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CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

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Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't know it was true. We know he makes the claim that his mother was Jewish, but who knows?

We also don't know it's not true. That's why we require evidence before we reject someone's claims.

What? We require evidence before we accept claims, not before we reject them.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#112
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the mods at HN believe that shaming people for past actions doesn't promote "intellectual curiosity" or some equally inane non-reason. Considering it was on the front page, now doesn't appear 4 pages deep just minutes later, a mod clearly nuked this.

"Clearly" is an interesting word to use for something that you've imagined. The submission was "nuked" by user flags and the software known as the flamewar detector or overheated discussion detector.

I apologize for my assertion, however there is a decided lack of transparency around issues like this that definitely contributed to my thoughts on the topic.

Not sure how to balance transparency on HN's moderation with the fact trolls and bad faith actors will abuse it.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#113
post #18

> He says he became a self-taught crime scene investigator and then learned to code. Eventually, Patton helped build the digital infrastructure of what would become Banjo, a company that, in the past decade, has raised nearly $223 million, according to the investment data-sharing platform SharesPost, from prominent venture capital firms such as SoftBank. Interesting and somewhat horrifying. Maybe SoftBank failed to d…

"Direct connections to the KKK" ? Did you read the article or his statement? He was 17 and fell in with white supremacists after/during an abusive childhood. If you want to dispute this account, fine, let's hear it. If you want to claim Banjo is otherwise an evil company, OK, it may be, but that's a separate point. But claiming that this episode as reported constitutes a direct connection to the KKK, and implying it'…

He literally was the getaway driver for a synagogue shooting by a kkk member. I’m not sure it’s possible to be more directly connected to the kkk than that.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#114

When reached for comment, Patton wrote: "32 years ago I was a lost, scared, and vulnerable child. I won’t go into detail, but the reasons I left home at such a young age are unfortunately not unique; I suffered abuse in every form. I did terrible things and said despicable and hateful things, including to my own Jewish mother, that today I find indefensibly wrong, and feel extreme remorse for. I have spent most of my…

Can someone verify that he actually has a "Jewish mother?"

That's a perfectly legitimate question and it's surprising that the reporter didn't follow up on it. But if he were lying about that at this point, it would certainly ruin him, so it's probably true. The part that I find unsavory is that his comment repeats the detail twice. That's milking it, which to me makes the whole thing read like PR. He also shouldn't have included the bits about forgiving himself and employing hundreds. Someone is giving this guy bad editing advice. On the other hand, the claim that an abused kid would join a gang of criminal nutcases because they offered him belonging when no one else would, seems completely credible to me.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shows they don't vet their CEOs very well.

You expect them to go through 30-year old records on their creditors? Have you ever gotten a loan that required interviews with the people you went to high-school with?!?!

I mean, you're not getting millions of dollars of funding. Also, people get rejected from 100k house loans for much less than this...

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#116
"Typos on records connected to Brown and Armstrong’s case — first a misspelling of Patton’s first name, Damien, as “Damion” in an initial affidavit of probable cause; then, in subsequent filings, spelling Damien as “Damian” — have helped prevent the discovery of Patton’s full biography for the past 30 years."

How remarkably lucky for him.

It is striking that such luck, and second chances, are rarely afforded young men of color who find themselves on the other side of the law in this country.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shows they don't vet their CEOs very well.

Or they were aware, and they conclude that someone's behavior as a homeless 17 year old has little if any bearing on their aptitude in running a company 30 years later.

"But although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said ... is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. ... But as a man obtains more power, camouflage becomes less necessary.”

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also don't know it's not true. That's why we require evidence before we reject someone's claims.

What? We require evidence before we accept claims, not before we reject them.

No, it depends you see, when minorities claim police misconduct, those claims require evidence before we accept them. In the case of a 'former' Neo-Nazi claiming Jewish heritage we accept the claim without evidence.

Re: CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth

#120

When reached for comment, Patton wrote: "32 years ago I was a lost, scared, and vulnerable child. I won’t go into detail, but the reasons I left home at such a young age are unfortunately not unique; I suffered abuse in every form. I did terrible things and said despicable and hateful things, including to my own Jewish mother, that today I find indefensibly wrong, and feel extreme remorse for. I have spent most of my…

But from the same story, the court documents that Patton admitted he associated with skinheads in the United States Navy, which does not sound like "get myself away from this world" has any truthiness.

I'm not seeing how that is a contradiction. His full sentence: "Eventually, I was able to get myself away from this world while serving in the United States Navy."

I interpret "while serving in" to mean that the process overlapped with his time in the Navy. If there was no overlap, to me it would have been more natural to say something like "upon joining" or "by joining" instead.

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