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What indication would there be that the two are related? Do you expect them to write an email specifically stating that was the reason? For what it's worth, th

What indication would there be that the two are related? Do you expect them to write an email specifically stating that was the reason? For what it's worth, that neobank received funding from his company, which definitely raises the odds of the two being related.

gruez 8mo ago
>What indication would there be that the two are related? Do you expect them to write an email specifically stating that was the reason? I'd want to see a pattern of multiple critics being banned. In the same video he admits that neobanks have a history of banning clients arbitrarily for seemingly no reason. Just a few months ago there was a story of someone being banned from wise for seemingly dumb reasons made it to the front page[1], so it's certainly possible for people to get banned because of pure incompetence. Therefore you'd expect a base rate of Palantir/Thiel critics banned from pure coincidence alone. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45766253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45766253 >For what it's worth, that neobank received funding from his company, which definitely raises the odds of the two being related. Right, just like you can come up with some spurious relationships from people being banned from wise, like the CEO hating pineapple on pizza (example, no idea whether he actually does) and the person being banned liking pineapple on pizza.
- input_sh 8mo ago
  > I'd want to see a pattern of multiple critics being banned. So it's cool if one person gets deplatformed, as long as it's not a pattern? Odd choice if you ask me. Personally if one side is financially backed by someone as insane as Thiel, I tend to need very little evidence from the other side to believe it. For what it's worth Wise was also funded by Thiel, so he'd be somewhat to blame (not fully, of course) for that incompetence as well.
  - josephcsible 8mo ago
    > So it's cool if one person gets deplatformed, as long as it's not a pattern? Odd choice if you ask me. No, it's not cool even if it's just one person. The point is that you should absolutely be upset at the bank for arbitrarily banning someone for no reason, but not at Peter Thiel or Palantir, since it being just one non-high-profile critic means there's no good reason to think they had anything to do with it.
    - input_sh 8mo ago
      Let me re-iterate this one more time: he invested in Qonto, he invested in Wise. Therefore, whether the actual reason is incompetence or a personal vendetta or both, he deserves some of the blame. He is the one that funded them. He is the reason they exist, as (in)competent as they are. Shifting the blame to "incompetence" does not absolve him of any guilt, he is equally to blame for that as well.
      - deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
      - josephcsible 8mo ago
        I don't think it's fair to blame an investor who's not the founder and has no executive/managerial control of a company for what that company does. Do you have a retirement account that invests in the S&P 500? Should you be responsible for the decisions all of the companies in it make?
      - milesskorpen 8mo ago
        It's extremely improbable that a random critique of Thiel led to one of the many many many companies he invests in banning this guy. It's not impossible, but - Occam's razor, it's not the simplest assumption. Your initial post suggested that we should assume that there is a link; now you're backing up to "Thiel takes some blame from bad actions by companies he invests in," which is a much weaker but more defensible claim.
        input_sh 8mo ago
        Was I the one to shift the conversation into "incompetence" or did someone else do that thinking it absolves Thiel of any blame? Which I've proven it doesn't and you just agreed with me that it doesn't? We can go back to my original claim if you want to, but my stance would remain the same as it did it in my first comment: if on one side of the argument we have a company directly funded by Thiel and on the other side we have literally anyone else, I personally don't need any strong evidence to believe that other side, as I am well-familiar with Thiel.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
IncreasePosts 8mo ago
First, we would need to understand if he was actually de-banked. Then, we would need to understand what his actual criticism was. Have other people made similar criticisms and faced de-banking? Then, we would need to understand his other activities, and whether they could have led to a de-banking (if he was in fact de-banked).
SpicyLemonZest 8mo ago
It raises the odds I suppose, but through what mechanism would something like this even work? Like, the story would have to be: * Peter Thiel, a man who does not speak French, discovers that a French streamer is saying mean things about Palantir. Lots of people say mean things about Palantir, since they do so many bad things, but this particular criticism is just so cutting Thiel feels he has to do something about it. * He searches through every investment he's ever made, singling out all the French ones, and sends their executive teams an email saying that this one specific French guy sucks and they shouldn't do business with him. * The executive team at Qonto, a profitable company with 600,000 customers and almost €500M in annual revenue, receives the message and decides that they'd like to help one of their dozens of investors with his personal revenge campaign. It's not 100% impossible, but it's so implausible I don't think it's reasonable to believe based on a coincidence.
- turtlesdown11 8mo ago
  It's kind of wild to not consider that Peter Thiel pays a business to monitor mentions of him online. This is a very common thing in industry. Thiel is well known for being extremely thin skinned. He's also funded surveillance tech businesses. It's very unlikely Peter spends his time looking for internet references, but that someone he pays does so. From everything the public knows about him, he's absolutely someone who compiles and reviews lists of "enemies". As for speaking French, it's trivial to translate languages. The evidence that a company is profitable or large has zero relation to it's decisions around dropping a customer? You've created a strawman of suppositions that are not accurate, and then casually blow away the strawman.
  - SpicyLemonZest 8mo ago
    It seems even more implausible that a reputation monitoring business would raise a random French streamer's criticism of Palantir to Peter Thiel's attention. How could they possibly think that's worthy of his time? Here, let me try something: ----------- I don't like Palantir, and I don't like Peter Thiel because of his role in creating it. It's a bad company that does bad things. I won't work for Palantir, it's shameful that anyone does work for Palantir, and the world would be much improved if Palantir went bankrupt tomorrow. ----------- I'll come back and admit defeat if I get booted off of Thiel-funded technology platforms in a few days, but I know and I strongly suspect you know that's not going to happen.

