Can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument?
They ended the entire part-time-partner program, and transitioned some of the part-timers to advisor roles. Thiel is one of multiple part-timers not to become an advisor.
You are not going to get an answer, or more "context", from YC about the political implications of this change. No matter how many times you ask and how carefully you word the questions, you're not going to pry loose any first-hand drama from this situation.
I'm happy Thiel's no longer involved with YC. I'm disappointed that it took this long, but we can't always get what we want. There are people here that disagree with me on both those things. We all knew that about each other. We probably don't need to beat it to death.
How can you say "can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument" and end your post with a divisive political opinion (that you think people with opposing viewpoints should be silenced)? You're literally inviting the debate that you're calling long and pointless. Or perhaps you just want to only share your opinion without others having the same opportunity, so you can have the last word?
Personally, I think Trump is reprehensible. I also think that silencing people with opposing political viewpoints is dangerous and reprehensible. I don't always agree with Peter Thiel politically, but I would happily do business with him. It's really not our place as the internet lynch-mob to interfere with Peter's role in the startup community because of his political views. Note, @sama said as much when the whole thing went down.
Sure, let's not argue. But it's fine to be curious.
Sam has said that he won't cut Thiel for political ties. Thiel is cut. Does this represent an internal shift in momentum, or an external shift in appearances?
Combine that with some recent news regarding Thiel. I wish I'd paid more attention to it. It was something like, Thiel was making a move against a certain company. So maybe it has nothing to do with politics, or that politics are an incomplete answer.
If we won't get an answer, that's fine. But it's unnecessary to shut down the conversation so harshly.
There could very well be a non-political reason for this move, and HN is one of the best places to shake loose counterintuitive truths.
I guess what bugs me is the lack of curiosity here. Everyone is acting relieved to be rid of Thiel. The underlying dynamics are interesting, and there's no reason it has to be an argument or polarizing.
I am still really puzzled over exactly why Peter Thiel so so hated. I believe the level of hatred is completely unwarranted. From my understanding, it boils down to this:
- He is remotely associated with Trump
- He helped take down Gawker
- ....something something something...but he backed Trump!
For the Gawker part:
Gawker outed him without his permission.
Outing a gay man is something the tabloids used to do in the darkest time period of the United States. Finding someone was gay and making that known publicly was a tool used by very, very unpleasant people to destroy careers and lives for years.
Given how Liberal the tech industry is, it is genuinely puzzling that people would rise to the defense of "Freedom of the Press" to use someone's sexual identity to try to discredit or embarrass them and destroy their career.
This is not freedom of the press, its bullying. If a media outlet did something to you personally and you had a few million dollars to spare to shut them down, you would do it too. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.
So Peter Thiel helped shut down an abusive tabloid that outs gay men against their will and regresses the tech sector back to the 1970's and 80's. That doesn't seem sufficient to warrant the hatred.
Then he was associated with Trump. He dared so say things like: "Our middle class has been gutted by globalization and we are being eaten alive by China."
Bernie Sanders ran on this exact platform. Almost word-for-word, Bernie Sander's political platform economically had many things in common with what Thiel was promoting.
So that leaves one final option: The reason that people hate Thiel is because he made enemies in the Liberal press, they smeared him relentlessly and people internalized this without doing their own independent thinking or research.
I don't like that Y Combinator was expected to "Apologize" for not firing someone for holding political beliefs that align them with 42% of the United States population. I feel the tech industry is now a worse, less free place when demonization of this type has become so endemic.
Theil didn't just hurt a bully. He took it a step further. For one, he financed someone else's lawsuit, because his own was unwinnable (they did in fact print the truth, that he is gay). More importantly, he hurt free speech through the chilling effect of his suit.
What he basically did was say, "don't ever print anything negative about a billionaire because they can take down your entire business". So now if a billionaire really does do something newsworthy and negative, places like the New York Times might think twice about publishing that story, for fear of the cost of defending a billionaire's lawsuit.
That's why people dislike him (other than his Trump support, although to be fair I haven't heard anything about him supporting Trump anymore).
Quote:
"Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."
If that is ok for you - ok.
Personally, I find this a very immature and troubling world view. Should tell the CEO of StitchFix that she is preventing capitalism with her IPO.
I don't think his association with Trump deserves him anything beyond disapproval from someone who also disapproves of Trump, definitely not hatred. And I've almost never seen any hate-filled comments directed towards him on HN that weren't downvoted.
