Last week, a variety of women accused Donald Trump of a litany of vile acts across many years. He chose to defend himself by saying his accusers were too unattractive to sexually assault, at which point venture capitalist Peter Thiel decided to write a $1.25 million check to Trump’s presidential campaign — among the strongest ways possible to say I condone this person’s actions. This is, to use a non-loaded word, deplorable. But to some of Thiel’s colleagues in Silicon Valley, it’s political “diversity” in action.
Thiel’s fresh embrace of Trump has been particularly awkward for Sam Altman and Paul Graham, both founders of successful tech firms and both now associated with Y Combinator (Graham is YC’s co-founder), the most prestigious startup incubator in the Valley and perhaps the world; Thiel is a “part-time partner” at Y Combinator. Until now, the incubator’s reputation has been sterling. To be selected by YC is to obtain cachet, recognition, and $120,000. Part of the draw is access to wealthy startup luminaries, who impart their expertise and values in the hope that their mentees will themselves become wealthy. One of these mentors is Thiel, who joined Y Combinator last year with great fanfare — “Peter is one of the two people (along with [Paul Graham]) who has taught me the most about how to invest in startups,” gushed Altman, YC’s young leader.
Paul Graham speaks with Charlie Rose during TechCrunch Disrupt New York on May 24, 2011, in New York.
Photo: Joe Corrigan/Getty Images
What possible justification is there, critics are asking, for Y Combinator to retain as a partner a person who not only served as a delegate and Republic National Convention speaker for a presidential candidate associated with white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia, and fascism, but who is willing to donate over a million bucks to that candidate at his nadir? What kind of message does that send to, say, the women and racial minorities who are already so often ignored in Silicon Valley? Why not replace Thiel with someone who at the very least is a political conservative but refrains from funding the campaign of a man who said he’d be dating his daughter if they weren’t related and encouraged the beating of protestors at his rallies?
It’s easy to understand their criticism — and anger:
Fuck you, Peter Thiel. I swear on my mother's grave I'll never take money from you or your fund. https://t.co/3S5qXdIkLx
— laura i. gómez (@laura) October 16, 2016
Hey @peterthiel, nice @nytimes piece about your $1.5 million donation to Trump. Is that to fund more of these stickers? pic.twitter.com/FxYjwGD2RO
— Chris Sacca (@sacca) October 16, 2016
How you know Facebook isn't serious about diversity and inclusion: Peter Thiel is still on their board.
— Catherine Bracy (@cbracy) October 16, 2016
Let no person who claims to give a damn about diversity and inclusion in one breath even begin to support & apologize for Thiel in another.
— EricaJoy (@EricaJoy) October 16, 2016
Ellen Pao, the former CEO of Reddit who was effectively ousted by the site’s users because she’s an Asian American woman (and wanted to delete communities like the expressly racist “CoonTown” subreddit), published a post on Monday severing ties between her new inclusion-advocacy organization and Y Combinator:
We saw an opportunity to work with YC companies interested in building vibrant and diverse organizations, and we actively invited YC as a contributor to our VC Include program to gain access to its nearly 1,000 companies and CEOs, who are greatly admired and emulated.
But Thiel’s actions are in direct conflict with our values at Project Include. Because of his continued connection to YC, we are compelled to break off our relationship with YC. We hope this situation changes, and that we are both willing to move forward together in the future. Today it is clear to us that our values are not aligned.
In spite of all this, Altman and Graham have insisted that it would be unfair, un-American, and irresponsible to end their relationship with Thiel. Their arguments are a wild ride of attempted reasoning:
1. YC will not fire someone because of their political views:
1) I am voting against Trump because I believe the principles he stands for represent an unacceptable threat to America.
— Sam Altman (@sama) October 17, 2016
3) Thiel is a high profile supporter of Trump. I disagree with this. YC is not going to fire someone for supporting a major party nominee.
— Sam Altman (@sama) October 17, 2016
2. Trump is a figure comparable to Hitler, Altman still believes, presenting an existential threat to the United States:
To make my own views on Trump clear, here is my post from early this summer. I feel even more strongly now. https://t.co/6sPpIUZduT
— Sam Altman (@sama) October 16, 2016
3. Thiel is worth keeping around because of the “diversity of opinion” he offers:
6) Diversity of opinion is painful but critical to the health of a democratic society. We can't start purging people for political support.
— Sam Altman (@sama) October 17, 2016
@esacrosa cutting off viewpoints is what got us to a candidate that supports open racism and and abuse of women in the first place.
— Sam Altman (@sama) October 17, 2016
4. Peter Thiel barely works for YC, so who cares, anyway?
@dhh @paulg he is not a partner. he is what we call a part-time partner, which shares a word but is legally totally different. no votes, etc
— Sam Altman (@sama) October 16, 2016
In a blog post published Monday, Altman repeated his belief that Trump represents a catastrophic threat to the national fabric (“Trump shows little respect for the Constitution, the Republic, or for human decency, and I fear for national security if he becomes our president”) and his assertion that Thiel’s role at YC is minimal (“Peter is a part-time partner at YC, meaning he spends a small fraction of his time advising YC companies, does not have a vote in how YC is run, and in his case waives the equity part-time partners normally get”).
It’s not hard to see how all of the above is contradictory. Altman is adamant that he can’t “fire” Thiel because that would be “unprecedented,” but then concedes that “Donald Trump represents an unprecedented threat to America.” And from his description of Thiel’s “part-time partnership,” ending the relationship would be in no way comparable to firing an employee. Altman attempts to hold as true simultaneously the arguments that Trump’s beliefs are horrendous and unacceptable and that Thiel, who necessarily believes that these very same things are good and fine, represents valuable “diversity of opinion.” This is akin to arguing that having Pamela Geller in your office every other Thursday would be a boon — just imagine being able to pop in and get her take on the global Islamist conspiracy! What a unique perspective!
Moderator Kim-Mai Cutler speaks with Sam Altman of Y Combinator at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2015 on Sept. 23, 2015, in San Francisco, California.
Photo: Steve Jennings/Getty Images
Reached by phone, Altman immediately came across as thoughtful and troubled by the situation, but defended his inaction: The “members of our community … that have said anything to me have said, ‘I really hate Trump and I think it would be really crazy if YC fired Peter over this.’” He said that even though he considers Trump “a monster,” he doesn’t think Thiel should be punished for his support: “I am not willing to believe the 43 percent of the electorate that supports Trump supports the awful things about him,” and, quoting Nietzsche, he added, “I don’t want to become a monster” by ending Thiel’s admittedly minor relationship with YC. Still, Altman says he understands why so many people are upset by his decision so far to keep an in-house Trump surrogate: “I would definitely feel uncomfortable talking to this guy because of his support of Trump if I were a Latina woman, I think that’s totally reasonable.” But despite realizing the ugliness of the dilemma, Altman still seems to consider it one that can’t be resolved and maintains that Thiel is entitled to the protections of any ordinary, full-time employee: “I don’t think you lose your right to fairness if you’re a billionaire.”
(One cynical explanation for all this reluctance comes courtesy of Altman’s recent New Yorker profile, wherein he describes his disaster-preparation hobby and his fear of a global viral outbreak: “If the pandemic does come, Altman’s backup plan is to fly with his friend Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist, to Thiel’s house in New Zealand.”)
Paul Graham too has chimed in with his personal brand of TED Talk aphorism and false equivalency:
@dhh How would you feel if companies run by Republicans did the same and fired employees who were big Hillary supporters?
— Paul Graham (@paulg) October 16, 2016
Sorry about the image, but this is too important to rewrite to fit in 140 characters: pic.twitter.com/hxDiilriwE
— Paul Graham (@paulg) October 18, 2016
Few have done more than Sam Altman to defeat Trump.
— Paul Graham (@paulg) October 18, 2016
This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Graham’s recent history, filled with confusion about how culture and society operate when they’re not inside a conference room signing a venture capital fundraising agreement. When the New York Times infamously quoted Graham saying he could be tricked into funding any startup founded by someone who “looks like Mark Zuckerberg,” he defended his very unintentionally revealing remark by saying that it had merely been a joke about, uh, pattern recognition? His point is still unclear: “Could anyone be so naive as to think that resembling Zuck would be enough to make a founder succeed?” Graham asked in a self-posted apologia. “And is it plausible that we, of all people, who’d interviewed thousands of founders, would think such a thing?” Yes!
