Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/projectinclude/peter-thiel-yc-and-hard-decisions-2b91bab83764#.f8k645921 <comment><USER2> There is clear precedent for YC taking a political stand by uninviting investors.

Only five years ago, Paul Graham was willing to uninvite investors from Demo Day based on their support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). [https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/paul-graham-sopa- supportin...](https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/paul-graham-sopa-supporting- companies-no-longer-allowed-at-yc-demo-day/)

Paul asked, "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?"

The obvious answer to that question would be, "their track record as investors could demonstrate that." But no, in 2011, if you supported SOPA, you're out, _regardless of your track record_.

I think it's fair to ask whether, if Peter Thiel is so clueless as to donate $1.25 million to Donald Trump _today_ , after so much of his dirty laundry has come to light and after this has been reflected in the polls, how could he be a good investor?

If it was the right decision for SOPA, it's right decision today.

<comment><USER3> IMO, you can even disregard all of Trump's dirty laundry in this calculation. He is openly calling into doubt the result of this election before it's even happened, asking supporters to intimidate voters, and suggesting the entire election is "rigged".

He is attempting to undermine democracy in the country and I'm not sure you need a single additional reason to object to anyone who supports him.

Thiel, of course, does not think "freedom and democracy are compatible": [https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter- thiel/educatio...](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter- thiel/education-libertarian)

<comment><USER4> For what it's worth, I haven't heard many complaints about Bernie Sanders claiming elections are bought.

> We now have a political situation where billionaires are literally able to > buy elections and candidates. Let's not kid ourselves. That is the reality > right now. [1]

(He also is fond of claiming "the system" is rigged, if not elections directly.)

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sanders-takes-on- bil...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sanders-takes-on-billionaire- class-in-launching-2016-bid-against- clinton/2015/04/30/4849fe32-ef3a-11e4-a55f-38924fca94f9_story.html)

<comment><USER5> That's because Bernie Sanders is not in fact claiming that the election is rigged. In fact: he's been a reliable support of Clinton since the primaries ended.

<comment><USER6> And therefore, he's a good guy now? lol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Based on the awful things Trump has said and (apparently) done, it should be blatantly clear to anyone remotely following the election that isn't your usual political rivalry. Pao is right: "this isn't a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence." Quite literally at times! (I might give a pass to the people following the party line or acting on incomplete information, but Thiel knows _exactly_ what he's supporting.)

And yet, in the previous HN thread on the topic, I see dozens of voices loudly defending the right for Thiel to prop up Trump's demagoguery without consequence. To them, supporting Trump or Clinton is equally bad, even though the things Trump routinely says are downright terrifying[1] and dangerous to the fabric of our country. For the first time in my life, I'm actually expecting to see violence on election day.

This fledgeling authoritarian streak within the tech community really disturbs me.

[1]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_f...](https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/comments/4teoxl/a_final_response_to_the_tell_me_why_trump_is_a/)

<comment><USER8> > To them, supporting Trump and Clinton are equally bad

No, to us destroying a person for their political views is disgusting, even if we disagree with them.

A person should not lose their job, their status on a board, their inclusion in an event, etc. based on who they decide to support politically.

That's disgusting and people who support that sort of witch hunt should be ashamed of themselves.

I vehemently disagree with his choice of who to support during this election, but I find the calls for his head even more repugnant. That sort of intolerance should have no place in a civil society.

<comment><USER9> In short, you say "people who support that sort of witch hunt" are intolerant, and that there is no place for them here. So... you are in favour of excluding people whose views you find repugnant, it's just a matter of which kinds of intolerance and whose repugnance is involved.

Another matter of interest is the nature of the power imbalance of lack of same. The original witch hunts, McCarthyism, and other struggles involved a very powerful entity depriving individual citizens of their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of a career.

There is a massive difference between "So-and-so engineer cannot work in this industry because a VC finds their political views repugnant," and, "I choose not to do business with a billionaire who is actively conspiring to bring democracy down."

One is punching down, the other is punching up, or perhaps sideways.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, "destroying a person for their political views" does not apply in this case at all. Peter Thiel is a BILLIONAIRE.

<comment><USER11> For values of "destroying" equal to "refusing to do business with".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am disappointed with Thiel's decision to donate money to Donald Trump, but I don't care what Ellen Pao or her organization thinks about it. It's their prerogative, but I laughed at the tagline 'Sometimes hard decisions aren't that hard after all'. I don't believe an attempt to pressure outside parties into severing business ties with someone because of their questionable political judgement should be treated as if it is some sort of noble crusade e.g.

> We have hope for YC;... Today it is clear our values are not aligned.

And make no mistake, it's either an attempt to pressure YC or a PR play for the organization (possibly both)

<comment><USER13> Or it's a stand against a movement which opposes their moral principles. To Pao (and, to the extent that it matters, me), D. Trump's movement is so vile that any prominent supporters of it waive their right to being tolerated. I am sure you'd agree that doing so would be acceptable if Thiel supported Strom Thurmond, Viktor Orban, or Mao Zedong; it's just a matter of how bad D. Trump is.

<comment><USER14> "Strom Thurmond"

How about Hillary Clinton's "friend and mentor", a man of "eloquence and nobility" (her actual words) Robert C. Byrd? You know, "KKK Kleagle" Byrd? "Tried to filibuster the 1964 Civil Rights Act" Byrd? "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side. ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." Byrd?

Remember him?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryweuBVJMEA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryweuBVJMEA)

<comment><USER15> Nope.

"I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened." \-- Robert Byrd

"Senator Byrd reflects the transformative power of this nation," stated NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous. "Senator Byrd went from being an active member of the KKK to a being a stalwart supporter of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and many other pieces of seminal legislation that advanced the civil rights and liberties of our country.

"Senator Byrd came to consistently support the NAACP civil rights agenda, doing well on the NAACP Annual Civil Rights Report Card. He stood with us on many issues of crucial importance to our members from the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, the historic health care legislation of 2010 and his support for the Hate Crimes Prevention legislation," stated Hilary O. Shelton, Director of the NAACP Washington Bureau and Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy."

[http://www.snopes.com/clinton-byrd-photo- klan/](http://www.snopes.com/clinton-byrd-photo-klan/)

<comment><USER14> Strom Thurmond also repudiated his earlier racism, but that didn't stop the OP from using him as a litmus test.

Why is that?

<comment><USER16> You'll need to source that. Despite some evidence in his later actions, Strom never vocally repudiated his earlier racism. I couldn't find any sources on it.

His filibuster against the Civil Rights Act put him in this position. Had he succeeded, his impact would have been far more detrimental to the rights of those protected under the act today then anything Byrd had/has done.

Both are disagreeable sorts, but Strom's lasting impact would have been much, much worse.

<comment><USER14> "His filibuster against the Civil Rights Act put him in this position."

"His"? Singular?

Both Byrd and Thurmond attempted to filibuster the Civil Rights Act, so I don't know where you're getting "anything Byrd had done" from.

<comment><USER16> I should have been more specific. The 24 hour marathon filibuster, the longest in history, put him in this position. There were others who filibustered the Civil Rights Act bills, but none of them made such a dramatic show of it.

<comment><USER14> Byrd filibustered for 14 hours. Sorry, that might demonstrate that Thurmond had better bladder control, but that's about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cleaving off 40% of America is not a recipe for progress. When Trump shows his people how they're getting blacklisted from the economy, that isn't going to make them want to riot _less_. Our culture of progress has become entirely about excluding dissenters until they submit, _and it 's not working anymore_. We've given up on convincing the people who have all the weapons, and now we're going to start hurting them economically. Good luck, y'all.

<comment><USER18> There are two larges groups of people who are voting for Trump regardless of anything he does (as he said: he could shoot people down on 5th avenue and these people would still vote for him). The largest group of them are Republicans who will always vote Republican. My beef with these people is that I wish they were a little more loyal to our country's values than they were to their party, but fundamentally I've got no real problem with them.

The second group are all white nationalists. They honestly believe that Obama is a Muslim, that Jews control the banks and media, that immigration is bad for the country, etc.

These people I have no problem with blacklisting.

<comment><USER19> What percentage of the population do you think really identifies as white nationalist?

<comment><USER18> Out of the 40% that support Trump, the numbers I've seen are that roughly 10% support his identity politics. They might not call themselves white nationalists, but they are attracted by someone "telling it like it is" with respect to immigrants, inner cities, etc.

