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'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

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Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#181

Post by archagon »

jdietrich wrote: post #146
cj wrote: post #44

As a YC alum who worked with Gary Tan directly, this is… odd. Anyone who knows Gary knows he’s a (relatively) gentle human being. I can’t imagine him hurting a fly. His tweets seem totally out of character compared to the Gary Tan I personally knew. Maybe he has changed? I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I'm not sure what Tan's specific beef is, I could never endorse violent rhetoric in politics, but the level of avoidable human misery caused by the dysfunction of politics in San Francisco is sickening. If you can walk through the Tenderloin without becoming utterly enraged at the people responsible, there's a piece of your soul missing.

“Those responsible” is a rather nebulous group in this case.

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#182

Post by TeMPOraL »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #105
EasyMark wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way, but now you can make sure your bot's racist post makes it to the top for $8 a month

True; before that you simply had to be “notable”, whatever that meant.

Spending $10 one time with one of many companies that sold likes, follows, retweets, etc. for peanuts.

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#183

Post by SLWW »

I can't imagine why anyone cares what a CEO says in a few tweets? I was under the understanding that people actually work in this industry instead of playing these cliquey games of reputation or scraping through social media. (which is meaningless)

Only real valuable piece of information that I can glean from any of this is further evidence of the amount of vultures in this community who will publicly lambast another for the crime of "going off" (drunk or not) and calling for them to resign. History shows these types to be narcissists; I for one hope whatever is going on with Garry, that he can get some help and continue on doing what he does best, and I don't care what he said if he was really drunk, the content doesn't really matter too much when you are hammered.

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#184

Post by ajross »

jdietrich wrote: post #146
cj wrote: post #44

As a YC alum who worked with Gary Tan directly, this is… odd. Anyone who knows Gary knows he’s a (relatively) gentle human being. I can’t imagine him hurting a fly. His tweets seem totally out of character compared to the Gary Tan I personally knew. Maybe he has changed? I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I'm not sure what Tan's specific beef is, I could never endorse violent rhetoric in politics, but the level of avoidable human misery caused by the dysfunction of politics in San Francisco is sickening. If you can walk through the Tenderloin without becoming utterly enraged at the people responsible, there's a piece of your soul missing.

> I could never endorse violent rhetoric in politics

In literally the next sentence:

> the level of avoidable human misery caused by the dysfunction of politics [...] sickening [...] utterly enraged [...] there's a piece of your soul missing

So you'll deploy extreme emotional hyperbole, but not "violent rhetoric"? Seems like those are two rather nearby points on the same spectrum, no? Tan just slipped a bit off the edge. If you're going to deny someone's soul, it's not that big a leap to wish them dead.

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#185

Post by archagon »

bun_terminator wrote: post #154
gurchik wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read HN probably more than I should, and I was pretty surprised to see this has over 500 comments and I didn't see it at all. Turns out it was only on the frontpage for 1 hr. https://hnrankings.info/39205676/

The only reasonable HN interface is hckrnews.com. The vanilla site is "moderated"

I always go to news.ycombinator.com/active. That’s the “real” front page as far as I’m concerned.

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#186

Post by dymk »

tempsy wrote: post #179
bsder wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? Then they need to lower the damn rent. This idea that rising property values is a God-given right needs to stop . Capitalism is supposed to work BOTH directions--up and down.

not sure what you’re talking about but rents in SF are still very much down vs 2019 market has demonstrated plenty it can lower rents as is

Don’t pretend it’s anywhere near a free market as is. It’s nigh impossible to build new or denser inventory there.

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#187

Post by TeMPOraL »

AlexandrB wrote: post #150
cj wrote: post #44

As a YC alum who worked with Gary Tan directly, this is… odd. Anyone who knows Gary knows he’s a (relatively) gentle human being. I can’t imagine him hurting a fly. His tweets seem totally out of character compared to the Gary Tan I personally knew. Maybe he has changed? I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I think the failing here is using Twitter at all - or at least without an intermediary like an editor. Twitter is almost purpose made for stripping context. Tweets are, traditionally, short and pithy and so are easy to misinterpret or misrepresent. If you're even a semi public figure, Tweeting a lot is a huge liability.

That's the conundrum of being a modern tech CEO - you're supposed to forever pretend you're the high school buddy with everyone, even if the "startup" you're running is a billion dollar+ multinational corporation, and you yourself are wealthier than anyone except the world leaders and other corporate... er startup CEOs.

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#188

Post by riffraff »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #130
throwup238 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you charge a drunk CEO less ?

Nobody’s buying at $1000/month but “giving them half off” makes them think they’re getting a deal. What they don’t know is they could just have a file on their computer named “is this offensive (open when drunk).txt” with contents that read “yes”.

I have fond memories of Gmail's "no emailing drunk" feature and I swear it saved me a couple times.

I think it no longer works, or, well, I grew up.

Re: 'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

#189

Post by card_zero »

cdchn wrote: post #96
tpmoney wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t the phrase “living rent free in your head” refer to someone being preoccupied with another individual with whom they have a disagreement to an unhealthy degree? You can’t waive rent if you’re the one doing the living, and by definition if someone is letting someone else “live rent free” in their head, the rent is already waived. Without any commentary on the rest of this (because I have no idea what’s actuall…

They were riffing on the idiom. You're taking the idiom too literally.

Like when Biff Tannen says "why don't you make like a tree and get outta here?", that kind of riffing on the idiom, riffing on it like that.
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