Graham had to blog about the taste of his own foot again in 2014, when in an interview with The Information he said hiring women at technology firms was difficult because they don’t think like men (“We can’t make these women look at the world through hacker eyes and start Facebook because they haven’t been hacking for the past 10 years”). His explanation this time was that we, the public, were only upset with this answer because we weren’t dealing with the same subset of data that Graham was referencing:
The mystery was cleared up when I got a copy of the raw transcript. Big chunks of the original conversation have been edited out, including a word from within that sentence that completely changes its meaning. What I actually said was:
“We can’t make these women look at the world through hacker eyes and start Facebook because they haven’t been hacking for the past 10 years.” I.e. I’m not making a statement about women in general. I’m talking about a specific subset of them. So which women am I saying haven’t been hacking for the past 10 years? This will seem anticlimactic, but the ones who aren’t programmers.
(Emphasis added.)
Graham did not return a request for comment.
Mark Zuckerberg too subscribes, somehow, to the notion that Trump support is just another form of valuable diversity, according to a photo of a post in an employee-only Facebook forum that appears to have been taken from someone’s computer screen:
The screenshot was confirmed by Facebook as authentic to David McCabe of The Hill. As Cory Doctorow pointed out on Boing Boing, “presumably, they feel the same way about the millions who believe in the ideology of Osama bin Laden,” though inviting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and David Duke to join the board of Facebook would be more contemporary picks to increase the political diversity of Facebook’s board.
Dismaying and impossible though they may be, these responses shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with the Silicon Valley ethos that any problem can be solved with a sufficient amount of technology. Rather than saying Damn, that was a shitty thing to say, but you know what, I’ve identified that I’m part of the problem and now I’m going to take specific steps to fix the problem (32 words), Graham wrote two longwinded posts attempting to debug The Information’s reporting and explaining why his personal status quo is fine (3,476 words). Sound familiar?
Paul Graham and Sam Altman are not dumb. They are both well-educated, hyper-competent, and most of all, two of the most important living figures in Silicon Valley. But like so many of their colleagues, they seem to trip over themselves whenever they step beyond the world of apps and org charts and address messier, more obviously human problems in realms like politics. Maybe we should be easier on people whose entire lives involve thinking and talking about software — maybe we should expect less. And in fact, I’m fine with expecting much, much less than I already do. But arguing from six sides of your mouth about why Peter Thiel is at once vulnerable, valuable, despicable, crucial, unimportant, mistaken, and righteous seems like a perfectly fine place to draw a line.
Top photo: Peter Thiel delivers a speech on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
Never read Voltaire Sam?
Is this “journalism” now? The fourth column is now doing more to tear apart this Nation than any rogue government agency, or political candidate could even dream.
Morons like you would make Hillary Clinton Queen, and her first act after accepting the crown would be to get rid of all the real journalists in the country. So, you’d be safe, but you may have some friends that would be affected.
The problem with applying a political litmus test to Thiel is that the boundaries of the test are unclear. Should every corporation fire every employee who supports Trump? If not, why not? If an employee is using earnings from the job to support “hatred”, is that not just as bad as Thiel? What is different besides the scale? If the scale is what matters, what is the monetary cutoff point?
It is distressing that this discussion is all about the specific case of Thiel and Trump, and not the general principles that are involved.
I regard Trump as an existential threat to American democracy. I also regard political litmus tests applied to business relationships as an existential threat to American democracy, especially when these are based on vague unstated criteria.
The point of the article is that not only is there a correlation between intelligence and hatred, but that to think otherwise isn’t just to ignore human history, but to prove that the psychological make-up of the corporate system currenty is deeply flawed to the point of rendering itself absolutely incapable of functioning, and needs to be taken down and the sooner the better.
I am quite certain that there is no correlation whatsoever between intelligence and hatred; there are even examples of Nobel laureates who were unabashed bigots, just as there are people of marginal intelligence who have hearts of gold. It is also true that the Silicon Valley mystique is largely fictional, cultivated by the various persona there and lapped up by a technically ignorant press. Being a SV entrepreneur is no different from being an entrepreneur anywhere else; some will succeed a little more often than they fail, and most will fail more often than they succeed. So what is the point of this article?
What a bunch of BS. According to the latest mainstream polls, Donald Trump represents the choice of over 40% of Americans, and a significant majority of Republican primary voters, to be President of the US. Your repeating of a bunch of falsehoods from the mainstream press about his alleged “hatreds” does your credibility no benefit. Hillary has had over 30 years at the levers of power and has proven herself to be thoroughly corrupt and willing to break the law when it’s to her benefit. Donald Trump has suggested clamping down on illegal immigration which, (aside from the fact that it’s just enforcing laws already in place) would reduce the supply of labor in the US and drive up wages. For the 90+% of us who rely on selling our labor to survive, that’s a good outcome. The interests of the working person, regardless of color or gender, are better served by Donald than by Hillary. The idea that Thiel’s donation to Donald renders him a pariah in your clique is a great illustration of how completely your preferences and interests are at odds with those of the vast majority of Americans.
@Greg, 100% spot on. I want change. HRC & DNC subverted this by cheating to keep Bernie from being nominated. I’m voting Trump because there will be no change with HRC and she does not represent anything that I stand for.
The sexism / racism charges are a smokescreen and misdirection that blow the dog whistle in our social media driven politically correct times. Are so many so naive to believe that things that Trump says publicly are not spoken discreetly and privately by the power brokers?
As much as I admire TheIntercept_ , Greenwald reeks of hypocrisy when he suggests (elsewhere) that what Snowden did to the NSA is good but what Wikileaks is doing to DNC & HRC is bad.
Either you speak truth to power (all power, not just ‘your side’), or you don’t…
Grab em in the pussy = smokescreen. got it.
The sleazy billionaires and venture capital firms of Silicon Valley care about only one thing: maximizing profits over the short term.
That’s why so many manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas (a stupid long-term strategy, essentially giving the technology away to China which, as a result, is steadily becoming the world’s most advanced manufacturing center, while Americans steadily forget how to build things). Labor costs are cheaper in sweatshop zones, so most Silicon Valley firms closed their factories (after making all those Superfund sites) and shipped them off to China (which also, conveniently, had no environmental pollution laws).
That’s also why Facebook is “pro-diversity”, if they got into a tiff with a key Trump supporter, that might cause Trump supporters to abandon Facebook, but they also have to placate Clinton supporters. . . It’s all about keeping market share as large as possible.
The reason corporate interests don’t want to admit that all they give a shit about is their quarterly profit report, which is what the equally greedy shareholders also focus on, is because money-grubbing assholes with no moral conscience deserve to be tightly regulated by the government, and they don’t want that either, so they put on their bullshit mantle of “corporate responsibility” to cover up their true nature.
I agree with most of what you say, but take exception to the characterization of job exports as being a long-term strategy. Because it is not; it is a short term strategy. Our business leaders have become trapped in a web of their own creation, the focus on the quarterly results and analysts’ forecasts. There is but a small handful of people involved in the financial industry who take the long view, John Bogle of Vanguard and Jeremy Grantham of GMO being the only two I know of.
The reason why it is a short term strategy should be obvious even to them by now: by moving jobs to places where they can get away by paying slave wages they undercut their own markets, by diminishing the number of people who can afford to buy their products. Say what you will about him otherwise, but Henry Ford had the genius concept of building products that his workers could themselves afford to buy. Can anyone name a current CEO who follows that philosophy?
Sam Biddle’s all grown up, doing the bidding of the U.S.’s security and defense establishment.
@WikiLeaks: “There is no US election. There is power consolidation. Rigged primary, rigged media and rigged ‘pied piper’ candidate drive consolidation.”
So now the dishonest left moves to personally attack anyone who dares not think the exact same way they do. Not surprising since their side has called for limiting freedom of non PC speech.
This was such a clear attack piece! Equating monetary support for the Trump ticket with support for Trump’s lude and possibly criminal actions is such clear bias and that I hope someone at theIntercept has a conversation with you regarding your “journalistic” pieces. Such junk!
F*cking thought police.
Biddle needs to GO. This is not journalism this is a hit piece that is not even thinly disguised as journalism. This is the 3rd article I’ve read by Mr Biddle that is little more than a pile of excrement. His continued employment by the Intercept stains the integrity of the publication and the stellar work done by the other writers.