IOW, a very large part of Trump's core supporters are simply Republicans that will vote for him because he is at the top of the Republican ticket. They would also have voted for Rubio or even Kasich. They don't like a number of things he's said or done, but they will vote for the Republican before they vote for a Democrat (especially Hillary Clinton).

The minority, though, are not really Republicans -- they are truly a right wing nationalist cohort that is very attuned to things like Trump's "David Duke who?" initial response to his endorsement.

With respect to the other comment about Republicans reaching out to these people: the Southern strategy is a 50-yr old strategy that the Republican party has consciously and publicly tried to move away from in the last 8 years as demographics have made it less and less likely to deliver the Whitehouse. Yes these people have been loosely attached to the Republican party, but as the Republican party moves away from them, they've also moved away from it.

The natural thing, if we didn't have a legally supported two-party system, would be for a Marie Le Pen style nationalist party to form behind Trump.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This would be fine if HRC supporters were also going to be marginalized for advocating the use of drone warfare, warrantless wiretapping, and all the many deeply troubling things about HRC's policy ideas.

While I could never bring myself to vote for Trump or HRC, I am profoundly disappointed that anyone would advocate marginalizing Thiel for simply participating in democracy.

Thiel's donation is a a drop in the bucket. His personal endorsement will likely influence few people. But the chilling effect of not having the "right" beliefs will effect many. Shame on Ellen Pao for advocating this sort of illiberal thinking.

<comment><USER21> > drone warfare, warrantless wiretapping

I find myself in a position that there are things that I dislike about both nominee's policies (in that they are the same or both suck), and things that I exclusively dislike about Trump's policies but not the other way around.

Can you give me some examples to balance the scales?

<comment><USER22> Vote 3rd party, really

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wow, the world is getting way too fractured between left and right. Reading that, the YC folks make out that Trump is a monster and any affiliation with him is evil. Come on, try to understand why people are supporting him. I don't think it's racism and sexism that's driving this, it's the wedge between left and right. Combine that with the two party system and people find themselves with little choice. When you vilify everyone on the other side there is little chance they'll come over to yours.

<comment><USER24> Thank you for posting this. To my view, partisans on both sides are roughly comparable. Some of their manipulative tactics differ in the specifics, but they are both dishonest and both harmful to society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> And people with this kind of thinking are considered to be the good guys? SNL writer Chris Kelly "How bout instead of an "I Voted" sticker, everyone who votes Trump gets to wear a scarlet T for the rest of their lives?"[0]

Seriously pause to think that.

This fabricated outrage created by media & Clinton campaign of Trump's 'alleged' doings is quite concerning. At the same time there are Wikileaks collusion, media enabled terrorism, GOP, and some shady doings of agitating violence by the Democrats shown in today's leak. None reported by the msn[1]

[0][http://archive.is/NiRJ4](http://archive.is/NiRJ4) [1][http://regated.com/2016/10/project-veritas-clinton-camp- corr...](http://regated.com/2016/10/project-veritas-clinton-camp-corruption/)

<comment><USER26> > This fabricated outrage created by media & Clinton campaign of Trump's > 'alleged' doings is quite concerning.

You mean the serial sexual assault which he basically confessed to multiple times unprompted (bus tape, stern show, …), and to which his only defences are a british lunatic (who "confessed" to being a child pimp for british cabinet members at 17) and that his accusers are too ugly for him to assault?

Let us get this straight: you think it's necessary to _fabricate_ outrage over a man who believes the issue in being accused of sexual assault is he's accused of sexually assaulting " _uggos_ "?

<comment><USER25> You mean the time Clinton campaign needed a way to counter Bill's actual sexual assault victims Trump was hammering them on.

Wikileaks: 'Democrats prepared fake Trump "grope under the meeting table" Craigslist employment advertisement in May 2016'[0]

[0][https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928)

<comment><USER26> > You mean the time Clinton campaign needed a way to counter Bill's actual > sexual assault victims Trump was hammering them on.

1\. Trump was not hammering anything, accusing Hillary for Bill's infidelity has never been a hammer over the 20 years it's been used (in fact it's usually backfired). The strategy was flopping as irrelevant even amongst republicans. Reminder: Bill is not running for president.

2\. Kenneth Starr's investigation dropped all of these accusations back when it was trying to find anything to pin on him, none of them were credible, the only thing they got in the end was infidelity in a consensual relationship

3\. And Trump's bringing up of Bill was only a flippant attempt to direct people away from his Access Hollywood tape.

> Wikileaks: 'Democrats prepared fake Trump "grope under the meeting table" > Craigslist employment advertisement in May 2016' > [https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787060280832380928)

Er… so? That reads like a criticism ad prep:

> This will be a microsite

Which I guess they ended up not having to run since Trump has been providing the quotes directly.

<comment><USER25> Clintons say they are running as a team. You can't take the good without the bad.

You say women that have settled in court or accused of Clinton of sexual assault should not be believed. BUT Trumps alleged should be believed. Hillary stated all rape victims have a right to be believed.

In your mind should we or should we not believe women saying they have been raped?

<comment><USER26> > You say women that have settled in court or accused of Clinton of sexual > assault should not be believed.

I never said that, no. What I did say was that their claims were investigated by Starr who had every reason to use them if he could, and he didn't.

> BUT Trumps alleged should be believed.

See there are a few big differences here. Trump's history of bragging about sexually assaulting women, the coherence of the accusations and Trump's MO, that Gloria Allred has decided to get involved, and that these are not 20+ years old accusations which were already dropped.

> In your mind should we or should we not believe women saying they have been > raped?

You do understand that "we should believe [people] saying they have been raped" means "trust but verify" right? The allegations against Clinton were extensively checked two decades ago by people working against Clinton who had every reason to use these accusation, and they judged them not worth pursuing.

Not that the move makes any sense either way, if assault accusations against one candidate's SO are impeachable offenses, what are assault accusations agains the other candidate _directly_?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What exactly is their relationship with YC?

The article is a bit murky. They "invited" YC to contribute, but do not actually say whether YC agreed.

Forgive the cynicism, but if it turns out that YC was not contributing in any way to Project Include, this is just empty bluster.

</comment><comment><USER28> This obviously wasn't a hard decision for them. In the article she's doing her best to demonize Thiel and Trump without even trying to empathize.

It also reads like she's trying to associate this project with big names like YC and Thiel.. but if I'm reading correctly all "Project Include" has done is "actively invite YC to contribute". The cynic in me says that this is a simple political power play and a marketing trick in one. Nothing to do with actually helping people and society, which would involve understanding and sympathy for all sides; even your political enemies.

</comment><comment><USER29> How can you distance yourself from Thiel if he has shown no interest in being connected to you?

It's never going to be this easy to delegitimise someone when they are widely known as being more credible than yourself.

If YC was to pull out it would be a loss for their startups. It should be the founder's choice whether they wish to deprive themselves of Thiel's money or insight to make a political point.

</comment><comment><USER30> Some serious absolutism on display in this piece. Thiel isn't supporting a fringe candidate; most of the polls right now have a difference between Trump and Clinton smaller than the margin of error. To make the claim that a candidate backed by around 50% of the country is deplorable enough that we should completely divest from his supporters, is silly.

</comment><comment><USER31> _At Project Include, our mission is to give everyone a fair chance to succeed in the workplace. "Everyone" means all groups to us, but we draw a line at individuals who fund violence and hate._

And you denounce... Thiel? Hillary Clinton made material contributions to starting two seemingly random wars in Libya and Syria with hundreds of thousands of victims. That doesn't count as funding violence? What about her supporters which appears to be everyone else.

<comment><USER32> Most sitting presidents and secretary of states in the past 50 years have had to call for violence against other nations. It's part of the role and maybe she's made mistakes. But there's a difference between Secretary of State allowing an airstrike and being a owner of a company inciting others to violence.

<comment><USER31> So she is OK with killing thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands but mean comments are a cause for purges? It's either dishonest or insane.

The difference is that one of these doesn't matter.

<comment><USER33> Trump's comments include a promise to commit _war crimes_ (targeting the families of terror suspects).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Peter Theil had a long term vision for the world where others failed to see such future. I see similar line of reasoning for Peter Theil's support.

