A related article that does a good job of explaining why Thiel supports Trump:<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/21/peter-thiel-republican-convention-speech" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/21/peter-thi...</a><p>EDIT: (to explain why)<p>No other analysis I've seen anywhere of Thiel at the RNC takes into account this very, very important attempt at explaining Thiel's reasons:<p>"""
Now, in 2016, Thiel has finally found a politician capable of seizing that opportunity: a disruptor-in-chief who will destroy a dying system and build a better one in its place. Trump isn’t just a flamethrower for torching a rotten establishment, however – he’s the fulfillment of Thiel’s desire to build a successful political movement for less democracy.
"""<p>Thiel doesn't want less government, but he does want less democracy, because he can achieve his aims more easily if this is the case (or so he believes).<p>Lest anyone read the above and somehow believe I'm a Trump or Thiel supporter/advocate/etc, I'm solidly NOT.
As an attorney and someone in tech, I used to strongly admire Thiel. He left biglaw and took a gamble, and it paid off. But between his support for Trump and the Gawker nonsense, I no longer have any respect for the man. Anyone on record supporting trump is on the wrong side of history.
> 14 said they would not personally do business with him as a result.<p>One of the most interesting things about current politics.<p>I've always found it odd that republicans haven't picked up on this and tried to seize on the opportunity to create an incubator for republican leaning/apolitical companies.<p>Seems like there would be a tremendous amount of opportunity there given the success of fox news, particularly for an apolitical twitter given recent censorship issues.
This article fails to address the growing divide between east coast and west coast technologist and entrepreneurs. Many of us in New York are ashamed and embarrassed by the valley, and are looking to change it via negation.
Silicon valley is increasingly adopting way too much of the PC groupthink as of late. There's absolutely nothing and nobody that is truly disrupting anything. Even the word "disrupting" has become a cliche adlibs fill in the blank for pitching "new ideas".<p>Gone are the middle-class rebels (jobs/clark) that don't care what anybody thinks, in are the ivy-league-ish conformers that want wall street funding and friendly government regulation (basically everybody.<p>And hey, if wall street and friendly government regulators is what you want and if you have a few hundred grand (maybe a few million) to throw at her foundation or her friends, then Hillary is your gal.
> Speaking privately, Thiel’s allies could only conjecture reasons for his unexpected partnership with Trump; many expressed frustration with how anyone could support a candidate so unpredictable.<p>I could come up with a few pretty obvious reasons why a gay libertarian like Thiel would support trump.<p>1) Democrats support the resettling of millions of Muslims to the West that have been indoctrinated in an ideology that calls for killing gays. Currently in 11 Muslim countries acting out homosexuality is punishable by death. In most others they imprisons gays and extra judicial killings of gays by mobs are not persecuted.<p>It is not unreasonable for a gay man to fear Muslims and Muslim culture.<p>2) Democrats engage in political correctness and in vilification of their political opponents (You don't agree with me? You are like Hitler!) to a degree that people who say the wrong things or support the wrong candidate must fear for their financial and in some cases even physical security.<p>Even a billionaire like Thiel will face repercussions for this as was mentioned in the article:<p>> In my anonymous poll of 42 randomly selected start-up founders from the database CrunchBase, only nine people supported Trump. Fifteen of them opposed Thiel’s speech for Trump, and 14 said they would not personally do business with him as a result.<p>In many areas it is basically open season on anyone that openly supports Trump, people will attack you, people will key your car and strangers will insult you.<p>It says a lot when people like Dilbert creator Scott Adams endorse Clinton because they fear for their personal safety: <a href="http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement-for-president-of-the-united-states" rel="nofollow">http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement-for...</a><p>This vilification pushed by the Democrats is the exact opposite of freedom and democracy. I totally get why a libertarian would support Trump even if he doesn't like him to at least restore the most basic personal freedoms.<p>3) Trump is very much anti big government. He wants to reduce its size and remove regulations that inhibit the growth of the private sector. Few libertarians would have a problem with that.<p>Also it isn't sustainable to permanently have a large portion of society completely dependant on government as we can obviously witness by the insane growth of government debt everywhere in the West.<p>This system almost guarantees that poor people will always stay poor and that their children will be poor too as all they know is dependance and submission to the social system.<p>Social systems do not help the poor, they never did. Over the last decades it has gotten bigger and bigger and yet poverty never went down, instead the opposite happened.<p>The same is true for public education which was basically run by liberals since the 80ties. It has gotten so bad that today it can't even guarantee that a child going through this system will not end up as a functional illiterates.
The Left has not helped Silicon Valley much.<p>1) ageism -- once you hit 40-45yo, you're done. Take a survey of the ages of the people at your company for evidence. Most engineers in their 20s; some in their 30s; almost none in their 40s and beyond<p>2) sexism -- females are about 50% of the population. But in Silicon Valley? Hiring favors males. Again, look at the companies you have worked at in Silicon Valley over your career. Mostly all male.<p>3) racial stereotyping -- take a look again at the companies you have worked for over your career. How many blacks there? How many Hispanics? VERY FEW.<p>So the idea that the Left is playing an effective role in the Valley is BOGUS in several dimensions:<p>- AGEISM<p>- SEXISM<p>- BLACK AND LATINO HIRING