What do you expect when White Privilege Americans run the show, you’re going to get one or two third generation Hitler Youths creeping in every once in a while; it’s all just a reflection of how fucked up society is and how pernicious the custom of bestowing every advantage to those endowed with no particular abilities or merit, SAVE the fact that Daddy is a prominent member of the good old boy network that works to Made White Privilege America Great Again.
Ludicrous article. So wrong and incredibly biased on so many levels. Investigative journalism? You must be kidding. This is a state media hit piece.
If you didn’t leak sex tapes & generally ruin lives, Gawker might still be around. And for the record, Thiel’s funding had nothing to do with the Hogan jury verdict. And that verdict was reached because your compnay refused to show any remorse, and instead displayed arrogance. Stop your whining, Gawker/Denton/Biddle have no one to blame but themselves. And why did The Intecept hire this tabloid journalist anyway?
*Upvote*
*company
It is a laugh. Those who claim that as by their moral principle advocate Thiel fired, are quick to deny Thiel’s expressing his opinion formed based on his own moral principle whatever it is and however it is different from theirs.
Before they may claim that they are moral while others are not they should be reminded that unless their morally allow for absolute reciprocity of their own claims, their are immoral themselves.
Nobody has a license for truth and righteousness and those who think they have end up as McCarthy destroying their own credibility and other people lives.
In fact the very problem is utter lack of decent choice [and not character of these particular candidates that are questionable and their platforms dangerous] , which would be many to choose from and not just corrupting duopoly that pushed those two stooges of oligarchy down our throats.
????
The enablers are too timid to stand up – NOW that’s a priceless excuse….
I’ll bet when their profits fall and money comes out of their pockets / and or stock values they will become brave. In the meanwhile WE the PEOPLE are the ones who pay for it
Re: the “You should reconcile these morally and cognitively dissonant things the same way I do” argument (ex: <>)…
Unprecedented Trump does not mean everyone has to handle all Trump-related relationships in their life with unprecedented actions that others approve of. If it meant that, I’d have to end a few relationships in my life.
Re: the “If you really cared about that, you’d do X” argument (<>) ….
I have little patience with this sort of rhetorical device. If you aren’t doing *everything* that’s consistent with your stated ideology/philosophy/belief structure, then you can’t defend the ones you are doing? That’s silly and dishonest and deflects from the real issue being expressed. Unless it’s a core element of the stated belief–someone says they value representative democracy but they never vote–it’s a deflection from having to address the actual point the person made. Ppl buy organic food for a variety of reasons, some moral/ideological. But that usually doesn’t mean they buy everything organic. So does that undermine the entire belief structure? Does it mean they don’t *really* care? Of course not. It means there are limits, and other considerations. They’re just different from your limits & considerations.
Honestly, keeping Thiel on simply because he differs in opinion is, to my mind, a perfectly valid reason. (I doubt it’s only that, but let’s say it is…) As with democracy, civil rights, the first 10 amendments, and so many other things that attempt to exist on some moral high ground…the real test is if you do them when it’s uncomfortable. They’re only truly meaningful if you hold fast when everyone’s screaming, “No, this time is different!” “Why?” “Because it really upsets me!”
Surely there are times when the boundaries of a thing have been stretched so far that it’s no longer the same thing, but I don’t see how that’s the case here. Nothing in the ‘Thiel Supports Trump’ situation should HAVE to rise to the level of “Worthy of severing contact” by a person/company who claims they value diversity. In my estimate, they have a valid argument.
And ppl saying “Yeah, but FB blocks users for criticizing Israel” or “Thiel would never afford someone else the same level of courteousness”…that’s kinda the point, why it’s so important that others DO do those things. Imagine the race of the bottom if we all used someone just a little lower down on the ‘ethical behavior’ scale as our guide for actions.
Gotta be true to what you know to be true, or else the assholes win.
In ancient Greece, wasn’t rudeness seen as some kind of test by the gods in disguise? Or rather, that at any moment, it *could* be a god? You had to be hospitable. If you descended to their level, you failed the test. Which in a weird way would put Trump in the role of a disguised god, so maybe we shouldn’t go there…. (Unless I’m misremembering my Greek history, which is entirely likely)
Now…if YCombinator severed the relationship with Thiel because of what he did to Gawker….yeah. Totally support that.
In fact, I think they SHOULD sever b/c of that. It’s the antithesis of ‘diversity’ to set your money up to bring down a media organization that disagrees with you & your stance. That’s a totally different rationale than severing the relationship because of Trump. And it relates directly to the work YC is doing, b/c…what do Thiel’s actions (in relation to Gawker) teach those YC start-ups? Better not piss off anyone too powerful, b/c they’ll bring you down. Oh and by the way, here’s $120K. Have fun out there. Just not the kind that pisses us off…
But to the extent one finds Trump divisive and almost wholly despicable (as I do), it seems that one should then desire the exact opposite of more severing/breakages of relationships, simply bc we disagree with their opinions. The test becomes to sustain relationship, right?, not end it, esp. in these polarized, frightened, divisive times. It’s easy to say, “No more of you.” Only connect…
Whoops..I always mess up the html stuff….
My first example that got cut off, for the “You should reconcile these morally and cognitively dissonant things the same way I do” argument, was:
[It’s not hard to see how all of the above is contradictory. Altman is adamant that he can’t “fire” Thiel because that would be “unprecedented,” but then concedes that “Donald Trump represents an unprecedented threat to America.”]
2nd example that got cut off, for the “If you really cared about that, you’d do X” argument :
[“As Cory Doctorow pointed out on Boing Boing , “presumably, they feel the same way about the millions who believe in the ideology of Osama bin Laden,” though inviting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and David Duke to join the board of Facebook would be more contemporary picks to increase the political diversity of Facebook’s board.”]
Good comment.
The html of this site is something everyone struggles with. Please don’t let it get in the way of further contributions because we can always use more girls in the house, no matter which part of it they choose to occupy. ;-}
To what extent does the failure of Valley leadership to repudiate Thiel simply come from the fact that to make an enemy of Thiel is a very dangerous thing. Even with all Altman’s hemming and hawing about how Thiel is a “part-time partner,” if he was fired the headlines and bio-snippets would read “Tech billionaire ousted from his own crowd for supporting a racist for president.” All of Thiel’s activities after Nov would be colored by the fact that not only did he support a completely deplorable presidential candidate, but that Thiel himself lost in the 2016 election. Anyone who makes Thiel suffer—even the slightest—for his decisions can expect a world of hurt. I mean, isn’t that the soul of Valley Capitalism—winners must and can always win, period. (Which is why, I think, people are pretty convinced in the theory that Thiel supports Trump simply as a means to demonstrate the failure of modern democracy: even with a failed presidential candidate, Thiel wins!)
I actually want to thank Thiel for continuing to prop up Trump. It helps expose this farce of an election and that is fine by me.
Sam, I’m’a let you finish, but I just wanted to raise an eyebrow over your claims that Ellen Pao was ousted because she was “an Asian-American woman” and for the shuttering of various offensive subreddits.
Nobody on reddit liked those subreddits, and they weren’t even remotely popular. The majority of people that disliked Ellen did so because she represented the corporatization of reddit, because she fired an extremely well-loved AMA moderator/facilitator and replaced her with a hilariously incompetent idiot, because the changes to reddit went against the core values of the recently-deceased founder Aaron Swartz (anti-censorship, even for unpopular speech and opinions) which offended many because of the poor timing, and incidentally because there was also a lack of trust due to her husband’s (alleged, but the evidence against him looks very damning) hedge fund fraud.
She also handled criticism badly, attempting to paint everyone that didn’t like her for the above reasons as sexist and/or racist, and generally taking a tone-deaf approach to community management and messaging.
Also, she lost a ton of credibility when it was discovered that her “discrimination” case against her former employer Kleiner Perkins was utter BS (which could have been determined by anyone that actually took 5 minutes to read the initial complaint, by the way). I think this, more than anything, was the nail in the coffin for her tenure at reddit, as this removed the final shred of protection she could raise against criticism and also made her a liability as far as reddit’s “brand” was concerned.
So, I don’t see anything in there that suggests she was fired for being Asian-American. Where did you even come up with that? I don’t want to speculate on the circumstances of the lawsuit against you by that crazy email guy, but you do realize that you’re actually accusing reddit of racial discrimination without a single shred of evidence, right? And that’s the kind of thing that gets people, um… Sued?