1\. If you think that business people can govern better than Politicians or want to achieve an environment where it gets easier and acceptable for business leaders to seek political offices, this is a huge step in that direction. China already took this step of inviting people who succeed in business to participate in governance. If Trump can do it, so can every other business person who thinks they are better than Trump. If Trump wins this, I guarantee you next season its going to be more qualified people running for office and if Trump loses, we still would have made progress in that direction.

2\. Peter Theil's support for Trump gave him (gay guy) a platform to speak at a republican convention. This is a huge progress for everyone when republicans are standing up for gay people. It makes it easy for other people to reach out and co-operate with each other.

3\. Peter Theil getting into politics allows something like a Y-combinator(not the news site but a complete accelerator) for politics possible otherwise it would just be more lawyers running again and again. Just like YC grooms tech leaders, Theil's expertise into this venture could groom next generation governing leaders.

What ever your politics are, this is progress.

<comment><USER35> I think many people here and elsewhere would strongly disagree with the premise in your first point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Hang on - Thiel thinks women shouldn't have the right to vote, and has written unambiguously as much?

How on earth is _that_ not the argument for dropping him?

From another angle, _how on earth_ can you trust someone's advice if they truly and honestly think like that?

I'm honestly shocked YC can champion women founders while having someone like this involved as a partner.

Just shocking.

And so, so disappointing.

<comment><USER37> > 'the extension of the franchise to women has rendered the notion of > "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron'

[https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter- thiel/educatio...](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter- thiel/education-libertarian)

<comment><USER38> He's saying that women tend not to vote libertarian, not that they shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Why misrepresent this (as so many have in this page) when we can all follow the link and read for ourselves?

More context: " The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron.

In the face of these realities, one would despair if one limited one's horizon to the world of politics. I do not despair because I no longer believe that politics encompasses all possible futures of our world. In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called "social democracy."

So, he literally says he doesn't despair this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Diversity and inclusion, but only for those people whose politics we agree with? (A rhetorical question, it's always been that way).

<comment><USER40> By strongly opposing a candidate that promises to do things like deport all Muslims, absolutely.

Some political platforms are inherently non-inclusive and Trump's is one of them.

<comment><USER41> The irony is rich in this one.

<comment><USER40> I am completely morally comfortable with the idea of YC opposing a $1.25 million handout to the candidate of mass deportation.

"If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." \- Karl Popper

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Has Ellen Pao (and Project Include) spoken out against her husbands alleged Ponzi scheme? His alleged actions seems to be in direct conflict with the values of any wholesome tech company.

<comment><USER9> That's a textbook deflection right there, and also a logical fallacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> > Diversity and inclusion are hard, especially in tech. Doing them right means > agreeing on values

No, it means accepting to disagree on values. Pretty much by definition.

> calling out bad behavior

So creating needless conflict.

> and sometimes firing people

If people are too different from you, fire them! Great for diversity!

I wish these people would have the guts and sincerity to call their agenda what it really is, because diverse, it is not.

<comment><USER41> Thanks for saying this. As a non-American it's incredibly frustrating for me to keep hearing all this diversity BS talk, yet it's always always only skin- shallow attributes and no diversity in things like opinions or politics is ever tolerated... in the name of diversity.

Is this some US thing or are there really so many so obvious hypocrites out there?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > this isn't a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and > violence.

There are still around 40% people voting for Trump and many donating to him, so you mean they are also advocating hatred and violence?

What you believe could be different from others. People can choose different perspectives to see and understand the world. We should encourage different ideas and voices. This post could be downvoted too because I'm supporting and encouraging different voices.

<comment><USER45> > There are still around 40% people voting for Trump and many donating to him, > so you mean they are also advocating hatred and violence?

At this point, I'd have to say yes, given Trump's actions the past few days. His supporters are openly committing sedition[1]. If you don't believe and hatred and violence, and you still support him, I'd have to say that's a case of superior orders. The man is intentionally inciting fear and violence.

Encouraging different opinions and voices are fine, but there is a limit. When that voice is actively encouraging harm to others based on unfounded allegations, it makes sense to cut it off, as it is not driving the conversation forward.

1- [https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/10/15/donald-...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/10/15/donald- trump-warnings-conspiracy-rig-election-are-stoking-anger-among-his- followers/LcCY6e0QOcfH8VdeK9UdsM/story.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> It may be worth noting that Goldman Sachs recently banned all of its partners from donating to the Trump ticket, as of September 1, 2016. They can still donate to Clinton. [1]

NOTE: Technically, they banned contributions "to state and local candidates running for office, as well as state or local officials running for federal office." as of September 1, 2016. Since Mike Pence is a sitting state official, it means that Goldman partners can't contribute to the Trump-Pence ticket.

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/07/goldman-sachs- donati...](http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/07/goldman-sachs-donations- trump-clinton_n_11898982.html)

</comment><comment><USER47> _> Because of [Peter Thiel's] continued connection to YC, we are compelled to break off our relationship with YC._

What exactly was the relationship between Project Include and YC prior to this?

</comment><comment><USER48> I don't get how you can be so cognizant of the problem of misaligned values while at the same time having an unquestionable faith in the value of diversity. How can you avoid cognitive dissonance here, except through a very shallow understanding of diversity that assumes all people or groups of people hold roughly the same values and beliefs and that where they differ, the difference never results in unresolvable incompatibility?

</comment><comment><USER49> Kudos to Project Include for making this decision. This sends a clear signal that there is a growing (or at least increasingly vocalized) segment of the tech community that won't stand for a guy like Thiel to be a "captain" of this industry. I believe in the long run, he's holding us back.

</comment><comment><USER50> Thiel is both Libertarian and gay. It's unlikely he is supportive of Trump's / Republican's bigotry, but more an issue of practicality since he doesn't like the alternative.

I also find it ironic that something called Project Include is upset because someone is supporting a party that a huge percentage of the country is going to vote for. YC had nothing to do with Thiel's donation and you dissociate from them when there are 2 degrees of separation? That is not inclusion.

</comment><comment><USER51> _this isn't a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence._

I think some "both-sides-ism" is in order here.

From the perspective of the right, the left is also advocating hatred, violence and is also trying to do an end-around to thwart democracy. Consider:

\- The riots we've had in four different cities, riots that occurred before the facts of the case were even known, and which white people were being specifically targeted for violence -- [http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/milwaukee- pro...](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/milwaukee-protests- asian-american-black-lives-matter-214184)

\- Michelle Obama's support of Beyonce's Black Panthers homage at the Super Bowl (if you are unfamiliar with how destructive the Panthers and the movement associated with it were, you can start here [https://devinhelton.com/hate- group-history](https://devinhelton.com/hate-group-history) )

\- The left's strategy of "electing a new people" \-- favoring mass immigration from Mexico because it will help push liberal policies. This was stated openly in Paul Krugman's "Conscience of a Liberal" and you see articles all the time about it (for example [https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/19/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/19/the- nra-will-fall-its-inevitable/?utm_term=.20447ffc0ee3) )

\- The continued scapegoating of "white men" and "structural racism" as being the source of problems for minorities, even when you do a deep dive on the statistics and the situations that is clearly not the problem.

\- Selective enforcement of the law, going after Republican associated people in groups, such as the John Doe investigations in Wisconsin ( [http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisonsins- shame...](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisonsins-shame-i- thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french) ), the IRS going after tea party groups, or the adminsitration trumping up charges against Peter Thiel's Palantir company

There are serious issues at stake, and a lot of bad behavior on both sides. The only way a two-party system works, is if when one party wins, it doesn't try to punish people who supported the wrong side.

</comment><comment><USER52> Tl;dr

>We agree that people shouldn't be fired for their political views, but

<comment><USER45> The problem is that this election is not about a difference of opinions over the fundamental issues. It's become a spite-driven, rage-fueled, all out fear mongering and hate breeding spectacle.

Trump's supporters have, in some cases, started talking open revolt if he doesn't win. On Twitter, there was a hashtag of #RepealThe19th, which essentially said they wanted to disenfranchise women in efforts to ensure Trump is supported.

This isn't necessarily new from constituents, but at the very least, the candidates have drawn the line. McCain is reported to have told a woman than Obama is good Christian family man with whom he had fundamental policy disagreements.

