Think about what it means to the HN culture to have a subject that normally would have been flagged out of existence as overtly political suddenly be featured front and center in the apparent belief that ideological purity is now a litmus test for who can serve on a board of directors in the startup world.
In a free society, people can unite in their business ventures even though they might be far apart in how they view the world generally. Startup culture thirty years ago had a decidedly American flavor. Today, it does not because the world is big and diverse and because entrepreneurs today who do startups come from all sorts of cultures and backgrounds. Surely, those who come from such divergent backgrounds hold differing political and religious views. Some are conservative, others liberal, still others apolitical. Some are theists, others atheists. The variations are many but one thing is certain: not all people think alike on political, religious, or social topics. These are issues that inherently will divide.
What happens, then, when people attempt to set political, social, or religious tests as criteria for who can hold important positions in a business organization? Well, it gets about as ugly as it can get, just as such tests proved ugly when used historically by, say, Christians to exclude Jews from holding important positions in society or to punish atheists for not holding to some prescribed creed.
One might say, "this is different" because we are not holding to an arbitrary creed but rather to fundamental principles that ought to govern all humanity. Well, that is precisely how those who sought to impose thought control in other eras rationalized their conduct. "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party" is a question that destroyed many careers as the blacklists proliferated back in the 1950s. That was indeed a repulsive set of events by which many innocent persons were hurt and today our national conscience wishes it could take back the damage done to them.
So why is this any different? It is easy enough to whip oneself up into a lather over Ms. Rice’s policies if one disagrees with them but what about the half of America (or whatever significant percentage) that does not. And why should this be relevant to board service?
Politics, religion, and social worldviews divide people and have no place as limiting tests in a business environment. Scolding and finger-wagging was bad enough coming from a first-grade teacher trying to promote sanctimonious values back in the 1950s. Do we really want a counterpart agenda now setting rules for who can be a founder, who can be an investor, who can be a director, who can be a CEO, or who can otherwise take a prominent role in the startup world? The answer should be an emphatic no.
Principle is more important here than a particular outcome. What happens with Ms. Rice is not the issue here. What matters is upholding the abiding principle (precious in a free society) that people can hold divergent views on such topics as politics, religion, and society without being punished for their views in a business context. People can and ought to be able to unite to form great companies without having to compare notes on how they voted in the last election or some similar matter having nothing whatever to do with whether someone can add value to the venture. This is central to startup culture. Let us not lose sight of something so basic.