gruez 8mo ago

>What indication would there be that the two are related? Do you expect them to write an email specifically stating that was the reason? I'd want to see a pattern of multiple critics being banned. In the same video he admits that neobanks have a history of banning clients arbitrarily for seemingly no reason. Just a few months ago there was a story of someone being banned from wise for seemingly dumb reasons made it to the front page[1], so it's certainly possible for people to get banned because of pure incompetence. Therefore you'd expect a base rate of Palantir/Thiel critics banned from pure coincidence alone. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45766253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45766253 >For what it's worth, that neobank received funding from his company, which definitely raises the odds of the two being related. Right, just like you can come up with some spurious relationships from people being banned from wise, like the CEO hating pineapple on pizza (example, no idea whether he actually does) and the person being banned liking pineapple on pizza.

input_sh 8mo ago
> I'd want to see a pattern of multiple critics being banned. So it's cool if one person gets deplatformed, as long as it's not a pattern? Odd choice if you ask me. Personally if one side is financially backed by someone as insane as Thiel, I tend to need very little evidence from the other side to believe it. For what it's worth Wise was also funded by Thiel, so he'd be somewhat to blame (not fully, of course) for that incompetence as well.
- josephcsible 8mo ago
  > So it's cool if one person gets deplatformed, as long as it's not a pattern? Odd choice if you ask me. No, it's not cool even if it's just one person. The point is that you should absolutely be upset at the bank for arbitrarily banning someone for no reason, but not at Peter Thiel or Palantir, since it being just one non-high-profile critic means there's no good reason to think they had anything to do with it.
  - input_sh 8mo ago
    Let me re-iterate this one more time: he invested in Qonto, he invested in Wise. Therefore, whether the actual reason is incompetence or a personal vendetta or both, he deserves some of the blame. He is the one that funded them. He is the reason they exist, as (in)competent as they are. Shifting the blame to "incompetence" does not absolve him of any guilt, he is equally to blame for that as well.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
    - josephcsible 8mo ago
      I don't think it's fair to blame an investor who's not the founder and has no executive/managerial control of a company for what that company does. Do you have a retirement account that invests in the S&P 500? Should you be responsible for the decisions all of the companies in it make?
    - milesskorpen 8mo ago
      It's extremely improbable that a random critique of Thiel led to one of the many many many companies he invests in banning this guy. It's not impossible, but - Occam's razor, it's not the simplest assumption. Your initial post suggested that we should assume that there is a link; now you're backing up to "Thiel takes some blame from bad actions by companies he invests in," which is a much weaker but more defensible claim.
      - input_sh 8mo ago
        Was I the one to shift the conversation into "incompetence" or did someone else do that thinking it absolves Thiel of any blame? Which I've proven it doesn't and you just agreed with me that it doesn't? We can go back to my original claim if you want to, but my stance would remain the same as it did it in my first comment: if on one side of the argument we have a company directly funded by Thiel and on the other side we have literally anyone else, I personally don't need any strong evidence to believe that other side, as I am well-familiar with Thiel.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]

IncreasePosts 8mo ago

First, we would need to understand if he was actually de-banked. Then, we would need to understand what his actual criticism was. Have other people made similar criticisms and faced de-banking? Then, we would need to understand his other activities, and whether they could have led to a de-banking (if he was in fact de-banked).

SpicyLemonZest 8mo ago

It raises the odds I suppose, but through what mechanism would something like this even work? Like, the story would have to be: * Peter Thiel, a man who does not speak French, discovers that a French streamer is saying mean things about Palantir. Lots of people say mean things about Palantir, since they do so many bad things, but this particular criticism is just so cutting Thiel feels he has to do something about it. * He searches through every investment he's ever made, singling out all the French ones, and sends their executive teams an email saying that this one specific French guy sucks and they shouldn't do business with him. * The executive team at Qonto, a profitable company with 600,000 customers and almost €500M in annual revenue, receives the message and decides that they'd like to help one of their dozens of investors with his personal revenge campaign. It's not 100% impossible, but it's so implausible I don't think it's reasonable to believe based on a coincidence.

turtlesdown11 8mo ago
It's kind of wild to not consider that Peter Thiel pays a business to monitor mentions of him online. This is a very common thing in industry. Thiel is well known for being extremely thin skinned. He's also funded surveillance tech businesses. It's very unlikely Peter spends his time looking for internet references, but that someone he pays does so. From everything the public knows about him, he's absolutely someone who compiles and reviews lists of "enemies". As for speaking French, it's trivial to translate languages. The evidence that a company is profitable or large has zero relation to it's decisions around dropping a customer? You've created a strawman of suppositions that are not accurate, and then casually blow away the strawman.
- SpicyLemonZest 8mo ago
  It seems even more implausible that a reputation monitoring business would raise a random French streamer's criticism of Palantir to Peter Thiel's attention. How could they possibly think that's worthy of his time? Here, let me try something: ----------- I don't like Palantir, and I don't like Peter Thiel because of his role in creating it. It's a bad company that does bad things. I won't work for Palantir, it's shameful that anyone does work for Palantir, and the world would be much improved if Palantir went bankrupt tomorrow. ----------- I'll come back and admit defeat if I get booted off of Thiel-funded technology platforms in a few days, but I know and I strongly suspect you know that's not going to happen.