Trump is threatening to throw Hillary in jail, and is attempting to use her husbands (known) indiscretions as ammunition. Campaigns get vicious, but in this case, Trump is actively feeding the hatred and paranoia.

<comment><USER53> Or the fire bombing of a GOP headquarters and physical assault of Trump supporters at rallies. Both of those are significantly more serious than people saying mean things on twitter. I couldn't, in good conscience, vote for either candidate, but your examples are incredibly one sided.

<comment><USER45> I won't comment on the physical assault, but I do know there are no identified suspects in the firebombing. It's a bit premature to blame Trump's opposition.

<comment><USER53> The words "Nazi Republicans get out of town or else" were spray painted on an adjacent building. Are you suggesting someone who didn't oppose Republicans, and their candidate, did that?

<comment><USER45> Let me repeat this again so we're absolutely clear: there have been NO identified suspects in this case and NO reported leads. It is too premature to guess anyone's motives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I'm not an American. I would rather not miss out on his presence as an investor at Demo day because of this ridiculous culture war your country is in and continues to escalate.

</comment><comment><USER55> Oh the delicious irony. Let's carry out a purge based on political opinions... in the name of diversity!

<comment><USER56> The humanitarian with the guillotine...

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I'm not sure what to think about the fact that someone can be 'blacklisted' in tech because their stance on an issue isn't aligned with the majority of the community, or they have voiced an opinion for or against a political candidate.

</comment><comment><USER58> What has Project Include, or Ellen Pao, accomplished? What has YC and its funded projects accomplished?

<comment><USER59> I'm not sure how that question is in any way relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Not only does Pao expect everyone she works with to agree with her on her Important Concern, but also she expects the Important Concern to override all other potential considerations that might go into a person's decision on whom to support. That is a lot to ask for. There are after all only 2 effective choices.

</comment><comment><USER61> There are some exceptionally toxic comments below.

<comment><USER11> Indeed. This may be the thread that gets me to leave HN for good. It feels like being inside a history book. It would be fascinating if it weren't so unsettling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I would not be surprised if Thiel does not care about Trump's policies or character, but only about ending democracy and reducing the role of goverment, thus making the world "safe of capitalism": [https://www.cato- unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...](https://www.cato- unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian)

</comment><comment><USER63> Project Include is disassociating with YC because YC is associated with Peter Thiel who is associated with Donald Trump who advocates hatred and violence.

Are we to draw a principle from this? Is PI arguing that dissociation from those who advocate hatred and violence is not only a moral imperative, but _transitive_?

What about all the CEOs of YC companies? Are they obligated to disassociate? If they don't, are we as customers obligated to dissociate from them? If we don't, are the people in our lives obligated to disassociate from us?

As far as I can tell, this post contains no explicit generalizable principle for imperative disassociation. Probably because that's a really hard thing to create.

What's easy is taking a strong stand on a hyper-specific situation where the bad guys are caricatures and your target audience already agrees with you. It's just not very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER64> I am at a loss.

Is this the kind of reasoning that would make someone not read Ender's Game due to the opinions [0] of the writer?

[0] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Views_about_h...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Views_about_homosexuality)

</comment><comment><USER65> > but we draw a line at individuals who fund violence and hate.

(removing video as valid concerns were raised)

Although, isn't there evidence that more violence has occurred against trump supporters than anyone else?

I am not a supporter by any measure (for one, I'm form the middle east), but I'm trying to understand Paos quote.

<comment><USER52> >Due to his videos of ACORN workers allegedly aiding a couple in criminal planning, the U.S. Congress voted to freeze funds for the non-profit. The national scandal resulted in the non-profit also losing most private funding before investigations were completed. In March 2010, ACORN was close to bankruptcy and had to close most of its offices.[1] Shortly after, the California State Attorney General's Office and the US Government Accountability Office released their related investigative reports. The Attorney General's Office found that O'Keefe had misrepresented the actions of ACORN workers and that the workers had not committed illegal actions. A preliminary probe by the GAO found that ACORN had managed its federal funds appropriately.[2][3]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O%27Keefe)

Let's be a little more skeptical this time around, shall we?

<comment><USER66> Particularly ironic since Thiel provided funding to O'Keefe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I question the integrity of the author who wrote this article, but if people truly have an issue with Peter Thiel donating to the Republican candidate, then just stop giving him money—blacklist him, not YC. However, that's not going to happen anytime soon. Better than disagreeing with someone spending their money, why don't people collectively donate to the other candidate then? That's not the conclusion the author comes to and hence in my opinion this seems to be a company taking advantage of a situation for free PR.

</comment><comment><USER68> I wish more companies would cut ties with Ellen. She's a joke. In summary, "I know we support diversity but not the kind of diversity where you support a candidate I don't like."

</comment><comment><USER69> I keep getting back to this thought that a lot of what Peter does is to make a point about contrarianism - that is to stay a consistent contrarian (publicly atleast).

</comment><comment><USER70> "Money doesn't talk, it swears."

\-- Some Nobel Prize dude.

</comment><comment><USER71> "donating $1.25 million is a lot more than speech"

It's somewhat easy to argue that someone should not face professional repercussions for their support of a candidate. It's harder to argue that they should be able to donate 463x what a typical person might (assuming a generous $2.7k not using Super PACs).

<comment><USER72> Thiel is a billionaire. If the worst things that Trump and his followers have advocated for come to pass, he most likely won't face any consequences that people of lesser means will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Trump is uniquely dangerous and I would fully endorse YC cutting ties with prominent supporters/backers of his...if that would do anything concrete to reduce Trump's chances of winning the presidency, by even one epsilon. I don't Thiel doing office hours for YC companies gives him any sort of tactical advantage he could parlay into assisting Donald Trump's campaign, though I'm willing to entertain arguments otherwise.

It seems more like the argument is that people would like to disassociate with Trump backers as a matter of basic moral principle; that Trump has made himself such a symbol of hatred, racism, xenophobia etc that organizations should shun working with his supporters to send a message that they don't agree with that hatred, racism, and xenophobia. I think that would be quite a reasonable gesture (and I understand why Ellen is trying to do the same thing here). But so is taking public stances against Trump in other forms, including Sam's post re: trump on the YC blog, and his project voteplz.org, a project which, given the lesser likelihood of Democratic-leaning demographic groups to turn out, will probably do orders of magnitude more damage to Trump than Theil's office hours will help him.

I'd like to see more of a focus on what the tech industry can do in the next three weeks to stop Donald Trump from being president, and a little less focus on which companies can prove their moral purity by shunning Trump supporters.

And if we're really doing the latter, isn't going after Palantir, Founders Fund's LPs+ portfolio companies a much more logical place to start? I really hope (and I mean this earnestly, not saying it to make an argument) for the sake of the broader cause of diversity in the tech industry that Project Include is not planning to disassociate with all the companies on this page: [http://foundersfund.com/portfolio/](http://foundersfund.com/portfolio/)

<comment><USER74> > I would fully endorse YC cutting ties with prominent supporters/backers of > his...

But why only prominent? And if not where does this go? Do you now ask anyone who does business in any way shape or form (vendors, employees, YC applicants, the cleaning crew etc.) what their political or personal views are and then cut ties with them as a result? Or is the line arbitrary "we know it when we see it". Kind of like a boycott?

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Bravo, 100% behind severing ties with YC until they break ties with bigot Peter Thiel. Bigotry != difference of opinion. It's inciting violence and hatred, which is different and very dangerous.

<comment><USER41> No evidence of Thiel inciting anything. Plenty of inciting of hatred against him on display here, though...

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> No matter who you are or what you are trying to succeed in tech industry, How about you make news for accomplishments like Peter Theil?

</comment><comment><USER76> The fool's reproach, it is a kingly title. I like how YC let her feel like it was her decision. Well played.

</comment><comment><USER77> tl;dr: i am going to push my hurt feelings onto everybody else

Grow up Ellen.

</comment><comment><USER78> Excerpt from the current Hacker News top 30:

2\. China's Shenzhou 11 blasts off on space station mission (101 points, 3h ago)

7\. Quantum computers: 10-fold boost in stability achieved (63 points, 4h ago)

30\. Peter Thiel, YC, and hard decisions (this thread) (348 points, 2h ago)

I recognize that the Hacker News ranking algorithm takes more criteria into account than just current number of points and time posted, but this is an instance where a little extra transparency in the ranking model would help to show that this is not an arbitrary moderated downrank.

