Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Y Combinator Cuts Ties with Peter Thiel After Ending Part-Time Partner Program

buzzfeed.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 160 posts

Re: Y Combinator Cuts Ties with Peter Thiel After Ending Part-Time Partner Program

#21

Post by sp332 »

meritt wrote: post #14
tptacek wrote: post #10

Can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument? They ended the entire part-time-partner program, and transitioned some of the part-timers to advisor roles. Thiel is one of multiple part-timers not to become an advisor. You are not going to get an answer, or more "context", from YC about the political implications of this change. No matter how many times you ask and how carefully you word the questi…

> Can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument? Did you reach that conclusion based on personal experience? Because you were quite vocal and unfortunately prescient about it 395 days ago [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12733024

-

Re: Y Combinator Cuts Ties with Peter Thiel After Ending Part-Time Partner Program

#22

Post by chrischen »

sp332 wrote: post #21
meritt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument? Did you reach that conclusion based on personal experience? Because you were quite vocal and unfortunately prescient about it 395 days ago [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12733024

-

You could say his incompetence is even greater than his ignorance.

Re: Y Combinator Cuts Ties with Peter Thiel After Ending Part-Time Partner Program

#23

Post by owens99 »

This post does not appear to contain any evidence that YC has cut ties with Peter Thiel. They ended the program that he, and many other individuals, were a part of. Just because he is not in this program anymore, does not mean they no longer have any ties to him. There is also no evidence of any connection here to Trump or Thiel's support of him with the ending of the program or Thiel's lack of involvement in a different official capacity with YC. I wish I could have the five minutes back it took to read this click bait.

Re: Y Combinator Cuts Ties with Peter Thiel After Ending Part-Time Partner Program

#24

Post by briandear »

burntrelish1273 wrote: post #11
pault wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would he have to gain from such a war?

Thiel is clearly a libertarian nutter of the Bannon varietal, from his statements and interviews. To them "all regulations == bad," lacking nuance and honest reality in preference to utopian illusions that align with the interests of unlimited greed.

It’s clear you don’t know Thiel. Comparing him to Bannon is just ridiculous.

Re: Y Combinator Cuts Ties with Peter Thiel After Ending Part-Time Partner Program

#25

Post by meritt »

sp332 wrote: post #21
meritt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument? Did you reach that conclusion based on personal experience? Because you were quite vocal and unfortunately prescient about it 395 days ago [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12733024

-

There's a lot I could point to but the most meaningful one that is that people were overwhelmingly complacent based on the assumption that Trump couldn't possibly win.

This comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12735404

Re: Y Combinator Cuts Ties with Peter Thiel After Ending Part-Time Partner Program

#26

Post by kenneth »

tptacek wrote: post #10

Can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument? They ended the entire part-time-partner program, and transitioned some of the part-timers to advisor roles. Thiel is one of multiple part-timers not to become an advisor. You are not going to get an answer, or more "context", from YC about the political implications of this change. No matter how many times you ask and how carefully you word the questi…

How can you say "can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument" and end your post with a divisive political opinion (that you think people with opposing viewpoints should be silenced)? You're literally inviting the debate that you're calling long and pointless. Or perhaps you just want to only share your opinion without others having the same opportunity, so you can have the last word?

Personally, I think Trump is reprehensible. I also think that silencing people with opposing political viewpoints is dangerous and reprehensible. I don't always agree with Peter Thiel politically, but I would happily do business with him. It's really not our place as the internet lynch-mob to interfere with Peter's role in the startup community because of his political views. Note, @sama said as much when the whole thing went down.

Re: Y Combinator Cuts Ties with Peter Thiel After Ending Part-Time Partner Program

#27

Post by eighthnate »

meritt wrote: post #14
tptacek wrote: post #10

Can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument? They ended the entire part-time-partner program, and transitioned some of the part-timers to advisor roles. Thiel is one of multiple part-timers not to become an advisor. You are not going to get an answer, or more "context", from YC about the political implications of this change. No matter how many times you ask and how carefully you word the questi…

> Can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument? Did you reach that conclusion based on personal experience? Because you were quite vocal and unfortunately prescient about it 395 days ago [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12733024

"Paul Graham compared him to Stalin. Both Altman and Graham believe, like I do, that Trump is an existential threat to our democracy."

