I realize I'm either on the edge or crossing the guidelines of HN but considering how SV, YC, A16Z and others are intertwined with the Trump administration, I don't know how these types of discussions can be avoided.
[0] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/palantir-alex-k...
Remember when the most obviously questionable company to which new college grads flocked was Facebook?
This one is giving off much more obviously bad vibes.
Andreessen is also no longer affiliated with YC but has been a very vocal advocate for Trump lately [2] [3] [4].
I don't follow YC's current administration or board very closely but I would be surprised if the current lineup weren't in lock step with Altman, Andreessen, Thiel, Musk and others. Please let me know if I'm jumping to conclusions incorrectly.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_LLC
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaZrLDMA56E
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHWnPOKh_S0
Donor lookup for Gustaf Alstromer [1].
Paul Buchheit "So good!" (video of RJK Jr. talk), reposting a tweet with the caption "they could have done it any time. They chose not too. Thats why ppl voted against them" on another tweet about illegal border crossings [3].
Jared Friedman "The young engineers going to DOGE remind me of the early days of the US Digital Service, when a bunch of SV engineers moved to DC to fix http://healthcare.gov. It's the same energy, but now the mandate isn't to fix the government's tech, it's to fix the government." [4]
Michael Seibel "Had an amazing talk about the US economy tonight. All kinds of feelings. Opportunities/ challenges abound. I choose to be optimistic." [5]
It looks like there are a few board members that are either keeping silent about politics or are more vocally against Trump and some of his policies, but a large portion or the majority are actively supporting Trump.
Considering the motivation of YC, the sentiment of many of the prominent figures and the brief amount of Googling, I would say that YC is much more in lock step than not. So it looks like, for the most part, I did jump to conclusions correctly.
[0] https://punchbowl.news/article/tech/garry-tan-trump-ai-crypt...
[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?cand=tech+f...
[2] https://x.com/paultoo/status/1890191142689632593
[3] https://x.com/razibkhan/status/1890167090692387028
But even if true, jumping to conclusions and maligning people and organizations without even doing a cursory amount of research is pretty shitty.