“…the arguments that Trump’s beliefs are horrendous and unacceptable and that Thiel, who necessarily believes that these very same things are good and fine…”
Necessarily believes those things? That’s the kind of monumental logic fail you normally expect from a Trump supporter, not a writer of the Intercept. I get that you’re passionate about this story, but emotion has suspended your ability to think rationally.
Hillary supports apartheid in Palestine, military coups in Latin America, and violent, fascist dictators in Egypt and elsewhere. Does that mean a Hillary voter necessarily believes those things are good and fine?
What is the point of this article?
Why vilify some tech entrepreneurs who want to address the impact of the political spectrum of their business but not crucify those who disagree with their beliefs, when you could’ve just tweeted “I don’t like Trump and Peter Thiel”?
The author wrote hit pieces on Thiel before when working for Gawker, and Thiel retaliated rather effectively. Now the author is trying writing hit pieces again. I’m sure there’s a word for someone who tries the same thing over and over, expecting different results.
For all his eccentricities and fringe beliefs — seasteading, libertarianism, and a reportedly keen interest in receiving the blood of younger men —
When did libertarianism become an eccentricity and fringe belief? I am certainly not a libertarian and, from my perspective, many of the things they seem to hold dear are anathema, but that is also true of the democrats and republicans.
Is the Green Party also an eccentricity and fringe belief? I think you do a disservice by labeling the primary political parties in this way in an effort to tar all members of such (that seemed to be what you were attempting). I know many people from all of the parties involved in this election who are actually good people seeking to find same while using incredibly inadequate tools that our political system gives them.
I think you can do better than this Sam.
Addendum:
While there are no doubt people who take such things to the level of obsessive-compulsive disorders, I think you do disservice here. There are many places in the world where disaster-preparedness on a personal level is a good thing. California, with it’s earthquake faults comes to mind, but increasingly we will see more disasters that are weather-related, so turning your nose up at people who make plans is, to say the least, a bit short-sighted on your part.
Also, as someone whose career spanned 30+ years in infectious diseases I think you might want to review the history a bit before sniping about a pandemic. The world used to be rife with them. We’ve only eradicated smallpox – the rest are still out there – within my lifetime (may have been before you were born). We’re still fighting extraordinary battles against a host of others. And new ones are popping up all the time (See SARS and MERS). In addition, we are using up the lifeline of antibotics at an astonishing rate with little to no alternatives in the pipeline. So within your lifetime, the likelihood of a major pandemic on the order of the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed 50 to 100 million, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history, is actually a lot higher than people want to pretend. The only things standing between us and mother nature in this regard are corrupt and underfunded organizations like the CDC and WHO, something which should make MORE people insecure about such things.
Yes, people like Peter Thiel do have fucked up obsessions, but preparing for things that have a decent chance of happening within a given amount of time should not be included in such a list.
Man, I don’t care how old you are, pretty much everyone likes building couch pillow forts. Pete’s just doing it with billionaire-level assets. I can respect that, even if I do think he’s kind of a weird hombre.
OTOH, I hope he realizes that by curb-stomping a media outlet, even one with such laughably poor integrity as Gawker, he’s going to be living with a negative media bias against him for pretty much the rest of his wealthy, comfortable life. Nobody holds a grudge like a reporter.
Man, I don’t care how old you are, pretty much everyone likes building couch pillow forts.
ROFL! This is very true. My family’s version is our recent purchase of a van which my husband is tricking out with bed and a few other amenities so our pillow fort can travel in comfort. :-)
I hope he realizes that by curb-stomping a media outlet, even one with such laughably poor integrity as Gawker, he’s going to be living with a negative media bias against him for pretty much the rest of his wealthy, comfortable life.
Irrespective of the quality of grudge-holding involved, that incident raised serious questions about the ability of the powerful to punish people who call out their foibles. It’s a dangerous precedent since the press is often the only recourse people without power have to try to fight against the system.
Thanks for the flashback to my childhood and ongoing embrace of it. :-)
I want to ride in that van! Do you give out free candy, too?
…Anyway, I do find myself torn pretty heavily on that particular case. Very few people felt bad for Gawker, mostly because they were muckraking, clickbaiting, bottom-of-the-barrel scraping dirtbags.
However, you do make a good point with regard to the wealthy using the legal system to attack news outlets that they disagree with. The only thing I really have to say to that is, well… That’s been around since lawyers and newspapers have existed. Seriously, “real” journalists don’t just get multiple confirmations before asserting a fact because it gives them warm fuzzies, they do it because it gives them a legal CYA.
In fact, most of modern journalism’s standard practices evolved because of that exact issue: rich folks taking umbrage and siccing their lawyers on the papers. It’s not so much notable that Gawker was being sued; news organizations are constantly getting sued. It’s notable that they LOST, because 1st Amendment protections are so broad in America that you as a news organization have to absolutely flagrantly and willfully abuse the truth to even have a chance at losing.
On the balance, I do feel that Gawker was destroyed primarily because of their refusal to adhere to basic journalistic standards, not because America’s freedom of speech is in any dire danger these days.
I want to ride in that van! Do you give out free candy, too?
Funny you should ask. I am about to make a batch of pig candy, which is basically as close to an orgasm in your mouth as one can experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_candy
But, as so many are willing to point out, nothing’s free and we have to check ID since giving free candy to kids is discouraged unless it’s Halloween…..hmmm.
Your points about Gawker’s primary style of publishing are well-taken. I wasn’t a fan of much that they wrote in this genre especially. Having said that, the tenets of free speech are such that it must, by definition, protect even the slimiest among us or it gives up some of its power to those who already exercise it the most.
You’re also correct that rich folk attacking and/or buying up media to bring it to heel is nothing new. But the newness of any given tactic never has been. nor ever should be, the standard at which we decide to draw any given line. If it were then we’d never challenge anything done by those with authority and power.
I’ll let you know how that pig candy turns out. I’ve never made it before, only managed to convince good friends to give me just one more piece…..well, in truth, I snuck a piece or two when they weren’t looking but, since they’ve raided my basement on search-and-consume missions for my homemade habanero pepper jelly, I think we’re pretty much even on that score.
Holy Shit! You mean somebody has an opinion different that the Establishment?
OMG!
I mean what else can you say?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POQ3qUy92ik
The truth hurts. These ‘revered’ Silicon Valley billionaires are not philosopher kings but don’t tell them. Life is a game for them. They are above it all and will say and do anything to justify themselves of anything that negatively affects the little people.
Overwhelmingly, the comments on this piece are trying to tell you something, so I will just quote one of other comments, Sebastian Jimenez, “You could’ve saved yourself this entire article by just saying that you don’t like Peter Thiel, and people who don’t dislike him like you do.”
This is playground behavior. This is a personal attack piece, not investigative reporting, not activist journalism, not even an expose, just tacky and whiny.
IMO, The Intercept needs to start hiring better writers and real investigative journalists instead of partisan hacks like Schwarz. Who the hell is making the hiring decisions?
I wonder if your opinion is an informed opinion or just a popping off opinion. There are a lot of writers and or investigative journalists writing for The Intercept. Some articles here have been multiple Parts 1, 2 and so on, which each were the result of tons of research. Many other shorter articles have been no less researched by writers who are dedicated to their craft and, even if one is in disagreement with some of their work, those writers couldn’t possibly be considered “hacks” by anyone offering an honest appraisal.
https://theintercept.com/staff/
Some of my favorites are Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Cora Currier, Ryan Devereaux, Lee Fang, Andrew Fishman, Mica Lee, Peter Maass and Jenna Jenna McLaughlin. I’m sure I left out a few others I’ve been impressed with but am not as familiar with. Another one of my favorites who isn’t listed as a regular at The Intercept but has had a few articles published here is Natasha Lennard.
Boys, and I do mean boys…get over yourselves… this is only about one thing….money. Taxes and amenities it buys. What blow-hard’s you all are. There is a reason people still read Shakespeare. He could see that the (sometimes comic) tragedies like Macbeth would play out again, and again, and again.
I’m just waiting until someone else realizes that Sam Altman & Peter Thiel are doing what so many wealthy corporations do: spend on both major-party candidates simply to ensure their access & influence regardless of who wins. [Congratulations, Suzanne Persing, for managing to hit “Submit” right before me.]