Good god. It's crazy how politically driven people immediately demand nobody talk about politics as soon as they get their way. The guy was ranting and raving about end of democracy. Now that thiel is out, he wants everyone to be silent.

Truly an "unhacker" type of mindset which has gained such a prominent foothold on HN.

Censorship truly gives power to the people who shouldn't have it.

Re: Y Combinator Cuts Ties with Peter Thiel After Ending Part-Time Partner Program

#28

Post by sillysaurus3 »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #13
tptacek wrote: post #10

Can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument? They ended the entire part-time-partner program, and transitioned some of the part-timers to advisor roles. Thiel is one of multiple part-timers not to become an advisor. You are not going to get an answer, or more "context", from YC about the political implications of this change. No matter how many times you ask and how carefully you word the questi…

Sure, let's not argue. But it's fine to be curious. Sam has said that he won't cut Thiel for political ties. Thiel is cut. Does this represent an internal shift in momentum, or an external shift in appearances? Combine that with some recent news regarding Thiel. I wish I'd paid more attention to it. It was something like, Thiel was making a move against a certain company. So maybe it has nothing to do with politics,…

Let me try to pull some intellectual gratification out of this:

A source close to Y Combinator said that the company ended its part-time partners program, which Thiel was a part of, some time last year. While some other part-time partners moved over to a program called "experts," which provides advice to Y Combinator entrepreneurs, Thiel did not join.

It's legit fascinating to me to watch this in action. Let's say hypothetically you wanted to get rid of Thiel. How could you do that?

"Just form another group, then don't invite Thiel to the new group" didn't even occur to me. That's smart.

Can this be seen as something other than an accusation or a political talking point? I'm trying to make commentary about overall emergent social phenomena. Maybe nobody cares about that, but personally I think group dynamics are really interesting to witness.

Re: Y Combinator Cuts Ties with Peter Thiel After Ending Part-Time Partner Program

#29

Post by whatyoucantsay »

dominotw wrote: post #16
tptacek wrote: post #10

Can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument? They ended the entire part-time-partner program, and transitioned some of the part-timers to advisor roles. Thiel is one of multiple part-timers not to become an advisor. You are not going to get an answer, or more "context", from YC about the political implications of this change. No matter how many times you ask and how carefully you word the questi…

>I'm happy Thiel's no longer involved with YC. I am not quite familiar with what role he played at YC. Why are you glad he is gone ?

He invested in Stripe back when no one else would and then helped connect them with Elon Musk, who also invested. That was long ago, however and it's difficult to know what he did internally as a part-time partner last year.

Re: Y Combinator Cuts Ties with Peter Thiel After Ending Part-Time Partner Program

#30

Post by meritt »

eighthnate wrote: post #27
meritt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we save ourselves a really long, pointless political argument? Did you reach that conclusion based on personal experience? Because you were quite vocal and unfortunately prescient about it 395 days ago [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12733024

"Paul Graham compared him to Stalin. Both Altman and Graham believe, like I do, that Trump is an existential threat to our democracy." Good god. It's crazy how politically driven people immediately demand nobody talk about politics as soon as they get their way. The guy was ranting and raving about end of democracy. Now that thiel is out, he wants everyone to be silent. Truly an "unhacker" type of mindset which has g…

Any sort of forum that enforces rampant censorship, mods personally scold users for looking into another users post history, and flags/deletes/bans any comments touching taboo topics (politics is the big one here) makes it very difficult to have a decent conversation.

Couple that with the anonymity and rampant upvote/downvote based on disagreements (My comments on this thread rapidly oscillate between -5 and +5 -- it's crazy how enormous the pro-Trump population on HN actually is and how blissfully Silicon Valley pretends they don't exist) in an attempt to silence ideas you don't like..

Yeah it's really fucked up. We need a new discussion forum format, that isn't so easily manipulated like HN and Reddit due to vote manipulation.

Post reply on HN