<comment><USER79> This thread received a large number of user flags and was also heavily penalized by the software flamewar detector, but we've turned that off.

See also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12729270](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12729270).

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> > _The Nazis and white nationalists that have rallied to him are a lost > cause._

It's important that we avoid deliberately inflammatory statements like this on controversial issues—they serve only to disrupt already-sensitive threads.

<comment><USER80> Which part is inflammatory? Are you saying white nationalists haven't rallied to him, or that they are not a lost cause?

<comment><USER79> I apologize for having misread your comment as suggesting that all those who rallied to him were Nazis. It was the use of that word that confused me, because I read it as a judgement rather than identifying a group of currently- living individuals in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> Denounce and reject Thiel.

Do it now.

There should be consequences, no matter who you are. Lines must drawn, and this is the clearest articulation I have seen to date as why Thiel must go.

</comment><comment><USER82> > His attacks on Black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim, and Jewish people, on women, > and on others are more than just political speech; fueled by hate and > encouraging violence, they make each of us feel unsafe.

Let's assume that not only is Trump a rapist, but that he's keeping a few women tied up in his basement. Even in this scenario, is this worse than Hillary dramatically increasing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two countries where rape is currently legal? Especially since she did this after receiving 25M+ in donations to the Clinton Foundation from Saudi Arabia, and apparently a 1M dollar check from Qatar for Bill's birthday, so it's hard to even argue that it was out of any sort of realpolitik.

Similarly, is Trump making overtly racist statements really worse (with respect to race issues) than Hillary voting to invade Iraq even after Scott Ritter and Hans Blix said that they had no weapons of mass destruction?

There's no question that Trump's overt sexism and racism is extraordinary problematic. But, as someone who isn't even a Trump supporter/voter, I'm struggling to understand how people find it so much more objectionable than all of the systemic human rights abuses that have already occurred under Hillary. There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Trump, but the idea that he's so much worse for women and minorities seems to be more of a media creation than based in reality.

Even if you assume that something imminently bad is going to happen to minorities if Trump is elected, from an ethical and social justice perspective, if bad things are going to happen that are of our own making, it seems like those bad things should be happening to people within the U.S. rather than abroad.

I don't mean to in any way make light of what are extremely serious issues, but in my humble opinion the idea that Trump is automatically more racist because he says racist things is complete bullshit. Maybe he is worse, but I think the situation is far more nuanced than the media would have you believe.

<comment><USER83> >is this worse than Hillary dramatically increasing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and Qatar

Your premise is bogus. There's no reason to think Hillary Clinton is personally responsible for an increase in weapons sales, especially considering that such sales increased across the board under Obama.

>Hillary voting to invade Iraq

Her own floor speech before her vote said she was voting yes precisely to give Bush leverage to reinstitute inspections, not as a blank check to war.

The point is that geopolitics is complicated, and judging it in the same way as judging someone's private behavior is plainly absurd.

<comment><USER82> > There's no reason to think Hillary Clinton is personally responsible for an > increase in weapons sales, especially considering that such sales increased > across the board under Obama.

"In late 2011, Hillary Clinton's State Department was formally clearing the sale, asserting that it was in the national interest. At press conferences in Washington to announce the department's approval, an assistant secretary of state, Andrew Shapiro, declared that the deal had been 'a top priority' for Clinton personally."

[http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got- weapons...](http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons- deals-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187)

> The point is that geopolitics is complicated, and judging it in the same way > as judging someone's private behavior is plainly absurd.

Absolutely, but as a society I'm not comfortable with just writing off a million deaths under the guise of "it's complicated." In my personal opinion, making the comparison and deciding that Hillary is less bad is completely reasonable, but not making the comparison at all is what's absurd.

<comment><USER83> Your quote doesn't really address the point I'm making. Sure, as head of the state dept she would be involved with very large deals between our "allies" and U.S. corporations. The question is who is responsible for the supposed growth in sales that occurred, and can this growth be traced to her doing or her urging?

It's also worth noting that the article says Saudi Arabia donated tens of millions in the years before she became Sec of State. So claiming the money was for a quid-pro-quo is a stretch. The fact is, any nation friendly to the U.S. probably has had a substantial donation to the Clinton Foundation in recent memory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> It's right there in the article:

> Money is power.

</comment><comment><USER85> The right way to do this would have been to simply drop the association with YC and give a minimalistic explanation when somebody would ask.

But this would not have served the actual purpose which was to attack Thiel (YC is just collateral damage). This should have been done in some blogs posts, possibly on the personal blogs of the participants of this project.

</comment><comment><USER86> Looks like Mr. Thiel will have to content himself with being inclusive on his own, or at least not as part of Ms. Pao's exclusionary inclusion organization. Her post made me think of a quote about "all right-thinking people" that I remembered incorrectly as something from (serious) political science, but it turned out to be from Monty Python. Thus discredited, I will not include it here, but will exclude it. Edit: Oh wait, I see that Orwell had a good statement about right-thinking orthodoxy, and Monty Python did an excellent parody of it. [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/499753-at-any-given- moment-t...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/499753-at-any-given-moment-there- is-an-orthodoxy-a-body) [http://www.montypython.net/scripts/right- think.php](http://www.montypython.net/scripts/right-think.php)</comment>


Keynote: KubeCon Opening Keynote – Kelsey Hightower, Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07jq-5VbBVQ <comment><USER2> The above link is a year old. Here is the link to Kesley's keynote from last week's KubeCon+CloudNativeCon. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNa3xK2GFKY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNa3xK2GFKY)</comment>


High Academic Results Make Better Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://www.skorks.com/2010/02/high-academic-results-make-better-programmers/

<comment><USER2> _What a load of rubbish, why is it that this side of the argument is never vociferously argued by people with perfect GPAs and a record of academic excellence?_

I've got a pretty decent GPA and a record of academic excellence, and I make this argument.

Most of the current educational system is based on learning to repeat the teachers password (<http://lesswrong.com/lw/iq/guessing_the_teachers_password/>). I teach students with good grades at a top university, and they routinely resist doing anything other than repeating what I tell them.

This isn't because they are morons, it's just what they've been trained to do. Indeed, in the past, they've been punished for doing things differently.

Guessing the teaches password does establish a minimum level of intelligence; a person who is sufficiently dumb will fail at this task. But once that minimal level is established, it's hard to really care. I'll take a kid with grade inversion [1] and a cool side project over a straight A student any day.

[1] Grade inversion is the phenomenon of a student who's grades are directly proportional to the difficulty level of the class (inverting the normal relationship). Calculus, literature, CS 101: C. Topology, Operating Systems, Quantum Mechanics: A.

<comment><USER3> >Calculus, literature, CS 101: C. Topology, Operating Systems, Quantum Mechanics: A.

But why isn't it preferable to have the person who goes with: Calculus, literature, CS 101: A. Topology, Operating Systems, Quantum Mechanics: A. ?

Perhaps the C/A person was spending their time better elsewhere when they could get away with it. But even so, this doesn't really excuse them because either the C/A student:

(1) "gets it" -- in which case doing well in those easy classes would be trivial. Given that all the students know what the game is (get high grades), why would an employer trust them to take a job seriously when they refuse to perform any trivial tasks despite the high return on low investment?

(2) "didn't bother learning the easy stuff" -- in which case they probably don't actually have any deep understanding of these more advanced topics. This would suggest to me that they simply started figuring out the teachers password for those courses.

I don't see any way to interpret the C/A student as being better than the A/A student without knowing more about either the student (certainly some interaction can reveal a drone) or the classes (there are tough classes out there, which actually require understanding for high performance).

Edit: Self-awareness check -- I made the transition from "C/A" in high school to "A/A" in university. This was based on an attitude adjustment, and the realization that I'm playing a partly silly, but also partly valuable game and I might as well try to win both. I suppose this opens up a third possibility in which the C/A transition comes from a change in the student. But that should still at best put me on par with an A/A student, given no more information.

<comment><USER2> _(1) "gets it" -- in which case doing well in those easy classes would be trivial._

You assume that "gets it" translates to good grade. If large portions of your grade are based on busywork/class attendance/memorizing trivia, that's a bad assumption.

 _Given that all the students know what the game is (get high grades)..._

What if the student was playing the game of learning? I prefer that student to a grade grubber.