Thiel even did what every free-market capitalist does with the timing of his $1.25 million donation to Donald Trump: he bought low, in this case, right at Donald’s lowest point in the campaign knowing he would bounce back–as of right now, the latest IBD/TIPP poll has Donald up by 1.3%, of which 538.com has rated this polling organization an A-, which you can see here (Sidenote: Jill Stein, whom I support, is at 5.5%, her best showing in this poll to date): http://www.investors.com/politics/trump-leads-clinton-by-one-point-going-into-debate-in-ibdtipp-tracking-poll/
The reason he bought low in Donald Trump’s campaign was so he could elevate himself over all of the bandwagon jumping donors who would come later, especially if Donald manages to win. I would take issue with the notion that these are well-educated, hyper-competent individuals, though, because if they were, they would understand the difference between private, self-interest & public, common interest, possess compassion for other human beings, or understand concepts like ethics or morality, but clearly they don’t.
P.S. Seriously, people should really dig in to Peter Thiel’s use of lawsuits to destroy Gawker Media & the lives he destroyed. There is real evidence of sociopathic behavior by him. Now imagine if Donald Trump, as President, had the capacity to wield that weaponized form of litigation because Donald Trump donor, Peter Thiel, is coaching them how to do it . . .
And yes, I am quite aware of how terrible Hillary Clinton is. That’s why I’m voting for Jill Stein. If you want to know how to vote for Jill Stein in your state, just click here: http://www.jill2016.com/ballot_access
I would take issue with the notion that these are well-educated, hyper-competent individuals, though, because if they were, they would understand the difference between private, self-interest & public, common interest, possess compassion for other human beings, or understand concepts like ethics or morality, but clearly they don’t.
Assholes come in all flavors. A given asshole lacking empathy has nothing to do with whether or not it also possesses – or even just surrounds itself with – the dingleberries of education and competence.
Mores the pity.
The asshole analogy is brilliant. I am glad I finished eating lunch before I read it, though… ;)
Fair enough. Allow me to clarify:
I would take issue with the notion that these are well-educated, hyper-competent individuals, though, because if they were, they would understand the difference between private, self-interest & public, common interest–& how far too much of the former has resulted in far too little of the latter–comprehend the importance of compassion for other human beings & how that promotes interest in & knowledge of said human beings, even if such individuals don’t possess the emotion themselves, or understand concepts like ethics or morality & how central they are to the facilitation of interaction with other human beings & the functioning of social constructs of any kind.
You are correct. A given asshole lacking empathy does indeed have nothing to do with whether or not the asshole has an intellect or competence, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be aware of the deficiency in knowledge, comprehension, & understanding that such a lack of empathy leaves in its wake. Charles Darwin understood the evolutionary advantages inherent in such things & why it developed in Homo Sapiens–if not precisely how to the degree science has discovered to date–which is why the creation & practice of “Social Darwinism” is so ironic.
By the way, you can tell I’m much more intelligent then you, and therefore my opinion on other matters can be assumed as correct without examination, from my referencing Shakespeare.
It’s a fact that women are smarter and better than men. Hillary 2016. Quotas in boardrooms. Labor camps for dissidents.
That was the most intense disclosure ever in an article: “disclosure: peter thiel is bankrupted my old employer, and is persecuting me and my friends financially as well”.
Sam, if you wan to revive valleywag.com – i’m in. We can host it in Iran and only accept bitcoin for ad payments. then say whatever we please without consequence…
To think that support for Trump – a man that no one can claim is a war criminal or said to have pushed for legislation that helped build this massive prison state or gave speeches in support of “ending welfare as we know it”- is in any way comparable to support for known war monger/civil rights abusing/two-faced grifter Hillary Clinton is ridiculous.
Sam you are so correct Thiel should be stripped of all his company positions and stock options. He should also be fined in excess of his donations. The audacity of that man!!! That money could have been donated to Planned Parenthood and designated for the termination of pregnancy for inner city minority youth. While we are at it we should take a look at every donor to Trump and his super PACs and write an extensive article demonizing each and every one of them for daring to use freedom of speech. It is about time that these people realize that Hittlery is going to be president and if you think Obama prosecuted whistleblowers and dissenters you ain’t seen nothing yet.
HERE HERE! I’LL FETCH THE PITCHFORKS IF YOU FETCH THE NOOSE!
FWIW, Sam B., I think Sam A. comes across here as significantly more thoughtful.
So, supporting the creepy vulgarian, Drumpfuck, is deserving of a long morality lecture, complete with the now-requisite litany of tweets, arguing that such support is grounds for termination of “employment.”
What’s the verdict for supporters of Killary, Bomber of Babies, Wrecker of Regions, Whore for Wall Street. . . she who cackles gleefully over sodomy-by-bayonet?
Hmm?
I’m beginning to think they don’t teach judgment at J-school. Or maybe it becomes twisted and contorted if you work at Gawker.
@SamBiddle
You could’ve saved yourself this entire article by just saying that you don’t like Peter Thiel, and people who don’t dislike him like you do. What Zuckerberg said in his Facebook post is completely reasonable. Peter Thiel supporting Trump doesn’t mean he’s racist, sexist, xenophobic or whatever the fuck other stereotype you have cemented in your brain about anybody who supports Trump. What you seem to be advocating for in this article, which I suspect you wouldn’t be advocating for if you didn’t dislike Peter Thiel this much, is completely anathema to how free societies work. Cutting ties with someone because of their political views is just advocating for people to be driven apart by ideology, and prevents any conversation, dialogue, and progress from happening. This article feels like a Tumblr post written by a butt-hurt college student. Whether you realize it or not, your stupid outrage mindset is actually helping Trump get elected.
Sam, you need to take a step back before writing more articles like this. Sebastian’s comment perfectly describes why. This line in particular “Peter Thiel supporting Trump doesn’t mean he’s racist, sexist, xenophobic or whatever the fuck other stereotype you have cemented in your brain about anybody who supports Trump.” Come on, man. Your disdain for both Thiel and Tump is 100% justified. But you can’t advocate kicking someone out of a job position because of their political affiliation or activism. Can you imagine the the precedent this would set? Altman, Zuckerberg, and Graham all know this. This line in Zuckerberg’s post is spot on, “We can’t create a culture that says it cares about diversity and then excludes almost half the country because they back a political candidate.”
Sam, this article is rife with emotion and rationale that does not represent what I’ve come to expect from The Intercept since its inception. Sebastian’s comment perfectly describes why. This line in particular “Peter Thiel supporting Trump doesn’t mean he’s racist, sexist, xenophobic or whatever the fuck other stereotype you have cemented in your brain about anybody who supports Trump.” Come on, man. Your disdain for both Thiel and Tump is 100% justified. But you can’t advocate kicking someone out of a job position because of their political affiliation or activism. Can you imagine the the precedent this would set? Altman, Zuckerberg, and Graham all know this. This line in Zuckerberg’s post is spot on, “We can’t create a culture that says it cares about diversity and then excludes almost half the country because they back a political candidate.”
Also, your assessment of why Ellen Pao left Reddit is completely wrong for the same reasons the rest of this article is misguided. She wasn’t “ousted” by Redditors because she’s a woman or Asian. She’s was a terrible CEO. Instead of linking to some WaPo story, why not also link to one of the many comments and explanations left by actual Reddit employees and sub-reddit moderators about what went down there. I’ve read their side and that whole cluster fuck with Pao is definitely not so cut and dry as you’ve described. Of course they shut down subs with illegal content. But they can’t just shut down subs because they’re horribly offensive for the exact same reason you can’t fire someone for giving money to Trump.
This is exactly correct. One side has accused Trump of horrible crimes, Trump has said he hasn’t done them. Thiel isn’t supporting the horrible crimes. His donation means he buys Trump’s excuses. You can argue that Thiel is an idiot for buying Trump’s excuses, but claiming he supports any evil that Trump’s accused of is just divisive partisanship.
And, just as Sebastian said, cutting ties with someone just because they side with a political view you disagree with does not put you on the right side of history. You’re demanding we bring back McCarthyism from the other end of the political spectrum.
what happened to this website?
scummy people like the author of this article
I used to enjoy reading articles here, but lately they seem to have the same slide into weakness I see on college campuses and media blather.
No one cares what someone said on Twitter, no one really cares if Thiel is supporting Trump, unless of course you feel Trump might really win.
