Peter Thiel won’t be involved in YC’s work with the ACLU | Hacker News Reader

Peter Thiel won’t be involved in YC’s work with the ACLU

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46 pointshaaen77 comments

I don't think this is really saying anything at all, other than to drum up a negative association (or positive, depending on how you look at it). Thiel is not involved with YC-backed ACLU, just as he is not involved with the YC-backed company I work at.

Business is as business does. Sam Altman has stated he is not going to cut ties with Thiel over political issues [1]. At their level of influence, doing so burns bridges unnecessarily, and sends a clear message that polarization and bubble-creating is OK, and its not. YC wants to set a good example for the tech community by influencing the world in a positive way (e.g. ACLU) and not in a negative, spiteful way (dropping Thiel).

http://www.recode.net/2016/10/16/13302120/y-combinator-sam-a...

Yeah you're right

Bridge building at every opportunity with those of opposing political views should become the policy of the tech community. Hopefully the YC/ACLU collaboration can make some headway on solving the problem of both sides demonizing the other.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is something I was never able to do. It is clear that to really make it in life, idealist have to dial down their inner voice - a lot.

I do not think that, given the chance, I would ever be able to work for/with people like Peter Thiel. But I have great respect for educated, smart, strong and generous people, who are able to work with those who doubt evolution, who doubt climate change, or who put their archaic beliefs above those of others and decide how they should live their life. But the world it seems is increasingly fractured, and a lot of doors open up for those able to work efficiently with the other team, or outside of any team.

"polarization and bubble-creating is OK, and its not." - says the man who advocates giving a break to a supporter of the most polarizing president in living memory.

Screw that, there is something called "ethics", and the supporters of the The New World Order (Trump, Bannon, Thiel, Farage, Le Pen, Putin, and so on) needs to be shunned.

So he's never been a partner and doesn't work "very closely with the companies." Yet he's still affiliated with YC?

Actions speak louder than words: drop him or acknowledge that YC at some level acknowledges his views (this isn't bad, or good, just something that should be done in my view).

Even something as simple as "we acknowledge that people have differing political views, yadda yadda... would be sufficient).

Why say anything about him? Well, clearly he's the elephant in the room. They should acknowledge this and move on.

Why? Seems unfair to ban someone over their political views. Specially when they're from the winning party. He was right to bet on Trump, if anything I'd want him closer.

FYI, your account has been dead for 2272 days.

Sam Altman did acknowledge his views on behalf of YC in everyone's favorite format, a long series of tweets: https://twitter.com/sama/status/787833897132232704?ref_src=t...

He addressed it again in a blog post: http://blog.samaltman.com/the-2016-election

> Even something as simple as "we acknowledge that people have differing political views, yadda yadda... would be sufficient).

Why do they need to publicly admit the obvious? What is the angle here?

It's obvious that Thiel supports an individual that contradicts many of YC's own goals and interests?

Thiel is a "part-time partner" according to this: http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-peter/

And, according to the New Zealand government, he's a part-time American citizen.

The government is an enormously rich potential source of revenue for any company or investor. Unless Trump burns out, Thiel is probably now the most powerful financier in tech. Which sane businessperson wants to make an explicit enemy out of him? That explains a lot of the ambiguity. Follow the money. Please don't bet on investors (including YC) putting any political misgivings ahead of P&L in their hierarchy of concerns.

I do [want to make an enemy of him]. (Though to be fair, I'm not nearly important enough to matter.)

Seriously though, investment is a form of partnership. Thiel has diminished his stature as an investor in my eyes, government access or not; I will never -- now or in the future -- accept money from a Thiel-backed fund. YMMV.

[Edited to reflect a phrase I thought I was responding to, but was either misread or edited later...]

quote restored for you ;-)

> “He is not a partner,” Manalac said. “He never has been. We have 19 full-time partners who work very closely with the companies.” She went on to say that she “can understand why people would be very scared and nervous about that but he will definitely have no interaction with the ACLU.

So why not cut ties already? If Thiel isn't involved anymore, and he's working with the Trump administration, why doesn't he resign his partnership and move on?

> > “He is not a partner,” Manalac said. “He never has been. [...]”

> why doesn't he resign his partnership and move on?

Because to resign his partnership, he'd first have to be a partner.

What are you talking about? Yes he is: http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-peter/

> What are you talking about?

I'm quoting the statement from YC Partner Kat Manalac in TFA, which was also quoted in the post I was responding to.

If you want to ask why YC is denying that he has ever been a partner now after welcoming him as a "part-time partner" previously, well, you'd have to ask someone else.

But it doesn't make sense to quote a statement about how he never has been a partner and respond to it with a question about why he doesn't resign his partnership.