C/A indicates a smart person who doesn't feel the need to play games. I can use a person like that.

A/A may be a person who plays games when useful, or a person who thinks producing GPA is their goal in life. The latter sort of person is useless outside of some well defined roles. Or an A/A may be a C/A person who wasn't required to attend class, or a C/C person who took the right classes.

Overall, I don't see any reason to prefer the A/A person over the C/A person. As I said, a cool side project will easily tip the balance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article is too much anecdotal. What is a "better programmer" compared to the average Joe developer? How do I measures this?</comment>


Politics and the English Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

<comment><USER2> Although an interesting essay, I find it a bit ironic that Orwell violates some of his own guidelines in it.

Let's face it, corporate-speak and government-speak sucks.

Writing can be a high bandwidth form of communication. You must write clearly and concisely to most efficiently transfer your ideas to the reader's mind.

If your reader doesn't understand what you've written, then you've failed at writing's primary purpose: communication.

<comment><USER3> _Orwell violates some of his own guidelines in it_

Do you have examples in mind? (He probably does, but I hadn't noticed anything blatant in previous reads.)

<comment><USER4> "(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active."

In the following passage Orwell is describing a particular type of bad writing. Notice however that every single sentence is passive. Notice especially the first sentence. It contains an irony bomb.

"In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds ( _by examination of_ instead of _by examining_ ). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the _-ize_ and _de-_ formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the _not un-_ formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as _with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that;_ and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as _greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion_ , and so on and so forth."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I consider this essay, "The Elements of Style", and "Simple and Direct" by Jacques Barzun to be the Holy Trinity of guidance on clear, straightforward writing.

</comment><comment><USER6> Violates his own guidelines? Orwell adds to his list of rules

....(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.</comment>


Given a choice, should I avoid a startup with inventory - <AUTHOR>

For a long time I have been tossing various startup ideas around in my head.
At the very core I can distill them down to two types.  First, an entirely only service driven site.  Second, something that involves a product or inventory.
It seems that a startup that has something to sell feels a little easier on the surface.  But with that comes what seems to me a ton more logistical problems.  Warehouse space, shipping, receiving, inventory.  Just the programming alone to support those additional aspects kicks up the daunting aspect a bit.
Then there are the completely online startups.  Sites like reddit, kickstarter, etc, where there is no inventory, nothing to ship.  A service is provided, and you make money off the service, advertising, or selling something the service has gained.
I have actively avoided any ideas that end up having inventory and real product.  Should I throw this out the window and consider it not that big a deal?
In my earlier years I have started a few businesses, all of which had product that needed to be shipped.  I remember those days, deadlines, UPS, FedEx, everything was dictated by 4PM, which was when the UPS guy came.  6PM of we were really pushing it and wanted to take the stuff to the main hub, which wasn't always feasible if it was a large order of 2000 boxes.
Any comments? <comment><USER3> I will take a few minutes to relay my experience:

I used to be a partner in a company that shipped 1000+ packages a day with fedex. I ran the websites that sold those products, and I made sure to take about 30 minutes a day in the warehouse to help load the truck. They didn't need me down there, but it was a very measurable output of my work.

I might have to disagree with the other comment here about Amazon Fulfillment. It may relieve you of a lot of the logistics, but it will also greatly affect how you resolve issues -- bad batches of products, customer service, wrong/missing parts...

At the end of the day what matters in physical goods e-commerce is amazing customer service, and you cannot do that unless you have access to the warehouse. You have to have physical access to the product. You have to have a good relationship with the fedex/ups drivers and account managers. You have to work fedex and ups against each other when the time comes to renegotiate your rates.

When you outsource too many parts of your business you end up too dependent on too many variables you cannot control. Your business continuity becomes more opaque.

Another story: same company in 2005, South Florida-- post hurricane Katrina and Wilma. Because we controlled a lot of the variables and relationships (logistics, internet, warehousing) we were able to do the following:

      * Redirect the 800 number to a vonage
        line and send our customer service
        staff up to an Orlando hotel room to
        keep answering phones.

      * Because of our good relationship with
        fedex we were able to get them to send
        an empty truck down from Atlanta to
        pickup in Boca Raton.

      * We processes printing labels and tickets
        over a 2G wifi connection.

That is duct-tape business continuity. All said -- it would have been better to just move the company to a location that is not prone to Hurricanes. We did that in 2007.

OK, this got a little long. I'm happy to share more of my experience if anyone cares.

<comment><USER4> Fulfillment by Amazon is a great way to outsource something that ian't your core competency. I'd recommend this for a company that makes a product, not one that sells other companies' products. So if you are starting a company like Nest to make a better thermostat, let someone else handle fulfillment while you focus on making your product better. If you are starting the next Zappos, then handle this in-house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> May be, you can start off with drop shipments like someone mentioned, and probably go for further integration down the line? I feel that any idea that has a physical or offline component has a higher barrier to entry and thus has a better chance of succeeding if you get it right, or are even able to provide some incremental benefit compared to existing options. I look at this way - <USER2> I don't want to touch something because it's too complicated chances are others feel the same way, and vice-versa.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do! :)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you do sell a physical product, consider Fulfillment by Amazon. They rent warehouse space by the cubic foot and handle picking, packing, and shipping for you.

[http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by- amazon....](http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by-amazon.htm)

People are scared of physical products they're hard. You have to deal with design, manufacturing, logistics, etc. That may make it easier for you if the competition is scared away.

</comment><comment><USER6> Check out the "drop ship" model of business. It's a good way to do physical products without a lot of hassle.

Other good resources:

<http://lifestylebusinesspodcast.com>

<http://www.buildmyonlinestore.com/>

<http://fourhourworkweek.com>

</comment><comment><USER7> If everyone else is avoiding having inventory (because it's hard), then there is very likely an opportunity there to make money.

It is hard, and moving that inventory is even harder, but that doesn't mean it's not a good way to make money.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am interested in this too. Sadly, I don't have an answer for this.</comment>


When Bread Bags Weren't Funny - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-29/joni-ernst-s-bread-bags-and-economic-progress

<comment><USER2> The view of poverty expressed in this essay says, in essence, that Louis XIV of France - the Sun King - with all of his riches couldn't get an iPhone or antibiotics so was poorer than most Americans today.

This is absurd, but resolving the absurdity is not simple. Orshansky's "relatively absolute" poverty thresholds from the 1960s were the basis to how the US currently defines poverty. There is such as a thing as "socially acceptable minimum standard". If the Ingalls were to set up a sod house in the middle of Independence, Kansas, and live in the same style, odds are good that the building code enforcers and Child Protective Services would soon show up.

(There's also the problem of getting a good supply of prairie grass sod. For the Ingalls it was free.)

The main increases in costs have been housing, transportation (our car economy, and the hidden cost of free parking), and health care. You'll note that these weren't mentioned in the essay.

The comment about $15 shoes being just 2 hours of minimum wage assumes that those working at minimum wage aren't already fully budgeted, or have access to more work should money be needed. At the SNAP/food stamps rate of under $5 days, that corresponds to three days of food.</comment>


A Video on IP Anycast - <AUTHOR> Excited to share my first whiteboard video on how large companies use the concept of IP Anycast to reduce the latency of their applications.
Video link: https://youtu.be/MgjVjGMb_xg
Please do give me feedback on areas of improvement for the upcoming videos and please do not forget to subscribe to the channel if you would like to see more such videos. <comment><USER2> Well done. You need BGP Session.. Pubilc IP,some DC supported BGP session,AS Number...and ur hard work on it...</comment>


Companies flooding Kenya with apps offering high-interest loans - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-12/tech-startups-are-flooding-kenya-with-apps-offering-high-interest-loans <comment><USER2> This sounds horrible and predatory, and it's even worse that occurs under the guise of "financial inclusion". Yes, having access to credit can be a good thing, but using big data to give loans to people who have often never been exposed to the compounding nature of high-interest loans, and who might be desperate sounds disastrous. They're not only use data to _price_ loans, but also to test messaging, timing, etc... same Silicon Valley playbook.

I grew up in a "developing" country at a time when banks started rolling out high-interest loans, and where defaulting on a loan would mean prison time. People would take out loans they knew they had no ability to repay. And sometimes it wasn't to put food on the table or pay for medical care—it was to help their kid get married, etc (it might sound silly, but sometimes upholding your family/kids honor or status can be as important as any living necessity).