But to suggest that he is only "remotely" associated with Trump seems like a blatant misrepresentation of his activities during and after the election.
Libertarian, on the Committee for Protection of Journalists, but hey I don't like what you said about me. I'm going to lie in wait for 8-9 years and then secretly fund a lawsuit against you with a possibly winnable case. (PS: I don't want to see a Hulk Hogan sextape anymore than Hulk Hogan wanted it released)
Gay, but will willingly support candidates who are against gay people: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump. Whomever will push his agenda.
Also, Thiel didn't hide that he was gay, he was only "in the closet" when it affected him financially. Despite what you wrote, the tech industry is not very liberal. SF is liberal, and a lot of tech companies are in SF but a lot of VC money is not in SF, and most VCs I don't think most people would consider very liberal.
And his hedge was Trump wasn't as bad as he was going to be during the campaign, that it was all theater. But he's rich so none of that matters to him if he's wrong. Worst case scenario is he flies to New Zealand to survive any fallout.
I mean I hate him because I read Zero to One and noticed his thoughts on monopoly are insane, but sure, you can assume people aren't doing independent thinking and research while in turn not doing independent thinking and research.
Many people hated Thiel before Trump and the Gawker lawsuit. I strongly disliked him fifteen years before that. Since no one else has mentioned it, maybe we should talk about Palantir which is one of his most high profile companies. He co-founded it and is/was the largest shareholder so the ethics of that one fall squarely on him.
Its part of why he wants to be so friendly with Trump. Many more billion$$$$ of lucrative no-bid government contracts for Palantir and Thiel personally.
Its titled "HOW PETER THIEL’S PALANTIR HELPED THE NSA SPY ON THE WHOLE WORLD". One excerpt:
In the demo, Palantir engineers showed how their software could be used to identify Wikipedia users who belonged to a fictional radical religious sect and graph their social relationships. In Palantir’s pitch, its approach to the VAST Challenge involved using software to enable “many analysts working together [to] truly leverage their collective mind.” The fake scenario’s target, a cartoonishly sinister religious sect called “the Paraiso Movement,” was suspected of a terrorist bombing, but the unmentioned and obvious subtext of the experiment was the fact that such techniques could be applied to de-anonymize and track members of any political or ideological group. Among a litany of other conclusions, Palantir determined the group was prone to violence because its “Manifesto’s intellectual influences include ‘Pancho Villa, Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, [and] Cuban revolutionary Jose Martí,’ a list of military commanders and revolutionaries with a history of violent actions.”
It's less Trump and Gawker and more his (older than either of those) perceived (accurately, as far as I can tell) association with the explicitly anti-democratic and pro-aristocratic neoreactionary movement.
His support for Trump fits into that, though, because it's seen as part and parcel of Thiel's neoreactionary politics.
I doubt it is one those two things. You need to think of the overall personality, all the small and big things, the ideology, the narcissism... these add up, and overtime one just get fed up. I am not connected to YC, but when I read that that's how what I presume happened, because I wish there were more people with a low tolerance for narcissistic personalities.
I have great admiration for Thiel as an entrepreneur and I agree with him on a number of his economic views. It's unfortunate that his infamous Cato essay point about women and welfare recipients being difficult constituencies for libertarians has been misconstrued (maybe purposely for political reasons?) as if to mean "women and welfare recipients should therefore not be allowed to vote". When I watch the American news media covering state & federal elections, they routinely say that X candidate or party usually has a tough time with women/people of color/college students/older people, so I never really agreed with the interpretation that many in the media seemed to want me to derive out of that essay.
It's really unfortunate that politics has turned into some kind of tribal warfare and polarized the USA to this degree. From the perspective of an outsider it seems like there either side is somehow morally superior to the other. Of late I personally tend to hear things like "taxation is theft" and "property is for fascists" on a disturbingly regular basis from voices that seem to grow louder as time goes by. Where did all the moderates go?
"I am still really puzzled over exactly why Peter Thiel so so hated."
Honestly, it's because he's a jackass. Don't forget his absurdly libertarian stances regarding regulation, to the point where he funded studies that completely ignored the ethics/regulations around human medical testing. He's also espoused the views that women being allowed to vote is a bad thing, and that people like him should just run the place as a cabal.
