FWIW, I'm glad YC is taking this stance. Firing someone over their personal political views is very icky. You would be up in arms if your boss fired you because of who you were supporting for president, so why would you wish that upon someone else?
Something missing in the hundreds (thousands?) of comments on this is <i>why</i> Thiel supports Trump.<p>The bottom line is that Thiel believes the 'positives' of a Trump presidency would outweigh the negatives.<p>The expected value is positive versus a status quo Clinton administration so he should support Trump.<p>He lays his priority set out quite clearly in his RNC speech: <a href="http://time.com/4417679/republican-convention-peter-thiel-transcript/" rel="nofollow">http://time.com/4417679/republican-convention-peter-thiel-tr...</a> and if you agree with his central premises of a structurally broken economy, excessive foreign intervention etc then tbh Trump is the only viable candidate even after recent headlines, particularly if you believe in the strength of US institutions to curb any excesses.<p>If Thiel's position were based on hatred then I think it would be another story, but as it is, again given acceptance of the possibility of his central premises being correct and Trump being a 'viable' (as in could win vs Stein or Johnson) major party candidate his support is rational.<p>Across America Trump will win fifty million votes or more and while some of them may be deplorables voting for deplorable reasons, many will be voting based on implicit expected value metrics.
The mere fact that it has to be said is concerning. Even more so when it is happening at an institution that is among the most meritocratic in SV. It speaks volume about the depth and toxicity of some self-reinforcing militant feedback loops.<p>It is quite interesting that it is so dangerous for your career to hold "alternative" views (wrt. to mainstream ideologies there) in a place that has cultish adoration of diversity as an end in itself.<p>Even more so interesting to see American progressives wear the clothes of puritanism and McCarthysm. The fascist menace is threatening American society! Quick! You must make sure that those two engineers who have said they would vote Trump lose their jobs! The fascists want to infiltrate every layer of society to bring down the glorious progress. Call this hotline and get them arrested and tried for treason against Progress. Otherwise, brace yourself to hear the drums of nationalism beat again and bring the world on the brinks of genocide. If you are not with us you are against us!<p>Anyway, good on Sam for not taking part in that collective hysteria. I must say the hang-over from the current kool-aid binge drinking party is going to be harsh. So far this attitude of shaming people for not embracing the beautiful and unquestionable axiology of Progress has only been furthermore polarization and resentment.<p>If you want to allow companies to fire their employees based on the political stance they take during a national election; you should, by the same logic, allow them to discriminate based on gender, age or ethnicity. Because yes, what you are essentially saying is that corporations are not politically neutral agents. They can hold and enforce ideologies when it comes to their human management practices.<p>Which, of course, does not fly well when it starts impacting <i>you</i> negatively because you do not hold the "right" opinions.
It's time for the moderates to come out and say it: we won't be defoo'ing or firing people for supporting Hillary and we won't be defoo'ing or firing people for supporting Trump.<p>Or Johnson or Stein or Harambe, for that matter.
Here's context for anyone having a hard time following on Twitter:<p><a href="https://storify.com/gkoberger/dhh-yc" rel="nofollow">https://storify.com/gkoberger/dhh-yc</a><p><pre><code> Paul Graham (@paulg) = former head of YC
David Heinemeier Hansson (@dhh) = creator of basecamp/rails
Sam Altman (@sama) = current head of YC
Peter Thiel (@peterthiel) = part-time parter at YC, well-known investor, current Trump surrogate who just donated $1.25MM</code></pre>
Thiel is a YC partner, not an employee they can fire. And what people like me are calling for is for YC to disavow him.<p>It's much easier to defend "we won't fire an employee for his beliefs", but it is also intellectually dishonest.
Not saying it's the same or that anyone should be fired for their beliefs etc, but YC has taken some political stances in the past. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/paul-graham-sopa-supporting-companies-no-longer-allowed-at-yc-demo-day/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/paul-graham-sopa-supportin...</a>
Brendan Eich[1] was essentially fired for supporting Prop 8 and he only donated $1,000. What frustrates me the most is the pure hypocrisy of liberal activists.<p>It is a dangerous precedent for left wing politics to adopt. What if right wing executives started calling for employees that support Hillary to be fired or publicly shaming them on Twitter? How it that any different?<p>My argument is not with Trump, because I am not voting for him and personally think he is an orangutan. My argument is with the utter hypocrisy of liberal activists.<p>[1] "Critics of Eich within Mozilla tweeted to gay activists that he had donated $1,000 to California Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California until 2013, when it was declared unconstitutional and marriages were allowed to resume. Eich stood by his decision to fund the campaign, but wrote on his blog that he was sorry for “causing pain” and pledged to promote equality at Mozilla. Gay activists created an online shaming campaign against Eich, with OkCupid declaring they would block access to the Firefox browser unless he stepped down."
