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

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

missionlocal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 558 posts

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

#321

Post by [deleted] »

anonymoushn wrote: post #255
Arainach wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posting that you want a group of city councilors to die is not normal behavior. It's not normal when sober, it's not normal on alcohol, it's not normal for any functioning member of society. Anyone saying these things is disturbing. The fact that someone who a number of people believe is intelligent and worth listening to would say such things is extremely disturbing.

When a group of people routinely cause harm to other people that is in aggregate much greater than the harm involved in them dying, I think it's understandable for the thought to come to mind.

[deleted]

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

#322

Post by rsynnott »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #270
sehansen wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, before Elon the blue tick was just a blue tick next to your name. Now posts by blue ticks are also sorted before other posts in the interface.

Before Elon, posts on Twitter were sorted and hidden at the whim of engagement-maximizing algorithm. After Elon, the same is the case, maybe with the same tweak to the algorithm. I thought the idea that timeline sorting order on social media sites is deterministic or scrutable to the viewer is long dead by now - it's not been the case for at least a good decade now!

While that's true, the thing where ~all bluetick replies are promoted above ~all normal replies is a post-Musk 'innovation'. Stupid idea; there's 25 years of experience showing that pay-for-attention is corrosive to social sites (dating/hookup sites have been trying to make it work basically forever, and have generally ended up having to ration it).

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

#323

Post by hef19898 »

s_dev wrote: post #291
tempestn wrote: post #257

I'm a little bit aghast at all the comments saying this is normal or no big deal. Maybe it is normal (or at least common), but it shouldn't be. If you believe it's no big deal, I can't agree. I can see this kind of behaviour from adolescents, but adults should understand that words are meaningful and have consequences, and that even if you disagree with someone, they're still a human being who deserves some modicum o…

>but adults should understand that words are meaningful and have consequences What consequences should Gary face?

Two fold: Legal consequences if some of the people threatened by him want to sue or have him indicted about it. And whatever YC as his employer sees fit for the resulted harm on the reputation of the company.

So, in the end, it can be everything from nothing to a criminal charge and conviction with loosing his job somewhere in the middle.

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

#324

Post by nonrandomstring »

tempestn wrote: post #257

I'm a little bit aghast at all the comments saying this is normal or no big deal. Maybe it is normal (or at least common), but it shouldn't be. If you believe it's no big deal, I can't agree. I can see this kind of behaviour from adolescents, but adults should understand that words are meaningful and have consequences, and that even if you disagree with someone, they're still a human being who deserves some modicum o…

Reading this article by Rebecca Solnit [0] posted on HN here [1] absolutely helped me make sense of the Garry Tan story, and what is going on in Californian politics.

It's well worth reading, but is a long and initially tedious article bemoaning the passing of a gentler, humane culture.

Then about halfway through it grew some balls and teeth, and frankly I found it shocking. I had no idea California was this degenerate. And for those too close to it, no, this isn't just how every country's politics is. It reads like Chicago in the 1920/30's, or perhaps more like Mexico or El Salvator, with billionaires instead of drug lords.

Read alongside "The Californian Ideology" [2] it's eye opening and paints a great picture of the slow trajectory of San Francisco and California from a left-liberal counter-culture to extremist far-right billionaire technofascism.

[0] https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n03/rebecca-solnit/in-th...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39226296

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology

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

#325

Post by alpaca128 »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #305
Arainach wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posting that you want a group of city councilors to die is not normal behavior. It's not normal when sober, it's not normal on alcohol, it's not normal for any functioning member of society. Anyone saying these things is disturbing. The fact that someone who a number of people believe is intelligent and worth listening to would say such things is extremely disturbing.

Is it just me, or does nobody here remember the random baloney they did or said when they were in high school or college? People being frustrated and saying things that aren't quite acceptable is fairly common, seemingly especially when alcohol is involved. Can we all just like I dunno chill out a bit? Who cares, and how does this affect me?