<comment><USER3> Nobody's holding a gun to their heads. This is a voluntary transaction.

Even if we paternalistically shake our heads at the interest rates and the way these companies do business... they are giving people an option that did not exist before. Those people are strictly better off for the existence of that option, since they are free to turn it down.

<comment><USER4> > Nobody's holding a gun to their heads. This is a voluntary transaction.

By this logic would should allow heroin to be sold at 7-11's

<comment><USER5> > By this logic would should allow heroin to be sold at 7-11's

This would at least eliminate many overdoses due to incredibly varying strength or contaminations, especially fentanyl.

<comment><USER6> That would only happen if there were regulation of the legalized drug. If we kept letting the same people make the same crap-quality drugs, people would keep dying.

<comment><USER7> Bayer would probably put the Zetas, or whoever is making Heroin, out of business with their six-sigma warehouse controls, meetings, and use of powerpoint.

<comment><USER8> If Bayer weren't regulated, would you still trust their product?

<comment><USER7> It depends, does the society we're imagining have a working liability system, or does money always win in the courts? FDA regulations come along with protection from liability, so you could imagine two adjustment knobs: one setting Bayer's control over the FDA through regulatory capture, and the other setting Bayer's control over the courts, through procedural loopholes and lawyers outsmarting judges. If both knobs are turned up, drugs will poison you no matter what. If the courts are less controlled than the bureaucracy, then when the bureaucracy awards protection from liability it will be making the drugs more dangerous. If the bureaucracy is less controlled than the courts then you will depend on it to hold back against the companies who know that hurting people will be pure profit if they can sneak through the approval process. If both knobs are turned down, it doesn't matter who is protecting you because you'll be protected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's actually a lot worse than it sounds. There are no loan apps for iOS simply because iOS won't give you access to messages. These companies read your messages and at times call people you know to collect. [https://nairobinews.nation.co.ke/news/loans-app-finds-a- chee...](https://nairobinews.nation.co.ke/news/loans-app-finds-a-cheeky-way- of-dealing-with-defaulters) The interest rates are so high that I don't think they bother with credit scoring.

<comment><USER10> The article says that the lender is calling the debtor's contacts. Doesn't iOS allow apps to access the user's contact list? I definitely remember seeing "App xyz would like to access your contacts" prompts before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How unsurprising: Silicon Valley high-flyers make money comfortably from their flashy offices, while the impoverished masses at the bottom of the pyramid, without resources and options, are exploited as usual.

But of course, "the company doesn't condone" exploitative practices, and will investigate. Must be just a few bad apples spoiling an otherwise-worthy endeavour.

<comment><USER9> Their interest rate is exploitative - 15% per month. So if you borrowed $100 at the beginning of the year, you'd need to repay $280 with $180 going to interest alone. This is their policy from their own website [https://talasupport.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/3600218533...](https://talasupport.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/360021853332-What-kinds-of-fees-and-interest-does-Tala-charge-)

<comment><USER12> No. The 15% is a flat fee. The penalty for late repayment is an additional 8%. It doesn't compound.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Opera web browser got in trouble with some of this last year. Its super shitty. I think the most I ever heard of interest rates going was near 450%? Honestly how shitty do you have to be to think that people who have to take out a loan can afford to pay you back 2, 3, or 4 times the amount they request? Its evil.

<comment><USER14> Wait a second... You mean Opera got in trouble for facilitating such activity through predatory lending web-sites it renders, or that Opera the browser company got in trouble for predatory lending?

edit: i guess i should have read the whole article... opera released a lending app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me of the crypto currency startups that claimed crypto currency would help people in impoverished countries find financial freedom away from their local banks, when in reality these predatory companies just wanted to use poor people's desperation to sell them crypto.

I'm automatically skeptical of any vc-funded startup that claims it's going to help impoverished people, including those funded by Y Combinator.

<comment><USER16> They're going to help the impoverished founders to become millionaires.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> _It says it can reach those who've been ignored by banks, because its software generates instant credit ratings from data scraped off prospective borrowers' phones_

Wow...

<comment><USER18> This makes it sound super impressive, but they really just generate a credit report from your Mpesa transaction messages (these are sent back to you via SMS)

<comment><USER17> No it sounds super disgusting. Personal data capitalism rearing its head in the third world and smaller, developing nations and the complete ethical bankruptcy of these purported interest rates is disgusting.

(Also fwiw this is the second comment of yours I had to vouch and Unflag, and I wonder who is doing this and why).

<comment><USER19> > fwiw this is the second comment of yours I had to vouch and Unflag, and I > wonder who is doing this and why

I'm guessing it's the anti-spam mechanisms of the site. Any account with a low number of comments is susceptible to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Banks and credit card companies sell all of your transaction data for similar analytics purposes. Do a few google searches for "mortgage refinancing", then click a few blogs, and watch as you are followed by mortgage ads for months. Kenya is less formalized, so they derive the data from phones rather than a backhanded way via your payments history.

I'm not defending this practice, just letting you know that the same thing happens whether you are rich in a developed country or poor in a developing country.

</comment><comment><USER21> I can't help but wonder if the shady companies are going to be scammed to hell and back by the more savvy of their clients. I don't know if the credit agency threats are genuine or not - I lean towards not generally given the trends western debt collectors making shit up even when it is illegal.

What is stopping the user from taking out loans and running off essentially? Burners may be more expensive relatively in Kenya but it could still be profitable enough to tempt someone into serial bad loan taking even if it /actually/ forced them to live on the run.

It brings to mind a darker escalation of trying to contract people out as local debt collectors but that sort of thing tends to cause even cynical and corrupt governments to shut it down quickly for threatening the monopoly on violence.

</comment><comment><USER12> How do they get to an 180% annualised interest rate? Tala doesn't charge interest, it charges a flat fee of around 15%. If you don't pay on time you get charged another once-off late payment penalty. It doesn't increase after that. So if you borrow $100 and repay $115, it's 15%. If you take out another loan immediately every time you end up borrowing $1200 over the year and repaying $1380. Still 15%.

</comment><comment><USER22> I am involved with a company called GreenFi (greenfi.org) which is an ethical financial inclusion fintech. If you're interested in this sector (especially as an investor) and want to see how this can be done properly and fairly by experts, please reach out to us through our website, or leave a contact email here.

</comment><comment><USER23> What happened to the buzz around "micro loans" and giving money to people in need at fair terms?

<comment><USER24> The problem is that the actuarily "fair" price of these loans is very high because the risk of non-repayment is very high. If 25% of people don't pay back a loan, then you need an interest rate of at least 33% on the 75% who do pay you back in order to break even.

The only solutions are (a) to try to do a better job of identifying who will/won't pay you back or (b) to do more to make sure that people do pay you back.

(a) has the disadvantage that you aren't able to help a lot of people who most need the help. (b) can easily become exploitative as you increase the pressure on people who are at risk of defaulting on their loans.

<comment><USER25> If the interest rates have to be that high, maybe these loans just shouldn't be made. There's got to be a better way to "help" these people than saddling them with predatory loans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if it plays out like a sort of pyramid scheme where the company offers enough loans to get them in trouble then they have to borrow from someone else ... now that company has exited with their profits.

<comment><USER11> There's also a screenshot indicating that borrowers are incentivised (offered a small reward) if they push these high-interest loans on others as well. Multi-level marketing meets loan sharking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does Kenya have a strong, nationally-ubiquitous system for individual credit ratings? If not, then the joke might end up being on the companies giving out cash and not on the people taking predatory loans.

</comment><comment><USER28> If you'd like to help prevent people needing to use such a service, check out givedirectly.org

Non-profit that just hands out cash on a regular basis to those selected to do with as they choose with 0 conditions.

</comment><comment><USER29> My understanding is that Kiva microloans also have very high interest rates, but haven't necessarily heard anyone critique their business model.

</comment><comment><USER30> I dont understand why African nations dont gang up and get rid of ths whole free trade bullshit. This nonsense has given rise to so many unethical industries. Be it the charities that collect donated clothes and sell it in Africs devastating their local industries or these lending apps or the so called poverty tourism. I hope these countries can band together and get rid of this pludering behaviour.