In which case it’s not in your best interest to be seen denouncing such things.
Consider carefully, after your liberal tantrum is over, exactly where you want to be when Trump is elected.
This sounds a lot like a threat, Alex. Are you telling The Intercept it had better not provide negative coverage of Trump–or else face the consequences if Trump takes power?
Enough with the gratuitous veiled threats, Ari Fleischer. If Donald Trump does win, by the time his Presidency ends–& count on a brief Presidency due to impeachment, followed by an Acting President Mike Pence (which, as a Hoosier, I weep for this country if either one were to hold that office)–you might just be calling yourself a liberal to hide the shame &/or embarrassment you’ll most likely feel at the sheer humiliation of just having been a Trump voter.
Did you watch the debate? I think that humiliation will be coming a little earlier. I feel like I was just “pulled from the womb at nine months” . He’s pretty much out of the running, truly needed you red-dog’s to flay Hillary. He’s simply a simple minded profiteer. New reality show will make bank, though.
No, I didn’t watch. The candidate I support, Jill Stein, isn’t even in any of these so-called “debates.” It would’ve been nice to have Dr. Jill Stein on stage just to get her reaction to that quote you gave. Even though most of Donald Trump’s outrageous statements haven’t really got to me, I have to admit my jaw hit the floor when I read that one. I can just imagine Donald going on about it at his next rally: “Abortion? C-section? What’s the difference? The important thing is it’s disgusting. It really is.”
I actually spent some time on the internet trying to figure out what you meant by “red-dog,” but I can’t seem to find anything that really fits with the context of the sentence. Could you tell me what you mean by “red-dog?”
However, to get back to your larger point, I just can’t watch a neighborhood loan shark try to hurl schoolyard insults at a Wall St. CEO for 90 minutes while Chris Wallace lets Pete Peterson jam his whole arm up Chris’ ass so he can talk about the deficit when he gets a word in between the loan shark’s breaths.
I just can’t watch a neighborhood loan shark try to hurl schoolyard insults at a Wall St. CEO for 90 minutes while Chris Wallace lets Pete Peterson jam his whole arm up Chris’ ass so he can talk about the deficit when he gets a word in between the loan shark’s breaths.
That’s actually a pretty good summation of what I saw during the parts of the debate I caught when I could actually force myself to watch it. :-s
You should’ve watched the 5 minutes I could barely stomach of the debate between Evan Bayh, Todd Young, & Libertarian Lucy Brenton for the U.S. Senate seat in Indiana.
The two major-party candidates would make these barely-veiled insults–style being so much more important to Hoosiers than substance, after all–at each other while AGREEING on policy–a time-honored tradition of the Indiana Democratic Party since Evan Bayh first became their gubernatorial candidate back in 1988: appear agreeable to Hoosiers by agreeing with the Republican Party on everything while saying “common-sense” a few thousand times instead of “conservative.”
In this case, it was what to do in Syria & how to stop DAESH–they both support the Hillary Clinton/Mike Pence position–ikr?–of creating “safe zones” & “no-fly zones,” while Ms. Brenton would talk about arms-dealing to various factions–a legitimate cause for the war/chaos in Syria–in such an uncomfortable, ham-handed way that most viewers probably thought she was in over her head on foreign policy.
What made that even worse is that Bayh & Young–when they were actually talking about what was asked of them–feigned any real answers in favor of vague platitudes about “defeating terrorism/the enemy” & “bipartisan agreement” while sounding slick enough to create the pretense that they actually knew or cared about anything on the subject, including that pesky human suffering/misery they must wish people didn’t talk so much about.
There were so many things wrong with that segment I couldn’t stand it, so I shut it off.
I can understand the outrage about Thiel supporting Trump.
I can’t understand how the same good and moral, law abiding people aren’t just as outraged about those supporting Hillary.
She bangs the war drums with her forehead while lining her pockets with millions stolen from hard working, powerless Americans.
Hillary is responsible for making millions of women more vulnerable to predators like Trump by enabling criminals to steal their savings, homes and jobs.
Hillary is responsible for “saving” thousands of women from Trump’s groping by blowing them into little bits.
But when it comes down to it, what rrheard wrote below should be heeded.
The problem with one sided Trump attacks is they either implicitly or explicitly push the false notion that Hillary is the better choice. That her policies are better policies. If Thiel is like any other CEO in the South Bay area, he has supported the outsourcing of jobs and used H1b visa labor to displace American engineers.
I care about policy and Hillary has fully supported the high tech drive to reduce labor costs by using what people have called in earlier days “high tech coolies”. I have over decades now in high tech seen lives laid waste by because of the greed of high tech CEOs. And we are supposed to be outraged by one of these assholes supporting another asshole.
In practical day to effects on people in high tech, this alliance means shit. What matters is how Hillary, the most likely winner, will go with anything high tech CEOs want to make money regardless of what it does to other Americans.
Vote Jill Stein? I will!
http://www.jill2016.com
The problem with one sided Trump attacks is they either implicitly or explicitly push the false notion that Hillary is the better choice.
No they don’t. Unless you are stuck in a vat of manichean thinking, then they are just what they seem to be, attacks on Trump’s policies and/or way of thinking.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/726092025133670401
I’m sorry. It appears that symbols don’t translate well when copied and pasted.
Glenn’s tweet should read:
“Is it really necessary to spend the next 6 months pointing out that “criticism of Clinton” [does not equal] “support for Trump”?”
Quite so, and also true in reverse. Sometimes a writer just wants/needs to focus on a given topic. If we require them to fill every article with caveats to head off every unstated assumption by readers we will be inundated with lengthy, non-concise bloviating of the sort no one needs.
Oh good lawd, what nonsense. Greenwald has made known very clearly his opinion on Trump. Greenwald is consistent in the basis of his critiques on both Clinton and Trump.
This article in no way has an understanding of how the criticism of this high tech millionaire can equally be applied to Clinton and its implications (Greenwald’s point by the way). As other posters have noted, the author’s basis of attack is a specious logic. It is like Clinton supporters attacking Trump for taking money from oil companies, yet neglecting that Clinton does also. And then arguing the charge was done impartially and moral high mindedness.
And the weight of many comments here is exactly about that–don’t lecture us about some high tech millionaire while not even thinking that the same modes of logic and drastic implications would equally apply to Clinton and her supporters–this is if you haven’t noticed an election year where shit like this matters. This has nothing to do with spouting caveats before writing an article, but about moral and logical consistency that is dishonest about this article.
Greenwald is consistent in the basis of his critiques on both Clinton and Trump.
Agreed.
This article in no way has an understanding of how the criticism of this high tech millionaire can equally be applied to Clinton and its implications (Greenwald’s point by the way).
I actually think that Greenwald’s point in making that tweet is not ‘equal application of critique to both candidates’ at all. I think the simple reading is pretty much exactly what it says, that criticism of one does not equal support of the other, which is pretty much the idea you put forth when you wrote,
The problem with one sided Trump attacks (i.e. “criticism of one”) is they either implicitly or explicitly push the false notion that Hillary is the better choice (i.e. “equals support for the other”).
I was really only addressing that one statement by you. I have no idea who Biddle supports in the election though I suspect it certainly isn’t Trump and have no problem with people subjecting Clinton and every other candidate to the same, different or more extensive scrutiny.
When Greenwald writes articles criticizing Clinton he doesn’t necessarily include equivalent critiques of Trump – which is what you are taking Biddle to task for omitting here – or even necessarily examine how it applies to Trump because it may not apply or may have nothing to do with the specific point he is making. And that’s fine, because his point is usually to level a critique that is specific to that given candidate. Sometimes that happens.
As other posters have noted, the author’s basis of attack is a specious logic.
Other posters here, including myself, have taken issue with various bits and pieces of the article. Yes. And altohone raised very good points wrt other even more important issues. But the fact remains that your framing above about Trump attacks making Clinton look better just doesn’t make sense. They don’t because many, many, many of us, including myself (I will be voting for Stein) are perfectly able to understand that they are both horrible candidates, often for completely unrelated reasons.
Why is Sam Biddle allowed anywhere near an Internet? I get that daddy is hot shit and his name is blue blood, but can you deny his professional pedigree consists solely of of gossip columnist for the former outfit shamed and bankrupted by Hulk Hogan? Okay, I shot the messenger, but the message is what? Hectoring hypocritical morals activated when my side puts in the ask?