It does make sense. Y Combinator has a relationship with Thiel. He's been declared as a partner many times in the past; now they're saying he's not. That's why I'm asking the rhetorical question. I'm afraid you're taking the passage quoted here and removing all other context.

Manalac could have said that Thiel is a part time partner.

Sorry if negative, but I like my tech companies pushing their political agendas on me, as much as I like Hollywood stars doing it.

I'm sure they're all good guys, but now that the Prez has proven you can get elected as a billionaire non-politician it took about 45 seconds to start hearing about candidate Zuck.

Would argue, the Hacker way is to be skeptical of all of it.

I think people vastly overestimate how much ideology matters once you get past a certain net worth. At that point, they're all in it for the same reasons

cue the picture of the Clintons laughing at Trump's wedding

Yeah...But don't tell the party loyalists on either side about it.

Dem pundit: "It's the uneducated white cis male patriarchy that wants the south to rise again..."

GOP pundit: "Those minority transgender liberals want to take your guns and religion..."

Oligarchy: smiles

This is why Sanders wasn't so enamored about fighting the GOP. He was in it to fight their funders.

I think people vastly underestimate how many rich people still have other values in their life than money.

Look at Bill Gates. In the '90s, most of the tech industry viewed him as the stereotypical greedy monopolist, a robber baron of software. 20 years later, he has done more to help mankind than almost any billionaire ever. The picture is not black and white, but a continuum of shades.

I imagine Peter Thiel is on a small list of people that could leave YC and start an incubator on par. Probably best to keep him around.

p.s. We also never know how many individuals at YC personally hold views closer aligned with thiel or with sama or somewhere else completely who don't make a statement because they're not as bold / don't want to stick their name out.

Doubtful. He has the funds to be sure but incubators are many and good ones are few. He'd be hella late to the game.

He has the ear of the President of the United States. I don't know how to put a price on that, but I'm positive it's worth a lot.

"Those who play with the devil's toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword." -- Buckminster Fuller

Could he? There's probably a very large intersection between the group of people who would be great start up founders and those who adamantly oppose the political views of the current administration.

He does have something similar, in the Theil Fellowship. I don't think they're too scared of competition, YC says that they receive more qualified applicants than they could accept.

Does Peter Thiel still consider himself a libertarian? I just can't imagine how Trump's positions on immigration can be justified on libertarian grounds.

It's pretty easy actually. It's pretty much the same argument one uses to justify building a fence around any other piece of property.

The United States of America is not "any other piece of property".

I didn't say it is, just that an analogous argument can be applied. First you postulate citizenship as membership in a private club. The club's bylaws determine who gets to be a member and how the club's property is to be managed and protected. The rest is trivial and I'm not actually a libertarian so I'm not going to bother working through it.

In other words, you can arrive to an incorrect conclusion by postulating incorrectly. Free immigration (free movement of people) is regarded as one of the core concepts of libertarian theory and philosophy. It's not "easy" to argue for restrictive policies on immigration from a libertarian standpoint.

That can happen only in a society where there are no public services and all property is privately owned. Then crossing the "border" of the country is considered trespassing on someone's private property and it's up to them to allow or disallow it.

In addition to the argument in the other comment, compare Donald Trump to Rand Paul or Ron Paul, which are the prime examples of what libertarianism is (unlike Gary Johnson). Both of them take a stance against illegal immigration and for strong borders [1, 2].

[1] https://randpaul.com/issues/immigration

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Pau...

It's a worrying trend that tech and Silicon Valley are increasingly politicizing. Excepting direct regulations, I'd like to keep business and politics separate.

This is reaching the point of parody.

Imagine saying about your partner that you "can understand why people would be very scared and nervous about [him] ... and then keeping him.

Close your eyes and imagine how alienating it must feel to be a conservative/libertarian/non-leftist working in tech right now.

Sad that Katrina Manalac was wrong twitter about Peter Thiel.

He IS a YC partner, although part time. She tweeted: Thiel isn't a YC partner.

tl; dr. Thiel won't be involved in ACLU because he's is not a active member of the YC.

@sama

care to comment on this one?

Whatever sincere doubts and supposed nuances may have lead YC to continue to tolerate Thiel's presence before Trump took power, there can be no more doubts today.

An organization that associates itself with both the ACLU and a fascist regime lacks any kind of credibility. This reeks of PR driven opportunism.

And this reeks of an unaccepting worldview to have of others.

Some world views should not be (and are not) accepted. Railroading damaging world views has always been part of politics, and for good reason -- there are plenty of world views whose existence damages everyone.

Too bad nobody agrees on what those are. So you can tolerate each other, segregate yourself, or fight.

There are plenty of examples of agreement on this. Cannibalism - to name one.

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