"So that leaves one final option: The reason that people hate Thiel is because he made enemies in the Liberal press, they smeared him relentlessly and people internalized this without doing their own independent thinking or research."
No. Assuming that people don't agree with what you think simply because they haven't "done the research" is extremely uncivil. I have done the research, and I think he's a jackass.
"I feel the tech industry is now a worse, less free place when demonization of this type has become so endemic."
The only way you could think that is if you don't feel the rest of us have the right to express our opinions.
I think he's hated because he's a formidable challenge against an entrenched belief system. People don't like their beliefs challenged, especially when it's the overwhelming majority, IMO. Thiel does that, without worry or shame, and that upsets some folks...
I have some concerns about his fellowship thing looking like an inviting-but-ultimately-a-trap attempt to use 18 year olds to advance his own political agenda, but wouldn't say that's hateable, as theirs definitely a more positive way to look at it. I just think the implementation is not really set up for success for the individuals compared to the opportunity cost.
I could see people with an even harsher take on his various super-individualistic projects, though.
he just receives back what he gives. I mean there is huge difference between being disappointed/critical/etc. (i'm not a big fan of humanity myself) which is necessary for the progress and being hellbent on promulgating hate for and destroying, just for the sake of personal comfort, those few good things we, humans, have been able to achieve so far.
This post does not appear to contain any evidence that YC has cut ties with Peter Thiel. They ended the program that he, and many other individuals, were a part of. Just because he is not in this program anymore, does not mean they no longer have any ties to him. There is also no evidence of any connection here to Trump or Thiel's support of him with the ending of the program or Thiel's lack of involvement in a different official capacity with YC. I wish I could have the five minutes back it took to read this click bait.
While I know most of these things never get a truly transparent answer, and often for valid reasons. I am very curious for some response from YC.
It may have been politically motivated, and it may not have been. I'm also not aware how much Thiel was involved vs. other partners. Additional insight into much of this could shed good light to those that appreciate much of what YC has done and aims to continue to do.
Some response from YC would be a big win, but also just may not be an option.
I'm a big fan of Peter Thiel, and of anyone who's a divergent thinker and has well thought out opinions that run contrary to mainstream ideology (e.g., Noam Chomsky).
If YC ended its relationship with Peter because of his political affiliations, I'd find that extremely unfortunate. Any institution which closes itself off to outside information, challenging viewpoints and diversity of thought risks becoming an ideological echo chamber and ultimately weakening itself in the long run.
Can anyone provide context to this? Sam has been on record saying that he wouldn't cut Thiel solely for political affiliations. Was there another reason?
In my opinion, this was long overdue. Anyway, Ycombinator maybe strategically getting ready for a world without trump. Having people who supported this type of a Person won't be a good look in the future.
[+] [-] tptacek|8 years ago|reply
They ended the entire part-time-partner program, and transitioned some of the part-timers to advisor roles. Thiel is one of multiple part-timers not to become an advisor.
You are not going to get an answer, or more "context", from YC about the political implications of this change. No matter how many times you ask and how carefully you word the questions, you're not going to pry loose any first-hand drama from this situation.
I'm happy Thiel's no longer involved with YC. I'm disappointed that it took this long, but we can't always get what we want. There are people here that disagree with me on both those things. We all knew that about each other. We probably don't need to beat it to death.
[+] [-] kenneth|8 years ago|reply
Personally, I think Trump is reprehensible. I also think that silencing people with opposing political viewpoints is dangerous and reprehensible. I don't always agree with Peter Thiel politically, but I would happily do business with him. It's really not our place as the internet lynch-mob to interfere with Peter's role in the startup community because of his political views. Note, @sama said as much when the whole thing went down.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] fullshark|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meritt|8 years ago|reply
Did you reach that conclusion based on personal experience? Because you were quite vocal and unfortunately prescient about it 395 days ago [1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12733024
[+] [-] misterHN|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jweihwiehrwo|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] sillysaurus3|8 years ago|reply
Sam has said that he won't cut Thiel for political ties. Thiel is cut. Does this represent an internal shift in momentum, or an external shift in appearances?
Combine that with some recent news regarding Thiel. I wish I'd paid more attention to it. It was something like, Thiel was making a move against a certain company. So maybe it has nothing to do with politics, or that politics are an incomplete answer.
If we won't get an answer, that's fine. But it's unnecessary to shut down the conversation so harshly.
