Thiel Foundation announces next Thiel Fellow class: 23 entrepreneurs
businesswire.com
businesswire.com
Zenopower seems insane though. How does a 23 year old lead an company working on nuclear power?
Does Peter Thiel still does VC? I thought he left YC and Silicon Valley.
[1] Mark Zukerberg, Larry Ellison and Peter Thiel.
They've recently legalized doing venture capital in Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Boston and dozens of other cities (including those outside of the US too).
So perhaps there are more of us than you think, we're just not keen to speak up in the comments section because it just invites a flame war?
I'm glad you agree.
Would you say that the tone of your comment reinforces, diminishes, or is neutral with respect to my comment about starting flame wars?
Usefully, your comment has demonstrated the exact phenomenon I was referring to.
May be. But I certainly know he is extremely unpopular on twitter, HN along with pretty much all mainstream media. You just have to look at some of the comments in this thread ( some of them are filtered as dead )
To the point I think it is extremely courageous to admit you are a big fan of him.
I dont want flame wars. But I certainly want balance of opinions. Whenever something is extremely one-sided I tends to get wary. But then I also understand why replying may start a flamewar. Discussion is hard.
You don't say what you mean by this so I don't know how to respond. Some say the tech companies lean left, some say they lean right, but HN is not the place to discuss politics. I will say most of the posts and comments I see are aligned with the hacker's ethos of opposing censorship. Banning Rep. Greene for vaccine misinformation or former President Trump for inciting violence is not censorship.
A government forcing private companies to implement policies around speech is a violation of their speech.
My take on this is more nuanced and I think private companies wielding speech restriction is high risk, but people saying the government should step in are wrong imo.
https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/16/mark-zuckerberg-and-f...
This piece is on the fellowship, and the article says: “To date, companies created by Thiel Fellows are together valued at more than $46.8 billion, excluding Ethereum which is valued at $450 billion.”
And an even bigger one:
> Zeno Power is developing small-scale nuclear power systems to provide clean and resilient power in austere environments.
Also, not everyone has to frame and align every single one of their actions in accordance with the "progressive" view.
You can personally attack me with any one of the "certain" labels in the arsenal. But you can also choose to argue in good faith.
[1]: e.g. https://www.greenamerica.org/fight-dirty-energy/amazon-build...
Yeah, this is one of the things I really hate about my side of the aisle. It's stupid, unscientific, and just plain uninformed. Nuclear energy is one of our best, most actually viable ways out of this mess. (File with: GMO crops, 'chemicals', etc.)
I found this 2020 survey by Pew Research which I think paints a more realistic picture [1]. It has a larger sample size [2], and IMO it asks a more objective/specific question.
Among "Conservative Republicans", 59% responded that they support expanding nuclear power plants, in contrast with 35% of "Liberal Democrats". Interestingly, for "Mod/lib Republicans", that number is also below 50%.
You might have a point though. My personal observation is that there has been a slight shift among the progressives, but not as much as the graph by ecoAmerica suggests.
[1]: https://archive.is/2iEHj#selection-1253.0-1253.154
[2]: I think the sample size is 10,957.
"Zeno Power is developing small-scale nuclear power systems to provide clean and resilient power in austere environments." He's literally funding clean energy.
And even if this year's list didn't have that in the list, let's celebrate someone doing good instead of lobbing stones from the sidelines about how they didn't do it the exact way we would have.
Another one is about small scale nuclear reactors.
So it this just about the term? It the people?
It’s not very environmental directed, but not everything has to be.
Lada researches and develops biological tools to better visualize and manage biology at the molecular level.”
Um this is pretty cool. Don’t know why you’re categorically dismissive.
B) By that logic, isn't all money tainted? And everyone of us? And every thing?
This is the starting point of every person's decisions regarding being ethical.
How far back do you need to "follow the money" before you consider it "ethical"?
That is up to every person. Theil has actively engaged in dubious ethics, I won't belabor them again. With him it is one hop to "dubious", compared to other organizations where you have to make several graph node hops to get to something dubius. This is a personal choice and everyone has to do their own research if they care about it.
Just to be clear, this is what you said that I was responding to:
> I think the concern is that they are taking money from someone with highly debatable/questionable ethics.
Some investors in almost all public companies have highly debatable ethics.
But that is why I said it is up to the individual. Some people could care less, other people at least want to know if the board is ethical.
I would put in the effort to know if any shady people were on the board of the company I'm taking money from. And if new information came to light after the fact, I would cease taking money.
You can't know everything about everything, and not even attempting to be ethical because you don't have all the information without doing any research is, IMHO, cowardly. It's the "if we can't fix this one big thing why bother doing any of these other things" fallacy. But that's just me and my ilk.
It's easy to make fun of someone trying to be ethical or who cares, because you can't know everything. That's what trolls do for fun. But I think it takes courage to try to stand for something you believe in. Again, that's just me and my ilk.
That’s just me personally, and I wouldn’t judge others by what I would do, but many people do.
it is sad existence for these people, one of mono-culture, and cult like adherence to a single political dogma
I'd definitely not want to work for a company that takes Thiel's money or has any of his acolytes or close associates on board, though.
I don't think it's fair to assume that startup founders who have applied to a Thiel Fellowship did so because of ignorance (or because they are young or "foreign").
This is an amazing opportunity for many people and highly competitive. I even see an upside to companies automatically being able to filter their hiring for people that don't get hung up on this. If someone won't work for a company because a particular VC funded it, I can imagine there a much higher probability of that person causing trouble wherever they end up
My assumption is they obviously know he's a "titan of industry" and that's obviously why they applied for the fellowship. They may not know or care about his politics, and (yes, partially due to the fact that the bulk of these events transpired when they were much younger) may not be aware of some of his more loathsome antics.
I'm not condemning these people, or saying they're stupid. If anything I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, here.
If someone won't work for a company because a particular VC funded it, I can imagine there a much higher probability of that person causing trouble wherever they end up.
It's called ethical backbone. It is perfectly acceptable to not want to work for companies that are engaged in any manner of unethical practices. Or for people who are basically unethical and/or toxic. Or for companies they fund.
If this kind of stance falls under the rubric of "causing trouble" then well, that's the world you chose to live in.
"Please don't fulminate."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This kind of comment doesn't help, even in the case that you're right.
Edit: you've unfortunately been doing this repeatedly. We ban that sort of account, so please stop. We've already had to ask you more than once about this.