In the end just more culture war bullshit and means nothing and goes nowhere. First, Trump is not and will not be the fascist and racist demon lighting up the streets with brown shirt violence. The US is still operates by the separation of powers–Trump would be totally isolated politically with ‘Congress and the Courts against him.
So who cares if some rich high tech guy supports Trump. Shit, is the writer aware of the utter racist attacks on Sander supporters by Clinton supporters and her campaign itself?
I didn’t read Gawker until it was too late, but I read their collection of stories brought to the mainstream; it was an amazing collection of journalism. The comments that I read were also excessively smart, so I am very happy to see Sam Biddle writing here.
In disagreement with many of you, I have to save my outrage (faux and otherwise, it’s exhausting) for another time. In defense of an American truism that should be overturned asap, money is speech.
YC should carefully watch to see if Mr Thiel’s continued presence has a deleterious effect on people, ongoing and future ventures, and then reassess, if it’s even relevant.
To attribute genius to the dull egomaniacs of Silicon Valley is as nauseatingly facetious as the title, “the Wizards of Wall Street.” Taxpayers fund most of the research which founded and sustains Silicon Valley. Racist brutes such as Thiel are mere cheerleader figureheads who possess not very much intellectually and this is so clearly evinced in their political support for Trump.
The great irony is that Thiel, as demonstrated by, among other things, his support for Trump, would never extend the same courteousness accorded him to those with whom he disagrees. As with so many others, Altman and Zuckberger’s “principles” perfectly fit their wallets.
If Facebook can block users for criticising Israel they can dump Thiel. They are far more in their rights to do the latter, in fact.
I do understand the dilemma. It’s not the done thing to discriminate against a person based on their political views. Trump may be an extreme candidate, but politically-motivated purges and witchhunts are the hallmark of extremists such as Joseph McCarthy (or Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Kim Jong Il/Un or perhaps Trump himself, if he got the chance), not moderates.
But the fact that Thiel not only exercises a vote but also a very large chequebook sets him in a special category, much like the Koch brothers. Boycotting them is not so much prejudice as self-preservation. And people understand this. I’ve never heard anyone say that the Koch’s political rights are being infringed. That would sound absurd, given that they exercise more political power than virtually anyone on the planet.
Ultimately, there is much freedom in business, and having realised that your business partner is a lowlife, there are many ways to cool the relationship and distance yourself. Thiel’s future business relationships will be a good gauge of which companies are willing to put profit above principles.
“I’ve never heard anyone say that the Koch’s political rights are being infringed. That would sound absurd, given that they exercise more political power than virtually anyone on the planet.”
Well you should, they have a right to promote billboards, TV ads, whatever the hell else they want. Free Speech is universal, the Founding Fathers wouldn’t silence a man because buying a printing press made his speech “More powerful” than an opponent shouting on a streetcorner.
There are many articles on Facebook critical of Israel’s actions and politics.
Gawker is gone and good riddance. Thiel should get a medal for crucifying the little worms in charge with their own bent and rusty nails. That said…
Whatever people do with their own money is likewise their own business — whether to back candidates they prefer or refuse to spend in stores owned by people they disagree with politically. And there’s nothing wrong with their declaring their clear intentions to act as they see fit. However,…
The constant signaling of utterly false virtue echoed among people pretending to occupy moral high ground is as tedious as it is tendentious.
It’s particularly noxious that many political voices reliably oscillate between boldly claiming, on the one hand, that purity of conduct by public officers doesn’t matter at all BUT, on the other hand, purity of conduct matters above all else — depending only on whether their own favored ox is being gored.
Any outfit that fires people for their political beliefs (whatever they may be) isn’t acting out of moral bravery. It’s acting out of political cowardice.
Encouragement for this behavior is particularly amusing to observe among people who energetically proclaim their undying support for “diversity” while ruthlessly encouraging any social or political views contrary to their own be methodically venalized, silenced, and punished.
#ZeroToleranceNation
Added-on: it appears one of the few techno-leaders who “gets it” is Zuckerberg, as quoted in the illustrious NYT:
“We care deeply about diversity,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in an internal Facebook post to employees. “That’s easy to say when it means standing up for ideas you agree with. It’s a lot harder when it means standing up for the rights of people with different viewpoints to say what they care about. That’s even more important.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/technology/how-silicon-valley-treats-a-trump-backer-peter-thiel.html
Why was Biddle allowed to pass this off as journalism given his (justified) inability to remain unbiased?
I also find it interesting how black and white everything is when we view this circumstance but if we were somehow more personally involved we’d be scrambling for all kinds of nuance and shades of gray.
For instance, if someone were to call Gawker’s wild west style journalism reprehensible, Biddle would be the first one to explain the convoluted ways in which it wasn’t.
Rant over. Just a little fatigued I suppose from the inanity of the past 5 months.
This is bizarre. This person engaged in a successful effort to destroy a major media site because it said something about him he didn’t like. He was part of Paypal, a sinister “service” that has somehow wormed itself into near-monopoly status with terms and conditions right out in the open that say they can charge you $2500 for buying/selling something they don’t like according to vague criteria. He is part of Facebook, a sinister organization that trades in private data and suppresses certain political positions. And above all he is part of Palantir, an organization dedicated to spying on and destroying opposition according to who knows what criteria, which was behind the persecution of Barrett Brown. And *now* Silicon Valley finds something it doesn’t like in a damn political donation to a candidate that nearly half the country (God help us) supports?
I don’t hold his donation to Trump against him. I hold it against Trump that he would give some quid pro quo to THIEL.
Yes, Thiel, a self-interested, ruthless creep, is no different from Haim Saban or the members of Goldman Sachs’s board.
I definitely agree with what you are saying. Thiel is a jerk, a KKK lover and NAZI monster. He’s no better than Hitler himself. Thiel I hope you choke on your money that you gave to Trump’s campaign. It’s wasted money though. Clinton will be our next President of the United States
Very funny. I have enough reasons to dislike Thiel without claiming he’s Hitler. This is a new century and we have plenty of time to introduce our own forms of tyranny.
I agree with you. Thiel just gave away his money to a man who loves violence and hatred. Trump is backed by the KKK and the neo-nazis. He reminds me of Hitler everytime he opens his mouth.
“Peter Thiel decided to write a $1.25 million check to Trump’s presidential campaign”
Does the US have no campaign finance laws whatsoever?
And why are SLAPP* suits still allowed?
*Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation
The reasons the brilliant Thiel is supporting Trump are cryptic to be sure, though they have a likely “disruptive” cause/purpose; which may include disruption, on fundamentally ethical grounds, of neocon plans to further create chaos in the Middle East, which they themselves have clearly admitted to desiring:
“One can only hope that we turn the region into a caldron, and faster, please…” (http://www.juancole.com/2016/10/process-completely-collapses.html). It’s likely, perhaps quite so, that even if Trump were elected plans to continuing turning the “region into a caldron” would not definitively be derailed, yet, to vote for the Clinton-neocon axis is decidedly to add more fire to the “caldron” of chaos. This is stated not to defend Trump, but, rather to point out the hideous paucity of democratic electoral choices afforded (by design and guarding against) voters in a nation that has the potential to be the democratic model of its cultural imagination, but is, in reality, obstructed from being by its security and defense establishment’s (of which the Clintons are a key part) unequaled prioritization of its imperial defense, i.e. of the preservation and extension of its WWII-obtained global imperial centrality–at the ongoing cost of millions of lives disrupted and killed to be sure, for the U.S. will not be “blackmailed” by the deaths of millions of souls if its imperial interests require it (a logic that is, in itself, natural to any self-respecting empire, no?).
I just checked, because you glaringly omitted it, but those are, in part, exactly the reasons Thiel gives:
” Instead of going to Mars, we have invaded the Middle East. We don’t need to see Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails: her incompetence is in plain sight. She pushed for a war in Libya, and today it’s a training ground for ISIS. On this most important issue, Donald Trump is right. It’s time to end the era of stupid wars and rebuild our country.”
If you watch Peter Thiel’s recent interview https://youtu.be/MGVVRnM50yY you may have some idea about why he supports Trump’s movement. He is much smarter than some ideologically driven journalist.
