this, and even worse as a leader of an influential and impactful organization. Also - is Hacker News independent from Garry Tan's influence? If so, what assurances of that are there? If not, what can be done to ensure he never touches HN?
- P_I_Staker 3y agoIt is not free of influence. This site is incredibly biased in it's moderation. I will be surprised if this comment doesn't get flagged and taken down.
- protocolture 3y agoWhats a supervisor in this context?
- etc-hosts 3y ago"San Francisco" is simultaneously a county and city. San Francisco Supervisors are members of the San Francisco Board Of Supervisors. same thing as a city council. https://sfbos.org/ https://sfbos.org/
- thelock85 3y agoThe wildest part of this is that Tan mimicked a lyric from a diss song (Hit Em Up), ostensibly in jest. Never mind that the release of that song was part of a conflict that ended with two rappers (2Pac & Biggie) dead. Of all the diss tracks, he picks the one with allegations of sleeping with someone’s wife, making fun of someone’s health conditions, demeaning women, and of course repeated threats of death that eventually manifested in real-life murders.
- Lammy 3y agook but he's right though https://old.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/hthfgb/aaron_peskin_defending_his_fief/ https://old.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/hthfgb/aaron_peski...
- replwoacause 3y agoWow, how is this guy in charge of anything? He seems so puerile.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- iamleppert 3y agoHe should be charged with inciting those death threat letters. If I would post something like that on social media to my 5k followers, and one of them was inspired to commit a crime soon afterwards, I’d be facing criminal charges. San Francisco DA should look into charges and hold Mr. Tan accountable for his behavior.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoDoes this make Garry Tan “the supe Nazi”? (I’ll show myself out)
- devwastaken 3y agoGarry is lost in the rat race of politics and is clearly crushing himself under the pressure of his own ego. I would not trust the future of ycombinator to someone who cannot articulate in a disagreement. What things is he saying behind closed doors that will be revealed? "When asked if she felt personally threatened by Tan’s behavior, Chan responded “Seeing what my colleague[s] received in the mail? Yes, absolutely. I have a 10-year-old. I do not tell people where my child attends school.”"
- alecco 3y agoFor context, Peskin himself is known to verbally harass public officials while intoxicated: > Verbal harassment > Peskin has been known to make inappropriate late night phone calls to public officials and private citizens.[9] For example, he called the Port of San Francisco director Monique Moyer several times about cutting their funding over disagreements concerning waterfront building height limits. Mayor Newsom told the San Francisco Chronicle that people around city hall had been complaining about Peskin's behavior for years.[49] However, former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos has said Peskin's alleged behavior falls "well within the boundaries of the system" and that it's "not unusual in politics at any level of government."[49] > In 2018, at the scene of the St. Patrick's Day fire in North Beach, Peskin was reportedly intoxicated while he verbally berated then-Deputy Fire Chief of Operations Mark Gonzalez. Peskin has denied being intoxicated at the time but has apologized for his behavior.[50] > In June 2021, Peskin announced in a statement that he would be entering into alcohol treatment.[51] Peskin apologized for behavior that he attributed to his alcohol problem, but also announced that he planned to remain in office while in treatment.[52] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Peskin#Verbal_harassment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Peskin#Verbal_harassment
- trust_bt_verify 3y agoDidn’t see any death threats listed, is this relevant?
- alecco 3y agoHe is a bully.
- trust_bt_verify 3y agoIt would be good to have some actual analysis of how this is relevant to the topic rather than throwing out more character assassination of a victim. Victims can be bad people too but that is not relevant as calls for death are always unacceptable, no matter the victim.
- latentcall 3y agoThe manchildren share inherit the Earth.
- SilverBirch 3y agoCan someone explain to me what the dynamic is in San Franciso? I honestly don't get this situation where practically every rich VC/Software/Tech person in silicon valley bithces and moans about San Francisco. But it's like... rich tech guys have been hanging around silicon valley for decades now, they're billionaires. They could literally fund candidates for every single government position down to highly politically motivated garbage collectors. How come it seems like they have no political power at all? Surely they should just... put some people into power who'll do what they want? Like I'm not even saying "Why haven't they solved the problem", I'm saying "Why haven't the rich tech guys not just spent money to put people they like in power?" And I'm not just saying Garry personally, I'm saying it seems an almost universal view that rich silicon valley people want different people in charge, so... go... do it? Or do they actually have a load of political power and just don't want to fess up to the fact it's their own dumb politics causing the problems in the first place?
- NoobSaibot135 3y agoI’m a big fan of YC, HN, and Garry Tan. I’d love to support Garry politically to get SF back to its roots and to put math back in schools. Unfortunately Garry has blocked me on X for no good reason that I can think of?
- StackRanker3000 3y agoSee https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125
- weare138 3y agoWhat the hell is going on in Silicon Valley? You all ok over there?
- phendrenad2 3y agoA case of "you had one job". It should be possible to criticize people without wishing death on them (or saying something that can be construed as wishing death on them). But oh no, that's too much for some people I guess.
- coldtea 3y agoWould this CEO have gotten the same backlash if he said similar things about, say, Trump, or some adjacent S.F. supervisor? Not asking whether they would have gotten _some_ backlash (of course they would), but whether they would have gotten the same backlash, from the same media and people giving it to Gerry now, and whether it would be as effective to get them getting some board discipline and/or have them relieved from their positions. It's ok to say "but those are bad people and would have deserved it, while the ones Tan targetted are good". It comes off as a little strong, but at least it's an understandable and cohesive political stance. It's also fine to say "No, saying such things is a no-no, no matter which is the target, period.". But it's a little hypocritical when people who claim the latter in this case, to ignore or even applaud similar comments when they're in line with their politics.
- aagha 3y agoMore than anything, it's surprising more aren't calling for him to step down.