There could very well be a non-political reason for this move, and HN is one of the best places to shake loose counterintuitive truths.
I guess what bugs me is the lack of curiosity here. Everyone is acting relieved to be rid of Thiel. The underlying dynamics are interesting, and there's no reason it has to be an argument or polarizing.
[+] [-] whatyoucantsay|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dominotw|8 years ago|reply
I am not quite familiar with what role he played at YC. Why are you glad he is gone ?
[+] [-] evangelista|8 years ago|reply
- He is remotely associated with Trump - He helped take down Gawker - ....something something something...but he backed Trump!
For the Gawker part:
Gawker outed him without his permission.
Outing a gay man is something the tabloids used to do in the darkest time period of the United States. Finding someone was gay and making that known publicly was a tool used by very, very unpleasant people to destroy careers and lives for years.
Given how Liberal the tech industry is, it is genuinely puzzling that people would rise to the defense of "Freedom of the Press" to use someone's sexual identity to try to discredit or embarrass them and destroy their career.
This is not freedom of the press, its bullying. If a media outlet did something to you personally and you had a few million dollars to spare to shut them down, you would do it too. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.
So Peter Thiel helped shut down an abusive tabloid that outs gay men against their will and regresses the tech sector back to the 1970's and 80's. That doesn't seem sufficient to warrant the hatred.
Then he was associated with Trump. He dared so say things like: "Our middle class has been gutted by globalization and we are being eaten alive by China."
Bernie Sanders ran on this exact platform. Almost word-for-word, Bernie Sander's political platform economically had many things in common with what Thiel was promoting.
So that leaves one final option: The reason that people hate Thiel is because he made enemies in the Liberal press, they smeared him relentlessly and people internalized this without doing their own independent thinking or research.
I don't like that Y Combinator was expected to "Apologize" for not firing someone for holding political beliefs that align them with 42% of the United States population. I feel the tech industry is now a worse, less free place when demonization of this type has become so endemic.
[+] [-] jedberg|8 years ago|reply
What he basically did was say, "don't ever print anything negative about a billionaire because they can take down your entire business". So now if a billionaire really does do something newsworthy and negative, places like the New York Times might think twice about publishing that story, for fear of the cost of defending a billionaire's lawsuit.
That's why people dislike him (other than his Trump support, although to be fair I haven't heard anything about him supporting Trump anymore).
[+] [-] shadowtree|8 years ago|reply
Never backed down that claim.
Here is the pamphlet, from 2009: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
Quote: "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."
If that is ok for you - ok.
Personally, I find this a very immature and troubling world view. Should tell the CEO of StitchFix that she is preventing capitalism with her IPO.
[+] [-] danans|8 years ago|reply
I don't think his association with Trump deserves him anything beyond disapproval from someone who also disapproves of Trump, definitely not hatred. And I've almost never seen any hate-filled comments directed towards him on HN that weren't downvoted.
But to suggest that he is only "remotely" associated with Trump seems like a blatant misrepresentation of his activities during and after the election.
[+] [-] swang|8 years ago|reply
Libertarian, on the Committee for Protection of Journalists, but hey I don't like what you said about me. I'm going to lie in wait for 8-9 years and then secretly fund a lawsuit against you with a possibly winnable case. (PS: I don't want to see a Hulk Hogan sextape anymore than Hulk Hogan wanted it released)
Gay, but will willingly support candidates who are against gay people: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump. Whomever will push his agenda.
Also, Thiel didn't hide that he was gay, he was only "in the closet" when it affected him financially. Despite what you wrote, the tech industry is not very liberal. SF is liberal, and a lot of tech companies are in SF but a lot of VC money is not in SF, and most VCs I don't think most people would consider very liberal.
And his hedge was Trump wasn't as bad as he was going to be during the campaign, that it was all theater. But he's rich so none of that matters to him if he's wrong. Worst case scenario is he flies to New Zealand to survive any fallout.
[+] [-] bbctol|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrgordon|8 years ago|reply
Its part of why he wants to be so friendly with Trump. Many more billion$$$$ of lucrative no-bid government contracts for Palantir and Thiel personally.
Here is an article from The Intercept that adds more detail: https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palanti...
