Peter Thiel’s Warning to the Valley | Hacker News Reader

Peter Thiel’s Warning to the Valley

wsj.com

46 pointsjonbaer49 comments

The crux of this though is he's moving from a place he deems too "politically correct" to a place that's uhhhhh, how should I put this? A place with a better environment for innovation. A place with better free speech provisions.

To put it simply he's moving to a place that's politically correct. Difference is, it's his kind of political correctness - its more safe and comfortable and familiar for him.

A place where people won't be mean to him, just because he wants to harvest the blood of the young, like he's some kind of cartoon villain.

( https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/08/peter-thiel-wants-to... )

I am not defending him, but does not wasting human time on ads (as Facebook and Google do en masse) have the same or potentially even worse downstream effect on life?

So he’s never been to LA. Good. It will be a learning experience.

>Americans who once thought of Silicon Valley as a jewel of U.S. innovation are likely to turn against these companies if they see them as relentless political enemies.

This is evidently false, since everyone knows the West Coast's political biases and everyone uses its tech products anyway.

"everyone uses its tech products anyway"

Is there another option? Simply... not?

If Mark zuckerberg ran for office on one party, I'm guessing it would impact the number of users in the opposition party

Another option is to politicize manufacturing. Take "Made in USA" vs "Made in China" and the connotations of those stickers in parts of working class america.

The equivalent could be a right-leaning silicon valley in middle america making competing goods and services. I see firms like this from time to time (often veteran owned), but it's a bit surprising it hasn't cropped up more. If Thiel etc were really trying to play the long game and erode the cultural monopoly of the coastal elite, creating competing centers of competence seems like a good place to invest.

No there's not really another option for conservatives if they don't want their everyday tech built by left and centre-left people. But the article says "turn against them".

"turn against them" !== "stop using their products"

That would be kinda like opting out of the internet for the most part I would think.

When these companies are making vastly superior products to the competition (if there's any), people are just making a rational choice.

It doesn't mean that there's no hate for tech companies and the Silicon Valley... Just go read what Fox News commenters and Donald Trump supporters have to say about Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter, ... sometimes justified (Bezos owning the WaPo, Eric Schmidt being quite cozy with the DNC), sometimes just on the basis of a perceived liberal bias (e.g Google/YouTube often accused of unsubscribing people from conservative channels or hiding search results without any concrete proof).

Also no one has stopped watching cable TV due to it being run largely by right-wing billionaires.

Complain about it, yes, but actually change their behavior because of it? no. Same with tech products.

The companies used to mostly act in a nonpolitical way though, as the article notes. That has clearly changed.

I wouldn't be so assured of that. Thiel has a point that the situation can change very quickly. IMO it would be dangerously arrogant to assume that just because a state of affairs is just so, that it will always continue to be the case. We are speculating about future events after all.

> “that’s when you get into trouble politically, when you’re all on one side.”

Actually, no. Political trouble reigns from the notion of “sides.” I understand that sides make it easier for people to “choose a side,” but it severely reduces the number of people who have any idea what they’re actually on the side of.

We honestly need to rethink the notion of having political parties, because it’s breeding bandwagon voters who no longer feel the need to look at the details, and will openly vote against something they are personally in favor of because that’s what their “side” is doing, like it’s some sort of necessary compromise.

Is LA that politically different than SF?

Although Breitbart is headquartered there, so I’m sure he will find some conservative friends.

It's not just about left/right.

Compared to SF, LA is a true big city, as close to New York as you can get on the west coast. In comparison SF is a petty small town, complete with the provincial backstabbing and all.

no "provincial" backstabbing in LA/NYC - God no.

The short answer is that yes it's very different (contrary to other opinions). Although still liberal (by Harvard/Yale standards), UCLA/Caltech don't even compare to Stanford/Berkeley. LA is also much more cosmopolitan, so you'll naturally get a more varied distribution of ideas on the political spectrum.

I would argue that for the most salient issues of our time, UCLA, Berkeley, Stanford, Hopkins, et al, will all support sufficiently liberal social and political policies that from the outside perspective all look the same. Sure, a few colleges may really demonstrate its history of activism.

But which top college wouldn't culturally or administratively have a positive atmosphere towards immigrants, financially disadvantaged, Muslims, gays, sexual equality, or gender issues? Basically the salient topics of our time.

Peter Thiel might simply want to take advantage of the less-crowded LA tech scene, or I suspect he might've tried Austin, but even then, I don't think it's that much different in atmosphere.

> "That’s when you get in trouble politically in our society, when you’re all in one side"

Funny they don't mention that Thiel is all-in on the other side. He's a massively regressive conservative. The dude hangs out with (grandfather of the alt-right) Curtis Yarvis ffs.

Thanks for the warning WSJ, we'll take it from here.

None of this actually matters. It’s not like he wasn’t traveling all over the nation/world all the time anyway. Frankly, it’s naive at best, petty at worst.

he's going from the most politically correct place in america to the fourth most politically correct place in america?

Y'all come on down to Texas. We're pro business, pro freedom, and culturally diverse.

Does that mean Thiel Capital is moving down to the LA area with him, or will that remain the Presidio?

It is. [0]

"The billionaire is severing ties with Silicon Valley over its left-leaning politics, and moving his home and operations of his venture fund Thiel Capital to Los Angeles"

[0] https://qz.com/1208584/libertarian-peter-thiel-is-escaping-s...

My personal experience with LA, currently working in Santa Monica, is that it’s a pretty laid back place with nowhere near the hustle or talent pool of SV or even Toronto’s tech community (where I’m from originally) so I’m curious how this will work out.

In aerospace the area around LAX and JPL in Pasadena the talent pool is ridiculously skilled and experienced.

The city of Los Angeles, or somewhere more conservative such as Orange County?

Their previous article on the move mentioned “home overlooking the Sunset Strip that he bought six years ago”.

He probably wants to be near a major airport.

I don’t know what kind of jet Thiel uses, but SNA should be plenty big; I doubt proximity to a larger airport is part of his equation.

How could an industry largely composed of highly educated immigrants ever be stupid and xenophobic enough to support Trump era clown college nativist conservatism?

I’m glad he’s moving to LA.

L.A. is pretty damn politically correct.

Non-paywalled link: http://archive.is/yAPYC

Thank you!

The launch of Yass not going as planned?

Sorry that guy has no more credibility.

Mods shouldn't allow pay walled links to be submitted.

Flagged

You can do this, but all you're going to get is your flagging privileges revoked. They're not going to tell you, and you're not going to notice. They'll let you keep clicking that button like something's actually happening. But it won't be. Because it's a longstanding rule of the site: paywalled sites are fine as long as there's some workaround. It's right there in the FAQ.

The makeup of the Valley is changing and trending towards immigrants so it’s not shocking that Thiel would have a tougher time here after being such a vocal supporter of Trump.

It’s important to make a distinction between Trump’s stands on legal and illegal immigration.

Maybe what he says and does are different, but he was been very vocally against both forms of immigration.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com