</comment><comment><USER31> Entrapping users with interest bearing loans is modern day slavery.

</comment><comment><USER32> I find usury to be one of the most pernicious, corrosive, and abhorrent tolerated behaviors in modern society. Usury was a sin until the power of debt overrode the moral authority of those who originally condemned it ([https://aeon.co/essays/how-did-usury-stop-being-a-sin-and- be...](https://aeon.co/essays/how-did-usury-stop-being-a-sin-and-become- respectable-finance)).

Instead of funding these morally bankrupt and self-interested startups, let's support effective generosity. Give today:

[https://www.givedirectly.org/](https://www.givedirectly.org/)

<comment><USER33> >> Instead of funding these morally bankrupt and self-interested startups, let's support effective generosity. Give today:

How is that sustainable? A low interest loan would seem more reasonable. And who wants free money?

<comment><USER34> This is a long-contested debate in the field of international development. The model you propose is called microfinance, and has been attempted for decades. Here's a summary of the issue: [https://blog.givewell.org/2013/01/04/cash- transfers-vs-micro...](https://blog.givewell.org/2013/01/04/cash-transfers-vs- microloans/)

In short:

\- Microfinance programs that grant small, low-interest loans aren't sustainable. Administering those programs (especially in developing countries) carries massive overhead that isn't offset by revenue from interest.

\- Furthermore, there isn't strong evidence that low-interest loans actually improve their recipients' well-being on net (considering the harm that indebtedness can cause).

\- Evidence (from randomly-controlled trials) shows that direct cash transfers are effective in improving recipients' well-being on a number of metrics, and that recipients do not spend them on "sin goods" like alcohol or tobacco[0].

[0] [https://www.princeton.edu/haushofer/publications/Haushofer_S...](https://www.princeton.edu/haushofer/publications/Haushofer_Shapiro_UCT_QJE_2016.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This needs to be highly illegal, globally, and enforced by the UN. Which implies that the UN needs to be made more powerful.

<comment><USER36> The IFC and World Bank appear to hail Tala (and similar organisations) as a top "fintech firm innovating in financial inclusion" [1]

These organisations may be more likely to give companies like Tala support than routing them out, unfortunately.

[1] [https://www.european- microfinance.org/publication/financial-...](https://www.european- microfinance.org/publication/financial-inclusion-digital-age)</comment></comment>


Three Graphs About Trying and Failing - <AUTHOR> http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2014/05/three_graphs_ab.html

<comment><USER2> My problem with Caplan's arguments on education, which I've admittedly only read a few of, is that he seems to derive them largely from an elitist, Ayn Rand-ian sort of worldview where most people are simply beyond hope and investing in their education isn't worth the resources (as priced by market forces). My view is more that most people have a distaste for learning, education and autodidacticism because they grow up steeped in a culture that discourages these things, while simultaneously rewarding the opposite sorts of behaviors. Though it seems to have gotten better in the past few decades with the rise in popularity of "geek culture." Rather than promoting only the top 5% or 25% of people achieving advanced educations, I'd rather look at the culture and socioeconomic factors that cause the bottom 95%/75% to not be as anxious about advancing their knowledge as the ones at the top.

The whole thing easily leaves him open to accusations of trying to build a world of grunt workers who will serve as cheap labor for those at the top, especially when you consider how much of people's potential isn't determined by their genetic gifts, but by the socioeconomic environment they're raised in, who their parents, teachers and peers are, etc. His suggestions seem like they would create a self-fulling prophecy towards a caste system, where as I'd rather see something more akin to "posthumanism for everyone."

<comment><USER3> _My view is more that most people have a distaste for learning, education and autodidacticism because they grow up steeped in a culture that discourages these things, while simultaneously rewarding the opposite sorts of behaviors._

Caplan has a counterargument to this - twin studies and various observational studies that attempt to do similar things. He goes into detail occasionally on his blog, and also in his book:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465028616/ref=as_li_tl?ie=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465028616/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0465028616&linkCode=as2&tag=christuc-20&linkId=6FNGHQ5PCQRIEMMI)

(The focus of the book is not on education, but on how variation in parenting strategy does not affect adult outcomes. )

Also, your view is not incompatible with Caplan's "elitist, Ayn Rand-ian worldview". Caplan merely asserts that at the time of entering college, it's pointless for most people. The specific reason at which it became pointless for them is irrelevant - "socioeconomic factors", genetics or whatever, it's still a waste of money.

<comment><USER2> Interesting, and I'm glad to hear any counterarguments (no idea who downvoted you). I'll have to read the book and/or studies before I could give a good reply, but judging from the Amazon reviews, it looks like even he mitigates it in the book by saying some parental actions can have important effects (for an extreme example, being violently abusive to your kids). Given stuff like that, and a lot of the recent stuff in social influence on epigenetics[1], I'm a bit skeptical where to draw the line between nature and nurture. But I'll really have to read the book and twin studies before I could debate those points.

[1] [http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/the- soci...](http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/the-social-life- of-genes-64616/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> At the micro level I agree with Caplan: if you do poorly in high school you probably don't enjoy the academic mode of skill acquisition and your ability to gain from more academic instruction is limited. There are other ways to learn.

On a longer term level I think he's missing the more important question. Being able to function in academic settings is a strong predictor for a variety of important outcomes: income, health, happiness, social and political power. Why do some individuals do better in academia than others?

If it's because of innate factors(genetic laziness?), then by all means, Ayn Rand and social evolutionize away.

If it's because of bad parents, bad teachers, bad state policy(and a tiny smidge of poor genetics to top it off) then we should probably focus on fixing those social problems.

I am inclined to believe the latter case. The #1 thing I find distasteful about Caplan's stance on education, as well as his co-blogger Russ Roberts' for that matter, is that I believe it punishes children for the sins of their parents.

</comment><comment><USER5>
      From a social point of view, I'd only push
      college on the top 5%.

From what little I've read [1], France has a two-tier university system where the most respected tier only admits 10% of people, based on teenagers' exam results.

By all accounts the results are kind of shitty if you're in the 11th percentile, as you have to go get a foreign masters degree or a PhD if your ambition is to get a top job.

[1] [http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1292](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1292) [http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1293](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1293)

</comment><comment><USER6> In Germany we have a clear path for those last and before last groups: apprenticeships. They are structured, widely accepted and highly respected. It seems like in the US such an alternative path is unfortunately missing (i.e. go to college or you will struggle).

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm honestly irritated at the economic system that is unable to make it so that university is an optional and elite path, rather than a lowish common denominator. The American "college-for-all" bit is fallout from the ideal of social mobility, which is only an ideal because it's such a big deal to go from rags to riches. The reward makes the risk look worthwhile.

And, also related, is that universities are now finishing schools helping delay adulthood as long as possible; grade school is mostly a funnel towards making sure the kids get into college, rather than trying to stand on its own institutional merit.</comment>


Chromebooks Outsold Macbooks in the US by a Factor of Five in 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/162565/chromebooks-outsold-macbooks-in-the-us-by-a-factor-of-5-in-2013/

<comment><USER2> The factor of five applies to commercial sales to businesses and schools and such. I suspect a large fraction of Macbooks (and all Apple products) are consumer sales.

</comment><comment><USER2> Here are my what-can-chromebooks-do questions:

1\. What kind of VPN connectivity is there? Cisco? Sonicwall? PPP? Ipsec?

2\. What kind of remote connection software runs? I believe ssh is available. How about VNC? How about NX?

I could make a Chromebook work if I could connect to work and run ssh in a terminal as well as a graphical VNC client.

</comment><comment><USER3> how is chromebooks for developers? Can it handle stuff like Eclipse?</comment>


Why Do Men Harass Women? - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/06/15/532977361/why-do-men-harass-women-new-study-sheds-light-on-motivations <comment><USER2> The answer is, of course, that men do not harass women.

The article claims that -in Cairo- some young and poor men (obviously not the sharpest in the pool) harass women as a way to feel power and escape from a boring life. Even if the claim is true in a local context, is a very narrow point of view that can't be applied neither to all men in Egypt, nor of course to all men in the world.</comment>


JavaScript Model Objects (JMO) - An Idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.dennydotnet.com/post/JavaScript-Model-Objects-JMO---An-Idea.aspx

<comment><USER2> What's the difference between the proposed solution and yui's datatable/datasource?</comment>