Did you also share that random baloney on a public account with your company logo on it? Probably not. And alcohol is not an excuse just because it happens to be legal compared to other drugs.

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

#326

Post by refurb »

rsynnott wrote: post #320
tedk-42 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's paraphrased 2pac is his alcohol fuelled moment "Fuck Mobb Deep, fuck Biggie Fuck Bad Boy as a staff, record label and as a motherfuckin' crew And if you want to be down with Bad Bo, then fuck you too Chino XL, fuck you too All you motherfuckers, fuck you too (take money, take money) All of y'all motherfuckers, fuck you, die slow, motherfucker" It's immature and poor judgement but he's apologised for it so I don'…

> but he's apologised for it so I don't think it's fair to drag him down. So, the way this works is, he can say whatever he likes, but people shouldn't say mean things about him? How does this work? I'm genuinely curious; this, on the face of it, makes no sense to me at all. Is it because he's rich? I don't get it.

Yes, when people apologize for things we generally move on since the person acknowledge their error.

Let’s be honest, it’s blowing up because the California political machine is threatened by this guy, and tearing him down for a small transgression means they’ll hold onto the reins of power even longer.

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

#327

Post by refurb »

littlestymaar wrote: post #284
tedk-42 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's paraphrased 2pac is his alcohol fuelled moment "Fuck Mobb Deep, fuck Biggie Fuck Bad Boy as a staff, record label and as a motherfuckin' crew And if you want to be down with Bad Bo, then fuck you too Chino XL, fuck you too All you motherfuckers, fuck you too (take money, take money) All of y'all motherfuckers, fuck you, die slow, motherfucker" It's immature and poor judgement but he's apologised for it so I don'…

> It's immature and poor judgement Which is enough to make him unfit for the position at YC and justifies his resignation. Walmart cashiers are being fired everyday for things like immaturity and poor judgment, why should YC CEO be held under lower behavior standards than blue collar workers?!

If being immature and showing poor judgement means you can run a VC fund 100% of VC funds would be firing their CEOs.

Thats a ridiculous position to say he’s unfit.

But I get it. He’s threading the political establishment so they’ll make hay with this to tear down an opponent. It’s politics.

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

#328

Post by alpaca128 »

renewiltord wrote: post #80
badrequest wrote: post #47

> Tan, for his part, apologized over the weekend, noting that his post was a reference to a Tupac Shakur lyric Ah, so if it's a quote, it doesn't matter, because even though you've decided when to use them, they're not "your words" Thanks, going to publish press releases with Cannibal Corpse lyrics going forward.

You know, like a Che T-shirt doesn't mean you're endorsing the killing of political prisoners and stuff. Or that a George Washington statue endorses slavery. It's like a "you came at me but I'm going to beat you" lyric, not literally as Tupac meant it. Whatever, it's not intended to mean killing someone. But you have to be a colossal dumbfuck to say it like that to a bunch of people wise in the ways of the street pol…

These discussions here wouldn't exist if he'd just posted Tupac's portrait on Twitter. But he specifically quoted a sentence with a very clear and unambiguous meaning.

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

#329

Post by rsynnott »

tempsy wrote: post #167
Sabinus wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ruins market mechanisms too much. Taxing vacancies doesn't ruin the supply and demand equations.

it unfairly punishes property owners in soft rental markets like the one we have now. i’ve seen an unusual number of multifamily properties listed all over SF last few months.

> it unfairly punishes property owners in soft rental markets like the one we have now.

Eh? I mean, conversely, allowing the property industry to leave properties vacant unfairly punishes ~all other industries, along with the general public. What's special about the property industry here?

"We should leave people without anywhere to live, and harm the economy in general, to facilitate a small part of the economy" is a pretty weird argument.

(I do think that possibly some individual property investors believe that, rather than running a rather complex and highly regulated business, they are buying into a passive investment magical money machine. These people should probably consider just buying shares in a REIT, instead.)

Post reply on HN