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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

#431

Post by iainctduncan »

Whether he should have said it on moral grounds is one question, and whether it is indicative of handling part of the CEO's job very poorly is another. The CEO is the public face of a company - that is literally part of the job. He did this abysmally, and in many, many companies, it would be enough for a board to sack him. The CEO doesn't get a firewall between their personal life and work, or a pass for off work behaviour. They get paid to live it.

I work in diligence on medium stage companies and the acquirer wondering if they have to ditch some of the current exectutive is very common. (I know nothing about the ownership of YC mind you.)

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

#432

Post by blackguardx »

rayiner wrote: post #404
paulryanrogers wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a supreme court can be wrong sometimes. In the US that's been happening more often of late.

Can you give an example?

They call judicial output opinions for a reason.

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

#433

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

kyleamazza wrote: post #371
roenxi wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... not normal behavior ... Are we sure about that? There are politicians who have coordinated/enabled things with consequences that would justify capital punishment if someone believes in that as an option. For example, from a raw moral perspective a reasonable person could support executing the entire congressional Aye vote for the US sending the army into Afghanistan. That would be a terrible mistake, because th…

In the situation you posit, that sort of action would come from a vote, not a single person's vigilante call for action. That is the difference. While I'd argue for a normal person that posting something like that would just fly under the radar and disappear into the aether of the internet, the same does not apply to someone who heads a large publicly visible company, and who posts publicly on an account associated (…

Politicians call for the death of their opponents all the time. See Lyndsey Graham's recent tweet calling for an attack on Iran.

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

#434

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

slibhb wrote: post #407
hef19898 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is zero chance he could be indicted for a threat based on that tweet. No responsible prosecutor would try. Even if you take "die slow motherfucker" literally, it's not a threat. A wish that someone dies is not a threat. "I will kill you" is a threat.

to clarify, in the US, "I will kill you" may or may not be considered a threat. It depends on whether or not it's actionable. If it's a tweet, it's probably not going to be considered actionable.

People talk shit all the time, a lot of people in this post need to calm down and stop being so quick to be offended.

Should have said it? Probably not. Does that make him a danger to anyone? Not by itself it doesn't.

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

#435

Post by mindcrime »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #342
Brian_K_White wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow in all my many alcohol fuelled moments, I never said anything like that. Fuck this odious turd and anyone who would try to excuse him.

"Fuck this odious turd and anyone who would try to excuse him." I think what you mean to say was: Fuck Y Combinator as a staff, message board, and as a mother fucking VC group. And if you want to be down with Y Combinator, then fuck you too. Sam Altman, fuck you too.

The birth of a new musical genre - "VC rap" - is happening right in front of our eyes!

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

#438

Post by JohnFen »

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?

I'd say he should face the consequences that he is facing: heavy social condemnation, maybe with a touch of shunning.

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

#439

Post by JohnFen »

rayiner wrote: post #382
otikik wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a lawyer, but if some deranged individual who follows him takes his comment and face value and murders someone, he will face many consequences. Firstly, he would be involved on murder. That's not a great experience to have, for most people. He would at least be on trial. I don't exactly know how incitement to murder is treated in the US. It could even be considered domestic terrorism (an assassination made t…

He wouldn’t be prosecuted. Wishing death on political figures is a cherished American tradition, and well protected under the first amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_president_of_t...

> Wishing death on political figures is a cherished American tradition

It's a strange sort of "cherished American tradition" that is so subtle that I, as a native American more than a half-century old, have never even heard of it being a tradition before.

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

#440

Post by this_steve_j »

Amezarak wrote: post #422
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Legally allowed" doesn't mean it's protected from consequences. Call someone a dick and you're protected under free speech, but you can still get punched in the face. And a judge won't be very amenable to a possible consequent assault case if the victim was goaded.

The grandparent post is centered around the idea that it wasn't free speech, which is what I was responding to, not the idea that there can't be social consequences. > And a judge won't be very amenable to a possible consequent assault case if the victim was goaded. This is incorrect and fairly disturbing. The idea of "fighting words" (which are not protected speech) is extremely circumscribed; it applies basically o…

Apparently there is plenty of room for debate on this subject, and Brandenburg v Ohio — involving a KKK leader whose conviction under a state law for making threatening and racist remarks was overturned by a divided court — is still being hashed out by constitutional experts to this day.

It doesn’t invalidate the central idea that free speech is different from inflammatory speech “condoning” violence (wink wink) when it is amplified by technology to have an asymmetrical effect on the target of that speech.

And in any case, we are discussing the use of telecommunications systems for harassment and not someone shouting in a park behind a police barricade. I don’t do either of these things, so I’m admittedly not well-informed about the constitutional and case law in the US that might apply.

If I were a C-level executive I would probably aspire to higher level of online citizenry and behavior, perhaps, than a KKK leader, and hire someone else to do the tweeting.

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