Is Thiel still suing Biddle directly? If so, a responsible news organization wouldn’t let Biddle write about Thiel. In fact, I’m pretty sure the basic irresponsible, half-assed news organizations would still say, “Gosh, I don’t think Sam Biddle is neutral enough on this.” Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot.
This article is bad but it’s clearly an editorial and he discloses. I don’t see a problem.
Yeah, kind of surprised this actually got put out. Whatever one thinks about this election, writing an article against someone who’s suing you and not even disclosing that fact until three paragraphs in seems kind of iffy regardless of whether or not you personally agree. I personally think Trump is scum and Thiel is kind of a prick, but this article essentially seems to be saying that his choice to support one candidate over another is equivalent to hate speech and grounds for being fired.
WEIRD ARTICLE, INTERCEPT.
Is Thiel still suing Biddle directly?
Did you read the article? Biddle addressed this directly in a disclosure, which is exactly the appropriate thing to do:
If so, a responsible news organization wouldn’t let Biddle write about Thiel.
Journalists write about things all the time that they have conflicts over. According to you Greenwald shouldn’t have been able to write a singel articel about Britain’s GCSC and it’s spying after his spouse, David Miranda, was held for 9 ours incognito at Heathrow via a terrorism statute. That’s absurd.
Biddle may have insights into Thiel that are of value as a direct result of his experiences. So the proper thing to do is to let him post his article but ensure that it encompasses the sort of disclosures that I wish ALL journalists would use as appropriate. Exactly what happened here.
I see my fyslexic dingers are active this morning.
single and article. :-s
Do the fools who write and comment at The Intercept believe that donors to Hillary Clinton should be fired?
After all, article after article here gets published about how Clinton is behind the destruction of thousands of lives in the Middle East, oppressive governments, surveillance technology. So by Biddle’s reasoning, why shouldn’t her powerful donors be shunned by polite society?
This is neoMcCarthyism. Self-awareness is at an all time low.
Let’s see some consistency here.
On the one hand, Thiel has the right to believe what he does, express those beliefs and fund candidates he wishes. I’m rather upset at companies firing people for political beliefs, so long as they do not interfere with work.
OTOH, businesses and people should be free to not buy from businesses whose politics they disagree with, and whose employees or CEOs hold to views they disagree with. I won’t buy from Chic-Fil-A due to their support of various groups that would persecute homosexuals, and for their religion-based discrimination (as well as various other upsetting practices). I won’t buy from Wal-Mart due to their denying pay to employees and similar illegal things. I won’t bank at Wells Fargo due to their financial fraud.
Sutor, ne ultra crepidam
When one expects anything from these white bread apprentices of capitalism one is bound to be confused. Their opinions on politics mean about as much as those of the pizza rat (actually, its opinions may be even more valuable).
And Thiel supporting Trump – well, let me put my surprise face on. Fascists tend to stick together.
There is no excuse and there is no defense.
Condensed argument of this article: People shouldn’t be fired for their politics unless they should be.
“white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia, and fascism” … these are all things you say of a candidate who you don’t have any dirt on, there is literally no evidence for any of these things, only twisted words and made up stories propped up by the corporate media machine to keep their cronies in control, and at this point they are being quite arrogant about it
I like having Sam Biddle here at The Intercept.
The basic issue here though, for me at least, is free speech and the consequences of it to the organizations and groups the speaker is affiliated with.
I don’t particularly have a problem with any American supporting whichever candidate they choose in any given election. Or advocating for one or another in their free time. But that may have consequences depending on the nature and quality of the speech you employ in advocating for a particular candidate or that candidate’s stated agenda or goals (i.e. deport all “brown” looking folks we “believe” are “illegal” whatever the hell that odious idea is supposed to mean or how it could ever be carried out without violating everyone’s civil rights).
Similarly, I also don’t have any problem with “private” companies refusing to hire or otherwise terminating an employment relationship of an employee (or director, or manager, or partner) assuming there is a contractual provision setting out clearly, and that is agreed to by both parties, that certain topics are off limits via public media, blogging or interviews under the threat of termination. And then let people freely decide if it is more important for them to be able to speak freely about those issues both inside and/or outside the workplace, or to have a job where that right is restricted by contract in one way or another.
But I think that should be the same for all human beings. Billionaires shouldn’t get some free pass or not be subject to termination of business relationships as a function of their speech any more than the local Macy’s store clerk who likes to Facebook or blog or whatever.
And I say the above on the principle that so long as I’m not discriminating against a legally protected class of persons strictly the basis of that person’s belonging to that protected class, then I have zero problem with people associating freely, or choosing not to.
The underlying value why the America legal system bars discrimination in employment and commerce, is that we should not evaluate another human being’s worth on the basis of immutable traits i.e. gender, “race”, ethnicity, sexual orientation, place of origin . . . things that an individual has zero control over and are simply functions of the circumstances of his/her birth.
Those immutable traits are wholly different from one’s chosen “beliefs” be they political or religious. That’s why I have a huge problem with including religion in the civil rights act, except to the extent that so long as people keep their religious practices and proselytizing to their homes, places of worship, and public places, and don’t ask for anything more than “reasonable accommodation”, then I don’t think anyone should be discriminated against in employment or commerce solely on the basis of their self-identified affiliation with one religion or sect or another.
Same goes for politics. People support a political party or individual politician for various reasons. Some people support one or the other in spite of things they don’t agree with about that party or politician and/or the agendas or policies of either/both. And they should not be fired or discriminated against on that self-identification–standing alone. But if you are going to openly state your specific opinion about things, you should understand that there could be consequences for that “free speech”.
People forget the First Amendment isn’t about everybody respecting everybody else’s right to have an opinion, it’s about the government not having the legal authority to engage in prior restraint of speech or otherwise pass laws inhibiting a citizen’s right to speak freely on almost any topic (incitement, threats and fraudulent speech being exceptions) in private and public spaces so long it is time, space, manner and permit compliant.
Private actors should be free to hire, fire or treat the substance of speech, in their commercial relationships as they see fit so long as they don’t discriminate against others on basis of immutable traits.
I shouldn’t be obligated to employ, or continue employing a neo-Nazi any more than I should be obligated to employ or refrain from terminating an employee who claims others shouldn’t enjoy equal rights under the law that they enjoy simply by virtue of that person’s sexual orientation. And I don’t care if you defend either of those positions with “religious freedom” or “political freedom” because I’m not the government. And the flip side of that is, I don’t have any expectation that a neo-Nazi or anti-LGBT equal rights religious person or activist would or should be forced to do business with me.
You want to do business fairly in an open pluralistic society, sometimes it’s best if you keep your personal opinions on hot button issues to yourself unless you are prepared for the economic consequences of that speech.
And to be clear, there are narrow exceptions to every rule and narrow principle, and I can think of a few to my above stated general principles above.
When the pendulum (inevitably, though it’s an open question of how long) swings back in the direction where right-leaning precepts are dominant amongst the elite, you’ll change back to thinking people should be able to speak your mind and will pretend this was always your position. Also, when people invoke free speech, they don’t just refer to the legalism but the much broader historical philosophy regarding the need for society at large to accept some level of heresy.
I agree completely that this should apply equally to billionaires and underlings. And I don’t want a society where people can gang up on some random employee for having Wrongthink on social media. This is true even if Thiel is an idiot (he is) and Trump is an embarrassment (he is). Your post is politely worded authoritarianism.
Ugh, why did you guys bring over this low-quality Gawker drivel to The Intercept…
“This is, to use a non-loaded word, deplorable.”
Bullshit. Crooked Hillary is deplorable. It’s too bad that Sam as brought Gawker propaganda with him here. I expected better of him. And Ellen Pao? You lost all credibility when you quoted her. She’s been fired from every job she’s held due to incompetence.
I’d much rather let an eccentric idiot on the board of some companies than have every institution’s “acceptable employment” be decided by Gawker-style assholes. And I loathe Trump.
No, Ellen Pao was not fired as CEO of reddit because of her asian ancestry. It was because of her draconian policies of banning various subreddits that didn’t fit her image a of an egalitarian website.
I think a donating to a politician is admirable,and a means of freedom of speech. However when the 1% buys a newspaper or media giant more to influence than to inform then I think the public trust is a risk
Your complete lack of empathy for, or understanding of Trump supporters is astounding. I would never support him, but you are a partisan with no apparent curiosity about different views, and a symptom of what’s gone wrong in this country. You and Trump are two sides of the same partisan coin.