Its titled "HOW PETER THIEL’S PALANTIR HELPED THE NSA SPY ON THE WHOLE WORLD". One excerpt:
In the demo, Palantir engineers showed how their software could be used to identify Wikipedia users who belonged to a fictional radical religious sect and graph their social relationships. In Palantir’s pitch, its approach to the VAST Challenge involved using software to enable “many analysts working together [to] truly leverage their collective mind.” The fake scenario’s target, a cartoonishly sinister religious sect called “the Paraiso Movement,” was suspected of a terrorist bombing, but the unmentioned and obvious subtext of the experiment was the fact that such techniques could be applied to de-anonymize and track members of any political or ideological group. Among a litany of other conclusions, Palantir determined the group was prone to violence because its “Manifesto’s intellectual influences include ‘Pancho Villa, Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, [and] Cuban revolutionary Jose Martí,’ a list of military commanders and revolutionaries with a history of violent actions.”
[+] [-] dragonwriter|8 years ago|reply
His support for Trump fits into that, though, because it's seen as part and parcel of Thiel's neoreactionary politics.
[+] [-] Amygaz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fareesh|8 years ago|reply
It's really unfortunate that politics has turned into some kind of tribal warfare and polarized the USA to this degree. From the perspective of an outsider it seems like there either side is somehow morally superior to the other. Of late I personally tend to hear things like "taxation is theft" and "property is for fascists" on a disturbingly regular basis from voices that seem to grow louder as time goes by. Where did all the moderates go?
[+] [-] s73ver_|8 years ago|reply
Honestly, it's because he's a jackass. Don't forget his absurdly libertarian stances regarding regulation, to the point where he funded studies that completely ignored the ethics/regulations around human medical testing. He's also espoused the views that women being allowed to vote is a bad thing, and that people like him should just run the place as a cabal.
"So that leaves one final option: The reason that people hate Thiel is because he made enemies in the Liberal press, they smeared him relentlessly and people internalized this without doing their own independent thinking or research."
No. Assuming that people don't agree with what you think simply because they haven't "done the research" is extremely uncivil. I have done the research, and I think he's a jackass.
"I feel the tech industry is now a worse, less free place when demonization of this type has become so endemic."
The only way you could think that is if you don't feel the rest of us have the right to express our opinions.
[+] [-] tensor|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Simulacra|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] majormajor|8 years ago|reply
I could see people with an even harsher take on his various super-individualistic projects, though.
[+] [-] postramus|8 years ago|reply
It's not complicated!
[+] [-] arprocter|8 years ago|reply
Isn’t your percentage of those who bothered to vote?
40-50% (everywhere quotes different numbers) of eligible voters didn’t vote in 2016
[+] [-] trhway|8 years ago|reply
>why Peter Thiel so so hated.
he just receives back what he gives. I mean there is huge difference between being disappointed/critical/etc. (i'm not a big fan of humanity myself) which is necessary for the progress and being hellbent on promulgating hate for and destroying, just for the sake of personal comfort, those few good things we, humans, have been able to achieve so far.
[+] [-] rtx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dogruck|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jweihwiehrwo|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] owens99|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] racer-v|8 years ago|reply
That means they at least cut some ties.
https://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-peter/
[+] [-] fleitz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] craigkerstiens|8 years ago|reply
It may have been politically motivated, and it may not have been. I'm also not aware how much Thiel was involved vs. other partners. Additional insight into much of this could shed good light to those that appreciate much of what YC has done and aims to continue to do.
Some response from YC would be a big win, but also just may not be an option.
[+] [-] johnrichardson|8 years ago|reply
If YC ended its relationship with Peter because of his political affiliations, I'd find that extremely unfortunate. Any institution which closes itself off to outside information, challenging viewpoints and diversity of thought risks becoming an ideological echo chamber and ultimately weakening itself in the long run.
[+] [-] ubernostrum|8 years ago|reply
Do you make sure to attend flat-earth meetings?
[+] [-] xupybd|8 years ago|reply
This is awesome. I had no idea this had been said. I have a lot of respect for anyone bringing that sentiment.
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LeoJiWoo|8 years ago|reply
So I can't say this is surprising but I find it all extremely confusing.
EDIT: Mostly rumors I hear from happy hours with some politicos in DC. Sorry, its just meat space rumors.
[+] [-] sillysaurus3|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s73ver_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fleitz|8 years ago|reply
The program he was involved in got terminated
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] m333t|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] neo4sure|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ssijak|8 years ago|reply