Say someone was fired for supporting Clinton in this election by a company run by a supported of Trump.<p>Would it make news?<p>Freedom of thought and speech was what America was founded on, so they say.
Political views are one aspect of a person, but they do not define that person. Thiel himself understands this. When he was a law school classmate with Alex Karp (now CEO of Palantir), they constantly argued bitterly over politics, because Karp held an extremely liberal point of view. They were also very good friends and have clearly maintained a very good business relationship.<p>I personally despise Trump, but I agree with Sam -- other people's political views don't really matter to me. Hopefully after this election ends, everyone can calm down and keep things in context. Business and politics are separate.
Honestly it might be best to flag this thread until Sam's post comes. Otherwise we're going to have people arguing about whatever side with an incomplete context.<p>Edit: I see I'm being down voted but this tweet stream has about 4 different, intersecting contexts to deal with especially regarding people trying to pressure YC to drop their partnership with Peter and DHH saying he'd fire an employee for being a political surrogate for Trump.<p>But fine. Let's argue about one specific, tiny piece here and then we can do this all over again when Sam's post comes out.
Persecuting people who hold unpopular or incorrect ideas has a very, very long history. Pushing them out of jobs, imprisonment, torture, even killing them have all been tried, over and over.<p>But all that did was drive the holders of those ideas underground. I don't know of anyone who actually changed their ideas due to persecution.<p>Free expression in the marketplace of ideas is how to persuade people, not persecution.
That wasn't really the issue that was raised, speaking of intellectual dishonesty. Plenty of companies withdrew advertising from the RNC over Trump. Business partnership is a contractual relationship between equals, not a hierarchical one with superiors and subordinates.
Also, a reminder of what I personally think about Trump from early this summer:<p><a href="http://blog.samaltman.com/trump" rel="nofollow">http://blog.samaltman.com/trump</a>
Sometimes it's hard to follow the logic of conversations on Twitter. In this case, I'm pretty sure the original question posed by DHH was simply: has Thiel put more money into Trump's candidacy, or investing in promising YC startups[1]?<p>Seems a fair and legitimate question.<p>How it devolved into "at what point do you fire someone for their political activities?" is an interesting sidetrack; however, I think it's still ancillary to the original question.<p><pre><code> [1] https://twitter.com/dhh/status/787547255259758592</code></pre>
I think people take symbolism too seriously. I won't argue that it never matters what message an organization sends, but people should stop apophenically inferring messages where there are none. This would include, for example, adopting the charitable explanation that Thiel was hired as a source of valuable advice to YC startups, not because YC supports Trump.<p>I'd like a serious answer to this, actually: why does this matter?
Sam believes Trump bears similarities to Hitler (<a href="http://blog.samaltman.com/trump" rel="nofollow">http://blog.samaltman.com/trump</a>). So:<p>Trump:Hitler::Thiel:?<p>When you write something like this:<p>In the words of Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." This would be a good time for us all—even Republicans, especially Republican politicians who previously endorsed Trump—to start speaking up.<p>And then do nothing, it just comes off as sanctimonious and hypocritical.
So I'm I right in thinking that there is a call to 'punish' some people due to their (albeit unpopular with many) political views? That doesn't seem very progressive or civilised...undemocratic even.
There are (at least) two views to this, I think. One view is that the personal and business aspects of a persons life are separate and one shouldn't necessarily affect the other, which is the argument that Sam Altman is making here. The second view is that they are definitely linked, and allowing someone to do something morally reprehensible (if you consider supporting Donald Trump that) means that they aren't with the vision of the company and it's fine to fire them.<p>The reality is that it depends on the level of the person in the organization (as well as the organization itself, but that's not part of this argument). For example, if a janitor supports Donald Trump, that doesn't really affect the business because no one outside the organization thinks that the janitor is representative of the organization as a whole. However, if a C-level employee did something that's considered morally reprehensible, it can affect the business because people associate the business with the people that run it.<p>In this case, I don't agree that Thiel should be "fired" because people wouldn't immediately associate Thiel with the company and he doesn't "work" full time with them (he's a part time partner). If Sam Altman had come out in support of Trump with a donation that would be a different story.
