Paul Graham Defends Antonio Garcia Martinez on Twitter | Hacker News Reader

Paul Graham Defends Antonio Garcia Martinez on Twitter

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Serious questions for Paul Graham, or others defending this guy:

1) What should the women who work under him do? Accept performance evaluations from him and have their livelihoods screwed with? He literally published how much contempt he has for them.

2) Would you expect men to stick around working under female leadership like that? If some leader referred to me as "useless baggage", why would I work hard for that person? Why waste energy proving that I'm not "full of shit", when I can get paid a great salary working somewhere else. If his leadership is so bad that people will leave the organization to avoid working with him, why is he even selected to be a leader in that organization? He already failed the "ability to lead" part.

I've worked under several women who have let it be known that they detested the particular archetype of the "techbro". Yeah, they didn't go and write a book about it, but even if they had I'm not sure if I'd really care unless they made it a persistent theme in the workplace by either constantly bringing it up, or worse, insinuating that I am a bad person to the degree to which I embody that archetype. So long as you don't do those things, I can work with you pretty much no matter how much you run your mouth outside of work.

I think we don't know enough about Antonio to really say whether he'd be that person or not, but considering he's been in leadership positions for a long time without any notable incidents brought to light I'm leaning towards giving him the benefit of the doubt that he knows how to conduct himself in the workplace.

Why would PG (or anyone) want to live in a world where private companies can't decide to fire someone because they make coworkers uncomfortable and tarnish the brand?

There should be no compulsory hiring.

Not blackballing is different than compulsory hiring.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that private companies aren’t allowed to decide. I think the argument is that companies shouldn’t decide to block based on the types of comments made by this person.

Similarly if I say “eating a galling of ice cream is bad” it’s incorrect to think I’m arguing that people shouldn’t be allowed to choose to eat a gallon of ice cream. My hypothetical is meant to say that people should be smart enough to do the right thing, not that they should be forced to eat or not eat ice cream

That's a fair framing, although there absolutely are people who misinterpret the First Amendment to mean that speech is protected from all consequences.

Taking that concept at face value, it means that Apple's behavior in this case would be unconstitutional (which sounds insane because it is).

Paul Graham on Twitter: "Antonio García Martínez is actually a good guy. He might write the occasional shocking thing for effect, but he'd never, for example, organize a petition to deprive someone of their livelihood."

..followed by:

"So you feel, in a world of properly run companies, he should never work again?"

> "So you feel, in a world of properly run companies, he should never work again?"

Apple is protecting their brand. Full stop.

There's no shortage of other work opportunities for Martínez. He'll be fine.

I think it is damaging to the brand because it signifies an extremely toxic work culture.

"He might write the occasional shocking thing for effect..."

...and would very much appreciate it if you would all agree that it actually had no effect.

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