What justice Roberts said about forming opinions [0] holds true For me and anything "Trump"<p>My gut is one thing but when i actually write (type) it out I get surprised how I change my opinion.<p>I can't find a cspan interview where he was even more open about how the act of writing out opinions often makes one change your initial thoughts<p>[0] <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2661589&page=1" rel="nofollow">http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2661589&page=1</a>
Why don't people see Thiel as SV's insurance ? If (atheist-god forbid) trump wins, you have an enthusiastic supporter and firm SV believer by his side (who also happens to be gay) to contain the wild beast. Would you rather have some evangelical nutjob who would put fig leaves on your porn?
Is it me, or is making this about "firing" a bit of slight-of-hand. Thiel is a partner, not an employee. Choosing who to partner with isn't the same as firing an employee.<p>If YC continues to partner with Thiel, everything they say about promoting women in tech is bullshit.
I don't know where I stand on this issue but to see people defending this as 'persecuting someone for their political views' seems a little odd. Thiel is openly supporting and funding a presidential candidate piping hate in to your country's population in the form of racism, misogyny etc etc - This is not a political view everyone, it is hate speech. This is not political to me. Thiel is funding a hate machine and helping him stay on the biggest platform in the world so he can continue.<p>What is political about that?<p>In the UK you could say you support the British National party because they want free school tuition but a large part of their platform is racist - and discredited because of it.<p>I try and be fairly neutral and absolutely find 'justice warrior' type stances to be awful, unjust and discriminatory. I just don't see how this can be defended. Propaganda and hatred should not be called 'political' to make it OK that some rich guy gave him a ton of cash.
There is a difference between firing an employee and continuing to do business with someone that funnels millions of dollars into a racist, sexist, sexual predator that's backed by a foreign intelligence service.<p>Don't lie with dogs. Don't take money from Andreessen if you think Snowden was a hero. Don't continue to partner with Thiel after he continues to support Trump after revelations of sexual predation put to rest that any of this is just folksy bluntness. Trump is the most dangerous candidate I've ever seen. MSNBC has reported that he's contemplated the use of nuclear weapons against ISIS.<p>Continuing to prop up a billionaire that actively campaigns with Trump and continues to funnel money towards him is a grave mark against YC, and frankly surprising given how for most of YC's history they've prioritised helping first and money second.
I am sincerely happy to see most of HN is taking the stance of defending Thiel--by doing it, they are simply defending the freedom to back the candidate you like, and not the one that the industry wants you to like.<p>I have a Twitter stream of hundreds of developers from different backgrounds and it was like 99% pro-Hillary--by defending Trump you would get spanked. Something was really wrong there, and this conversation we are having proves it.<p>And I can't help but wonder if Thiel did this just so this conversation would spark. It simply is brilliant.
The only difference between trump and Hillary is her corruption is complicated enough people like you can brush it under the rug and feel good about yourselves.
If Thiel were the CEO of a corporation he could be held to violate his fiduciary duty by giving the corporation bad press by supporting someone like Trump.<p>Trump has made a lot of enemies in the United States: minorities, gays, women, people who don't want to see the democratic institutions of America taken apart. He has also willingly built a coalition of outspoken neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other individuals. It'd be like if a CEO threw his outspoken support behind David Duke, spoke at his rallies, and donated 1.25 million dollars to his campaign. That's what's happening here. You don't think shareholders wouldn't have a problem with that?<p>"Yeah, stigmatize us in the eyes of society, that's great for business."<p>People aren't being realistic when they say business people should just have carte blanche to say whatever they want. They owe their shareholders, partners, and employees a duty of care to not bring ridiculously bad press to their organization.<p>If the people at YC don't care about this bad press, and the business it will likely lose, then that's their business. But to say that it never happens in the business world shows a lack of understanding how things work.
Can we all cut the shit?<p>I'm sorry to be so blunt, but you're all acting like idiots. Terminating someone over political ideology is the single most fascist, fear-mongering, and un-freedom idea one can possibly have!<p>Half of you support someone who says mean things - the other half of you support someone who does mean things.<p>You're both wrong, and right!!! Arguing otherwise is simply to be blind to one's own prejudices, rational or not!<p>Supporting someone being terminated simply because of political ideology is incomprehensibly insane for a people who tout themselves as "free"!